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Writing at The Imaginative Conservative, Dr. Arthur Hippler (�89) asks a question both timely and timeless, namely:

The question is timely because, as Dr. Hippler explains, �One of the more remarkable trends in the past five years in Catholic education is the noticeable increase of schools embracing a �classical education�� approach; even �whole diocesan school systems � have embraced the classical model.�

But the question is also timeless, for, as Dr. Hippler puts it, �As a matter of historical fact, for centuries �classical� and �education� were nearly synonymous,� and �Catholic education grew up as an evangelized form of classical education.� Indeed, the shift away from a classical model in Catholic schools is a recent anomaly. �It is for this reason that one does not find �magisterial� statements on classical education,� Dr. Hippler says. �The classics were so much a part of education, for so long, that their essential relationship was given and unquestioned.�

The chairman of the Religion Department at in Plymouth, Minnesota, as well as a member of the Board of Directors at the , Dr. Hippler cites recent Church councils and papal pronouncements to show that the Catholic Church continues to give a �priority of place� to classical models of schooling. 

This matter, he notes, is not simply pedagogical, but bears directly on questions of faith and morals. �The problem with the view that a Catholic school could adapt a range of curricular approaches, or simply create a kind of curricular pastiche by parts of various curricula, is that no educational program is �value free,�� Dr. Hippler observes. �A curriculum carries with it a view of man�s place in the universe, his ability to know, and the goods that perfect him.�

His , well worth a few minutes� time, can be found at The Imaginative Conservative.