This book reveals the sources of the disquiet prevailing among educators over the apparent failure of the public school system to develop moral responsibility in America's youth. The doctrine of separation of church and state has made sectarian religious training illegal in public schools, and Tunis Romein shows that the task of providing moral guidance, suddenly thrust upon educators, has disclosed their deep schisms in educational philosophy -- basic contradictions which have split American education from top to bottom.

Romein explains the basic conflicts in education by examining three educational philosophies -- progressivism, educational reconstructionism, and classical humanism -- and comparing all of them with the traditional Christian view. He holds that all educational philosophies, whether secular or not, are based on faith, and that all can be tested with regard to their beliefs about the nature of man and about the kind of moral responsibility education should develop in man.

With sincerity and frankness, Romein analyzes the moral and intellectual poverty of much of the thinking dominant in education today, and he shows the necessity as well as the difficulty of making faith in God once more the underlying influence in American education.