Decadence and Renewal in the Higher Learning: An Episodic History of the American University and College Since 1953 was published by Gateway Editions in 1978. Kirk had been writing about education since the 1950s — he regarded the corruption of the university as one of the central catastrophes of modern life — and this book collects and extends his observations.
Kirk’s diagnosis: the American university abandoned its traditional purpose (the formation of character through encounter with the great intellectual tradition) in favor of three destructive alternatives: vocationalism (the university as job training), ideology (the university as instrument of social transformation), and gigantism (the university as bureaucratic empire). The result is institutions that produce neither educated persons nor competent professionals but confused, rootless graduates with credentials but no culture.
Kirk’s prescriptions follow from his diagnosis: restore the core curriculum (great books, philosophy, theology, history); shrink the university to human scale; expel ideology from the classroom; and remember that education is the formation of the soul, not the acquisition of skills. These arguments anticipated the conservative critique of higher education that would become dominant in the 1980s and beyond.
Collecting Decadence and Renewal in the Higher Learning
First edition (Gateway Editions, South Bend, Indiana, 1978): Cloth with dust jacket.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $30–$75
- Very good: $15–$30
Projected values (2026–2036): Moderate appreciation. Kirk’s education critique remains timely.
The University Crisis
Kirk’s diagnosis of American higher education — written during and after the campus upheavals of the 1960s — identified problems that have only intensified: the replacement of liberal learning by vocational training, the corruption of universities by political ideology, the inflation of credentials at the expense of genuine intellectual formation, and the severing of the university from its roots in the Western humanistic tradition. Kirk argues for renewal through a return to genuine standards: great books, rigorous inquiry, and the formation of moral imagination.
Frequently Asked Questions
What did Kirk mean by “moral imagination”? Kirk borrowed the phrase from Edmund Burke. It refers to the capacity — cultivated by great literature, history, and philosophy — to perceive the moral order underlying human experience. Kirk believed that education’s primary purpose was not job training but the development of this moral imagination, enabling citizens to act wisely in complex situations.