Education for Virtue and Other Essays

This is a book in which Nicholas Tate, historian and educator, in a selection of his writings over many years, raises fundamental questions about education in schools and universities: what is education for? what is the role of schools in transmitting a 2000+ year old civilisation from one generation to the next? why have we ceased to talk about education for virtue? is it legitimate for schools to promote a sense of national identity? what is the best way to ensure that the elites emerging from our educational institutions govern for the common good and not themselves? Why is learning about the past so important?
These and other issues are addressed through essays, short pieces of journalism, speeches and articles for scholarly journals. A common thread is the contribution that great thinkers – from Plato and Aristotle to José Ortega y Gasset and Hannah Arendt, most of whom were also teachers themselves – are able to make to educational issues that were as current 2,500 years ago as they are today. Nicholas Tate also draws on his own experiences to highlight the challenges and opportunities facing educational leaders in trying to maintain a focus on education as a process of self-improvement that may start in schools but which continues throughout life.

The book is available free of charge in electronic form on the Ludovika Open Access and “Közszolgálati Tudásportál” platforms.