Higher Education: America's New National Religion: A Comparison With the Medieval Church

Higher Education: America's New National Religion is an examination of higher education in America written by someone who has spent the last twenty-plus years of his life as a graduate student and literature professor in four different universities.
Wight Martindale, Jr. believes our educational system has become so grand and assertive, so wealthy and powerful, that it is proper to compare it to the Roman Catholic Church in the middle ages. The question is then asked, which institution did a better job? Which is more compassionate? Which institution serves better the people who must come to it?
This is not a simple question with a simple answer, and the final reckoning must be your own. Indeed, the author believes that it is essential that parents and children take their education into their own hands. Both institutions--the medieval church and the modern university--are too huge and autonomous to listen with much interest to your concerns or suggestions.
Thus, the object of this brief study is to widen your understanding of the weight and importance of the issues. Our educational apparatus is as interwoven into our lives today as the church was in the daily lives of its parishioners in the Middle Ages. This is something in which we all have a stake.