Which 1943 C.S. Lewis book argues that traditional values are essential to education?

The Abolition of Man is the 1943 C.S. Lewis book arguing that traditional values are essential to education.

The book grew out of three lectures Lewis delivered at the University of Durham in 1943. Across its compact chapters, Lewis criticizes an approach to education that treats value judgments as merely subjective emotional responses. He argues instead for an objective moral order, which he calls the Tao, drawing on moral traditions shared across civilizations.

The book is not primarily a political manifesto or a straightforward history of education. Its argument develops through a critique of a textbook, reflections on moral formation, and a final warning about the consequences of trying to reshape human nature through technological power. The title refers to the possibility that humanity could lose the qualities that make it fully human.

Readers sometimes confuse it with The Abolition of Man’s companion in popular discussion, The Discarded Image, which is Lewis’s study of the medieval and Renaissance worldview. The Abolition of Man is the 1943 work focused on education, objective value, and moral formation.