Why Boarding Schools Are Good for Teenage Boys

Teenage boys will not be freed from the bog they are immured in by new-fangled modifications and medications, but by old-fashioned reason and remedies. Boys today suffer from despondency, lack of direction, and a masculine identity crisis, overwhelmed as they are by widespread feminization, relativism, pornography, and cultural collapse. The quandary is rooted in a neglect of male nature, and a return to real attentiveness is requisite before there can be any renewal in male character.
Meanwhile, boys remain under siege. They live virtual lives. They underachieve and underperform. They don’t go to college. The men they become are often crippled by passivity and insipidity, cheating church and country of priests, fathers, laborers, and leaders. One solution lies in making education lively enough to bring boys back to life. A revival of Catholic boarding schools for high-school age boys is central to this solution, for it allows life and education to be liturgical, imparting the greatest impetus, the truest direction, and the richest culture—which is the foundation of a happy life.
What Makes a Boarding School Good?
The field of education is thirsty for the wisdom of tradition. What is required is not necessarily holding to particular historical forms, but recovering what is essential in historical forms and returning to eternal principles. In popular culture, there is a polemic against tradition and authority, often cloaked in shrewd rhetoric or sheer repetition, but the mantra is communicated loud and clear. Catholics must rise to defend the wisdom of tradition and show its relevance, beauty, and vitality. One arena for this restoration is the lost tradition and wisdom of the boarding school.
The idea of a boarding school does not simply presume resident students. Neither does it presume a reformatory for juvenile delinquents. Good boarding schools lead students in an ordered rule of life. If teenage boys are