馬瑞坦(Jacques Maritain 1882-1964)生於法國；大學前之教育，亦在法國完成。他曾至德國進修研究；之後歸化於美國，為當代美國天主教教育哲學家，亦為教會中鼓吹新多瑪斯哲學思想，並推行人文教育思想之學者。 氏對近代教育理論與實施，因受唯物主義、功利主義、實用主義及科學至上論的影響，使教育活動失去了方向性、目的性及意義性，因而導致教育走向盲動的狀態。再由於這些思想結構的影響，以至於人對自己的評析，失去了傳統思想中對人的尊重，從而蒙蔽在物質層面，喪失了對人精神能力的肯定。影響所及，教育活動中，個人地位為之沒落，方法為之失誤、教材為之不當，問題重重，亟待解決。 晚近，從教育的失誤，因而引發了當代文明的危機。馬瑞坦也是一位企求透過教育，來扶正人類文明發展上失調的教育思想家。一種培育來日適宜的「人」，以解救人類文化的危機乃是他對教育所作的深切期盼。

Science has deeply influenced many aspects of human experience, agricultural, cultural, social as well as educational. By using scientific method man has accumulat-ed tremendous amount of knowledge in the past hundreds of years which benefits human life all over the world. Under such circumstances a few educators even believe that there is only one foundation upon which education should base. It is science. As a protestant, Jacques Maritain (1882-1964), born in France and later in his life becoming an American citizen, gave much critical thinking about the value of scienti-fic method used in educational practice. Besides, as a Christian educator he also offered some keen criticism on materialism and pragmatism in Western education. He urged a humanistic education as an adequate one in modern times.