The article attempts to clarify the appeal to the Benedictine ideal that Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) makes in "The Aims of Education and Other Essays" as a way to renew the life of the spirit in education. In particular, the essay will consider St. Benedict's three central themes of Whitehead's philosophy: freedom and discipline, the teacher as artist and the art of life, and universities as "workshops" or "homes" of creative energy. The aim is to bring about a harmony of thought and action, the mind to the feelings of the heart, to subordinate scientific or critical pedagogy to "aesthetic-spiritual" instruction. This deserves our attention because today's educational theories and practices emphasize the technical, the critical, and the social sides to the neglect of the "aesthetic-spiritual" side. On both its practical and theoretical side, the educational theory of Whitehead falls within the Benedictine tradition of "ora" (meditative reading) and "labora" (work).