Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | L | Liberal Education

On the practicality of a liberal education.

Article Excerpt
FOR CENTURIES, liberal education did not need to be justified. It was simply the way one came to be educated. The curriculum, of course, evolved with the growth of knowledge and changing intellectual fashions over the very long stretch of time from the late Middle Ages to the early twentieth century. However, it did not evolve as much as one might think: learning Latin and Greek and reading a selection of books written in those classical languages had remarkable staying power.

Moreover, for that long period, only a small upper-crust portion of the population was actually so educated. (Even budding lawyers and physicians bypassed what has since become required preparation and moved straight to their respective professional training.) But then two drawn-out developments in the American educational scene led to an increasing need to provide a justification for a liberal education. First, the college-bound population steadily grew and then exploded with the GI Bill of Rights; going to college became a rational ambition for...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!