In Defense Of A Liberal Education

Liberal education grew out of democracy’s origins in fifth-century Athens since this new form of government necessitated a body of educated leaders and citizens. The Romans inherited this educational tradition, which they deemed essential for free (“liber”) men to engage successfully in civic life. Practical and theoretical approaches to liberal arts education coexisted in the ancient world and persist in contemporary debates over its purpose; some emphasize its utility for job training, while others emphasize a liberal education’s role in bettering one’s life beyond career objectives.

Many today make rigid distinctions between science and the liberal arts. However, from its inception, science was crucial to a liberal education: “[S]cience was seen as a path to abstract knowledge. It had no practical purpose. Humanistic subjects, like language and history, on the other hand, equipped the young to function well in the world as politicians, courtiers, lawyers, and merchants” (43).

The Romans developed a specific curriculum known as “the seven liberal arts,” which included grammar, logic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, music, and astronomy. Medieval Europeans inherited this curriculum and, by the 11th century, had formed the first universities where pupils studied and debated the works of earlier thinkers, like Aristotle. Renaissance humanists later rejected the specialization of these universities and revived the Roman emphasis on the arts and language.

Modern liberal arts education, however, is linked to the 19th-century college tradition that grew out of the seminary (see The Idea of a University by John Henry Newman). Universities emphasized research, while colleges centered pedagogy and were defined by distinct architectural features: “The model of the residential college originated in England and spread to the Anglo-American world, where it remains the distinctive form for undergraduates” (48-49). Harvard and Yale were the first institutions of higher education to implement this model of the residential college centered on liberal education. Students were required to study a variety of subjects from the humanities and sciences: “America’s first colleges stuck to curricula that could be described as God and Greeks—theology and classics” (50).

Debates quickly arose over this form of education. The Yale faculty, for example, responded to critics in an 1828 report by arguing that a liberal education created a common background for all students; its purpose was not specific professional training. Charles Eliot, Harvard University’s president, modified this argument half a century later. He witnessed the emergence of the research university during his travels in Europe. Upon his return to the United States, Eliot suggested that American institutions embrace research, but at the graduate level, while undergraduates continue to receive a broad, well-rounded liberal arts education that provides students with choice. He believed that students should have minimal requirements with many elective options and that this would allow students to “realize” their “distinctive self” (56). This emphasis contrasted with the earlier Yale report, which promoted a more structured model overseen by the faculty. This elective system survives across many college and university curricula today.

Early-20th-century scholars developed a “great books” curriculum that formed the core of a liberal education, in which “students read prescribed works of history, literature, and philosophy” (57), which they discussed in seminar settings. This curriculum included studying classical science and provided few elective options. This “great books” approach is a controversial one because it assumes that there is an established set of classical readings that all students should study. Martha Nussbaum, a philosopher at the University of Chicago, criticizes the “great books” method by suggesting that the ancient Greeks themselves would have understood it as constraining.

Nevertheless, Zakaria believes that a core curriculum is advantageous because “all students are able to share an intellectual experience” (60). It creates a unifying educational background that persists beyond the university or college experience. However, he believes that this core must be balanced against providing students with the opportunity to explore topics of interest and pursue their curiosities. Simultaneously, an effective education “must confront the realities of the world we live in and educate them in a way that addresses [those realities]” (62). Highly narrow courses that stress an instructor’s research interests fail to serve contemporary needs. The modern university system’s emphasis on research means that faculty don’t receive “tenure for teaching” and leads to a “warped” curriculum that emphasizes the faculty’s research interests.

Zakaria claims that the humanities have likewise given up “rigor” in favor of grade inflation and that the sciences have been displaced from a liberal education in recent decades: “Science was relegated to scientists—a huge loss to society as a whole” (65). Princeton University’s former president Shirly Tilghman noted this problem when she suggested that widespread scientific illiteracy damages public policy.

Yale University and the National University of Singapore (NUS) have partnered to remedy some of these problems. The curriculum at this partner institution is grounded in both the liberal arts and sciences. The core curriculum selects “great books” that represent genres, thus reconceptualizing this approach, and emphasizes experiential learning. Students receive a global education, not one that emphasizes an exclusively Western canon. This partnership gives rise to “a multicultural education” appropriate for the contemporary, globalized world: “In studying other societies, students learn much more about their own” (70). Zakaria asserts that the Yale-NUS collaboration provides a modern, forward-looking model for other institutions of higher education.