Discussion Group Report

The Autumn 2006 issue of the Wilson Quarterly featured a scholarly essay by Michael Lind, Whitehead Senior Fellow at the New American Foundation, exploring the demise of Liberal Arts curriculum at many universities. Lind maintains that never has a broad liberal education been more necessary than it is today, and never have colleges and universities done such a poor job of delivering it.

Liberal education is a general education in the humanities, music, the arts, and the classic great books plus the scholarly disciplines of logic, reasoning and rhetoric that prepares one for citizenship rather than a vocation or career. Liberal Arts formed the basis of Western higher education from the Renaissance to the early 20th century but has been almost completely demolished by the demand for professional careerists.

The author reminds us that in the late 19th century it was the practice to go from high school directly to professional training. Lawyers and doctors held only undergraduate degrees.

Following the end of World War I changes in requirements for admittance to professional schools took place at Harvard and Columbia; they required undergraduate degrees for students applying to their medical, law, and other professional schools. Many universities eventually followed suit. Following World War II the nation's economy and job market demanded more highly trained workers and college campuses began to be more utilitarian oriented, vocational training ground. Liberal arts studies gave way to political science, economics, and the creative arts.

With the emphasis on the flat earth economy more and more of the jobs being created in the United States today are low- wage, low-prestige, service sector jobs that do not require college training. This means fewer people will have the means or the desire to attend college and will miss even an introduction to the liberal arts still available in undergraduate college courses. With the classic belief that knowledge of the liberal arts is necessary for good citizenship it is time to develop a Liberal Arts curriculum for our nation's high schools. Since high schools are free and mandatory every citizen would then receive a liberal arts education learning to read, write, and reason.