A liberal education is a system or course of education suitable for the cultivation of a free (Latin: ''liber'') human being. It is based on the

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

concept of the

liberal arts Liberal arts education (from Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as La ...

or, more commonly now, the

liberalism Liberalism is a Political philosophy, political and moral philosophy based on the Individual rights, rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostilit ...

of the

Age of Enlightenment The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...

. It has been described as "a philosophy of education that empowers individuals with broad knowledge and transferable skills, and a stronger sense of values, ethics, and civic engagement ... characterized by challenging encounters with important issues, and more a way of studying than a specific course or field of study" by the Association of American Colleges and Universities. Usually global and pluralistic in scope, it can include a general education

curriculum In education, a curriculum (; plural, : curricula or curriculums) is broadly defined as the totality of student experiences that occur in the educational process. The term often refers specifically to a planned sequence of instruction, or to ...

which provides broad exposure to multiple disciplines and learning strategies in addition to in-depth study in at least one academic area. Liberal education was advocated in the 19th century by thinkers such as

John Henry Newman John Henry Newman (21 February 1801 – 11 August 1890) was an English theologian, academic, intellectual, philosopher, polymath, historian, writer, scholar and poet, first as an Anglican priest and later as a Catholic priest and ...

Thomas Huxley Thomas Henry Huxley (4 May 1825 – 29 June 1895) was an English biologist and anthropologist specialising in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. The stori ...

, and

F. D. Maurice John Frederick Denison Maurice (1805–1872), known as F. D. Maurice, was an English Anglican theologian, a prolific author, and one of the founders of Christian socialism. Since the Second World War, interest in Maurice has expanded."Frede ...

Wilfred Griffin Eady Sir Crawfurd Wilfred Griffin Eady (27 September 1890 – 9 January 1962) was a British civil servant and diplomat. Eady was born in the village of Villa Nueva, Argentina, the son of George Griffin Eady, a railway civil engineer, and Lilian Armstr ...

defined liberal education as being education for its own sake and personal enrichment, with the teaching of values. J. F. C. Harrison (1954); ''A History of the Working Men's College (1854–1954)'', p. 191; Routledge Kegan Paul. The decline of liberal education is often attributed to mobilization during the Second World War. The premium and emphasis placed upon mathematics, science, and technical training caused a shift away from a liberal concept of higher education studies; however, it became central to much undergraduate education in the United States in the mid-20th century, being conspicuous in the movement for general education.

Definition

The American Association for the Advancement of Science describes a liberal education in this way: "Ideally, a liberal education produces persons who are open-minded and free from provincialism, dogma, preconception, and ideology; conscious of their opinions and judgments; reflective of their actions; and aware of their place in the social and natural worlds." Liberally educated people are skeptical of their own traditions; they are trained to think for themselves rather than conform to higher authorities. It also cultivates "active citizenship" through off-campus community service, internships, research, and study abroad. Some faculty see this movement towards "civic engagement" as more pedagogically powerful than traditional classroom teaching, but opponents argue that the education occurring within an academic institution must be purely intellectual and scholarly. A liberal education combines an education in the classics,

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...

, the

humanities Humanities are academic disciplines that study aspects of human society and culture. In the Renaissance, the term contrasted with divinity and referred to what is now called classics, the main area of secular study in universities at t ...

, moral virtues, and others. The term ''liberal education'' in the modern sense should not be confused with '' liberal arts education''; the latter deals with academic subjects, while the former deals with ideological subjects. Indeed, a liberal arts education does not necessarily include a liberal education, and a liberal arts program may even be as specialized as a vocational program. For practical purposes, liberal education is not actually differentiated from liberal arts education today, except by scholars. Unlike a professional and vocational education that prepares students for their careers, a liberal education prepares students to utilize their leisure time. Such an education helps the individual navigate internal and external conflicts in life. For example, a liberal education aims to help students be self-conscious and aware of their actions and motivations. Individuals also become more considerate for other beliefs and cultures. According to James Engel, the author of ''The Value of a Liberal Arts Education'', ''"A liberal education provides the framework for an educated and thoughtful citizen."''

History

Definitions of a liberal education may be broad, generalized, and sometimes even contradictory. "It is at once the most enduring and changeable of academic traditions." Axelrod, Anisef, and Lin suggest that conceptions of liberal education are rooted in the teaching methods of

Ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cu ...

, a slave-owning community divided between slaves and freemen. The freemen, mostly concerned about their rights and obligations as citizens, received a non-specialized, non-vocational,

education that produced well-rounded citizens aware of their place in society. At the same time,

Socrates Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no t ...

emphasized the importance of

individualism Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and to value independence and self-reli ...

, impressing upon his students the duty of man to form his own opinions through reason rather than indoctrination.

Athenian Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...

education also provided a balance between developing the mind and the body. Another possibility is that liberal education dates back to the

Zhou Dynasty The Zhou dynasty ( ; Old Chinese ( B&S): *''tiw'') was a royal dynasty of China that followed the Shang dynasty. Having lasted 789 years, the Zhou dynasty was the longest dynastic regime in Chinese history. The military control of China by th ...

, where the teachings of

Confucianism Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China. Variously described as tradition, a philosophy, a Religious Confucianism, religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, ...

focused on propriety, morality, and social order. Hoerner also suggests that

Jesus Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label= Hebrew/ Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and relig ...

was a liberal educator, as "he was talking of a free man capable of thinking for himself and of being a responsible citizen," but liberal education is still commonly traced back to the Greeks. While liberal education was stifled during the barbarism of the

Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th or early 6th century to the 10th century. They marked the start of the Mi ...

, it rose to prominence once again in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, especially with the re-emergence of Aristotelian philosophy. The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries saw a revolt against narrow spirituality and educators started to focus on the human, rather than God. This humanist approach favored reason, nature and aesthetics. Study of the Classics and

slowly returned in the fourteenth century, which led to increased study of both

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic pe ...

and

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through ...

. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, liberal education focused mostly on the classics. Commoners, however, were not too keen on studying the classics, so they instead took up vernacular languages and literature, and also the sciences. Until at least the twentieth century, both humanist and classicist influences remained in the liberal education, and proponents of a

progressive education Progressive education, or protractivism, is a pedagogical movement that began in the late 19th century and has persisted in various forms to the present. In Europe, progressive education took the form of the New Education Movement. The term ''p ...

also embraced the humanist philosophy. Study of the classics continued in the form of the Great Books program. Robert Maynard Hutchins brought this program to the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

. Upon Hutchins' resignation, the university got rid of the program, but an adapted version still exists at Shimer College. While liberal education is a Western movement, it has been influential in other regions as well. For example, in Japan during the general liberalism of the Taishō period, there was a liberal education movement that saw the establishment of a number of schools based on liberal education in the 1920s – see 大正自由教育運動.

Relationship with professional education

Liberal education and professional education have often been seen as divergent.

German universities This is a list of the university, universities in Germany, of which there are about seventy. The list also includes German ''Technische Universitäten'' (universities of technology), which have official and full university status, but usually foc ...

moved towards more professional teaching in the nineteenth century, and unlike American students, who still pursued a liberal education, students elsewhere started to take professional courses in the first or second year of study. In the early twentieth century, American liberal arts colleges still required students to pursue a common curriculum, whereas public universities allowed a student to move on to more pragmatic courses after having taken general education courses for the first two years of study. As an emphasis on specialized knowledge grew in the middle of the century, colleges began to adjust the proportion of required general education courses to those required for a particular major. As

professor Martha Nussbaum points out, standardized testing has placed more emphasis on honing technical knowledge, and its quantitative, multiple-choice nature prompts rote learning in the classroom. At the same time, humanistic concepts such as imagination and critical thinking, which cannot be tested by such methods, are disappearing from college curricula. Thirty percent of college graduates in the United States may eventually work in jobs that do not exist yet. Proponents of a liberal education therefore argue that a postsecondary education must prepare students for an increasingly complex labor market. Rather than provide narrowly designed technical courses, a liberal education would foster critical thinking and analytical skills that allow the student to adapt to a rapidly changing workforce. The movement towards career-oriented courses within a liberal education has begun at places like

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...

, where a journalism course combines lessons on writing style with reading and analyzing historical journalism. An American survey of CEOs published in 1997 revealed that employers were more focused on the long-term outcomes of education, such as adaptability, than college students and their parents, who were more concerned with the short-term outcomes of getting a job.

Provision

Ronel B. Esquivel said only eight percent of colleges provide a liberal education to four percent of students in the United States. Liberal education revived three times in the United States during periods of industrialization and shifts of social preoccupations—before

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, and in the late 1970s—perhaps as a reaction against overspecialization in undergraduate curricula. Currently, pressures from employers, parents and governments have defined the type of education offered at educational institutions. Such trends have curtailed the role of education offered in America. Universities have now provided education for the sole purpose to prepare students for the workforce. This idea has negatively influenced the credibility of liberal education which has impacted how students view higher education. The negative impact being a focus on specific disciplinary practices separating it from the original ideology of liberal education as "...a philosophy of education that empowers individuals with broad knowledge and transferable skills, and a stronger sense of values, ethics, and civic engagement ..." Politicians have influenced the type of education provided at universities. These politicians have been recently cutting the funds for universities applying immense pressure on higher educational institutions. Lack of funds have caused many to abandon the liberal arts curricula. Therefore, universities have been forced to provide a curriculum useful for providing a vocational education. The lack of funds to maintain a balanced education system has caused American universities to provide an education with a lack of emphasis on liberal values. The disappearance of liberal education can also be traced to Liberal Art Colleges. Students are beginning to view higher education as a preparation for careers. This has then led to the natural selection of colleges. Obviously, the thought of having education that instructs to enhance the individual for the purpose of improving society does not meet current demands. Thus, as a result, Liberal Art Colleges are diminishing along with the emphasis on providing a liberal education. Chinese universities began to implement liberal curricula between the 1920s and 1940s, but shifted to specialized education upon the establishment of the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

in 1949. Higher education reform in the 1990s returned to liberal education. In 2000 Peking University started to offer a liberal education curriculum to its undergraduate students, followed by other institutions throughout the country. In Hong Kong,

The Chinese University of Hong Kong The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is a public research university in Ma Liu Shui, Hong Kong, formally established in 1963 by a charter granted by the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. It is the territory's second-oldest university ...

has implemented a collegiate system since the establishment of the university in 1960s and since then, it has been known for its emphasis in general education in greater China. Some of the universities in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

have started offering Liberal Arts Education.

Ahmedabad University Ahmedabad University is a private, non-profit university in Gujarat, India, set up in 2009 by the Ahmedabad Education Society. It comprises three schools and seven centres with opportunities for interdisciplinary scholarship. Ahmedabad Universi ...

is one such young university which offers students a liberal education focused on research and interdisciplinary learning.

References

Works cited

* * * * * https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED050677.pdf * * * * * * * * Di Leo, Jeffrey R
"Who wants the liberal arts?"
symploke 19.1-2 (2011): 325–328. Academic OneFile. Web. 26 July 2013.
"The parent factor: how parents view their school-aged children's options for college."
AFT On Campus May–June 2013: 2. Academic OneFile. Web. 26 July 2013. * Engell, James

Harvard College Admissions § About Harvard:. Harvard College, n.d. Web. 26 July 2013. * Kiener, R. (2013, January 18)
Future of public universities
CQ Researcher, 23, 53–80. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20130726031242/http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Liberal Education Philosophy of education Liberal arts education Pedagogy da:Almendannelse