The Idea of a Christian College
Arthur Holmes
Chapter 3:
Liberal Arts: What and Why?
The wrong question
 What do philosophy, history, art, and
literature (e.g., liberal arts) have to do
with real life?
 What can I do with it?
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The right question
 What will philosophy, history, art, and
literature (e.g., liberal arts) do to me?
4
The goal of education
 Prepare us for a job?
 No.
 Vocational training = job preparation
 Falls into the productivity principle trap
(the idea that worth is measured by
productivity)
 Prepare us to adapt, think, and be
creative? YES!
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What is a liberal arts education today?
 “A broad, general education that ranges
across the natural sciences, the social
sciences, and the humanities” (p. 26)
 The liberal arts are the arts “appropriate to
persons as persons, rather than to the
specific function of a worker or a professional
or even a scholar” (p. 27)
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John Henry Newman’s distinction
 19th c.: The Idea of a University
 The liberal arts versus useful arts
 Intrinsic versus instrumental value
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What is a person and how should that
shape education?
 1. A reflective, thinking being
 2. A valuing being
 3. A responsible agent
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What is a person and how should that
shape education?
 1. A reflective, thinking being
 Goal: “ignite our native inquisitiveness”
(p. 30)
 Implications:
 1. interdisciplinary approaches are vital
 2. theoretical questions are necessary
 3. worldviews must be examined and shaped
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Bertrand Russell on Education
 2 purposes of education
 1. form the mind
 2. Train the citizen
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What is a person and how should that
shape education?
 2. A valuing being who judges & acts
 Goal: “teach values as well as facts” (p.
32)
 Implications:
 1. expose students to ethics, social problems,
aesthetics, and other areas of value
 2. expose students to the logical structure of
value judgments
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What is a person and how should that
shape education?
 3. A responsible agent
 Goal: prepare students to be responsible
stewards in all of life (p. 32)
 Implications:
 1. provide a critical evaluation of the past
 2. prepare for creative participation in the
future
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What about the physical self?
 Evaluate this statement:
“excessive emphasis on athletics without
literature or philosophy produces a pretty
uncivilized type with no use for reasoned
conviction, whose life is one of clumsy
ignorance unrelieved by grace or beauty;
whereas a purely academic life without
athletic training leaves one with little
backbone” (p. 34, summary of Plato)
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What about the social self?
 The liberal arts education should
include the following:
 Self-understanding
 Understanding of other people
 Understanding of social institutions and
processes
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What about specialists?
 Evaluate this statement:
“The liberal arts college has no business
producing narrow specialists who see no
further than their laboratory, have no larger
sense of responsibility, and little
understanding of science as an essentially
human cultural undertaking” (p. 35)
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Chapter 4:
Liberal Arts as
Career Preparation
What students don’t know when they
enter college . . .
 Most students don’t yet know . . .
 themselves
 their abilities
 Their options
 ⅔ of students change their career
plans during college
 Most college graduates change jobs at
least 1 in the first 5 years after college
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Liberal arts = career preparation
 Career mobility is the norm today
 Vocational training that focuses on particular
job information and skills will likely be soon
outmoded
 Liberal arts offers




Larger understandings
More transferable skills
Richer personal qualities
Lasting values
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The Benefits of a Liberal Arts education
 Attitude toward work
 Not Greek aristocratic, anti-work attitude
 Work is part of stewardship in service to others
 Breadth of education
 A well-rounded background
 Cognitive and communication skills
 The ability to think and communicate
 Imagination
 Fresh insights and new ways of looking at things
 Value development
 Firm values; a reformer’s approach to life
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Specialization vs liberalization
 Albert Speer, Hitler’s minister of munitions:
 It is only in the study of history, philosophy, and
the like that “fundamental questions are asked—
what is a person, what is a good society, what
are the proper ends of civilization, and so on” (p.
40)
 Germany education was specialization (=
knowledge without adequate foundations)
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Career preparation = life preparation
 “The same understandings, skills, and values
that constitute good career preparation make
good life preparation as well” (p. 41)






Family
Life
Friendships
Community service
Church involvement
The use of leisure
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But what about vocation?
 1. vocational courses should be minimized
rather than emphasized
 2. most college grads will need additional
training for jobs in our highly specialized and
technological society
 3. undergrad colleges can build bridges to
occupations within liberal arts courses
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Wrap up:
 How is liberal education good career
preparation?
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Coming up . . .
October 18: Holmes, Chapters 5,7,9
On the horizon:
1. Exam 2 on 10/25
2. PLP due 11/1
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