The meaning of a liberal education

The evidence is unmistakable that there is an important change in the attitude of the public toward education. There is an increasingly general demand for it in some form or oth...

In a sense no living person is yet educated, for the learning process is never completed. But there must come a time when the process results in some differences in behavior. Of...

Whoever is concerned about his education should be on his guard against propaganda. He who assists in the education of another should be doubly cautious. The temptation to conve...

Is education something one can “get” in an institution? We are seeking to discover what an educated person is like,--as Plato would say, to “find” the educated man. Whether the...

The seventh book of Plato’s Republic begins with the Parable of the Cave. To show “how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened” the philosopher draws a picture of human b...

William James said that wherever there is selection among alternatives there is mental life. Man is a choosing animal, and his choices determine both the ends sought and the mea...

Freedom is not as precious to the members of this postwar generation as it was to some of their ancestors. The nation which once followed the leadership of Mazzini and Garibaldi...

I have a number of neighbors whose sons and daughters are at present suffering the agony of preparation for college. What a nightmare it is possible to make of education! Three...

In the closing sentence of the preceding chapter, I used the words “spiritual life.” Perhaps it is unnecessary to say that I did not have in mind anything vaguely metaphysical,...

The source of much of our interest in public education is concern for our neighbors’ morals. This is doubtless why in America we commonly think of adult education as something w...

The classical tradition in education is one of the ironies of history. That pedants should have succeeded in making this tradition into a mere convention is almost incredible. I...

Each man’s education is a unique achievement. There are as many kinds of education as there are kinds of men. In every educated mind there is a mixture of temperament and learni...

When the ancient Humanist, Protagoras, said, “Man is the measure of all things,” he probably did not mean that all things may be measured by man, for in his following sentence h...

century without raising an issue too great for its strength. It is interesting to note that when in the nineteenth century the conflict of natural science with theology became a...

Finally, with what appraisement may the seeker for knowledge view education itself? In the course of our study we have cast aside numerous idols and comforting fictions. We have...

When the European universities were established in the late Middle Ages, they were not, like our modern American colleges, super-high-schools. It was not their primary purpose t...