THE VALUE OF A LIBERAL EDUCATION

Posted on May 30, 2012 in Global Law Politics | 0 comments

            Robert J. “Samuelson’s editorial in the Washington Post on May 28, 2012 is a classic example of extreme over statement in order to validate a  Political position. His argument is simple:  Pre 1940, 5% of the privileged went to college. Starting with the GI Bill and continuing with subsidized state schools, now 30% have a Bachelor’ degree. However, he infers, increased access is a failure because 1/3 of graduates did not improve their power of “critical” thinking.  What about the 2/3 who did improve at this very valuable skill?  Would they be better off without it? His  recommendation is that there be more vocational training.
            John Henry Cardinal Newman wrote a very considered essay 160 years ago on this very topic.  Samuelson’s position was more eloquently postulated by Newman who asked: “Cautious and practical thinkers will ask of me, what is the gain of this Philosophy  [knowledge] from which I promise so much…How are we better for this master view of things? Does it not reverse the principle of the division of labour? to what then does it lead? where does it end? what does it do? how does it profit?  what inducements do we hold out to the …. community, when we set about the enterprise of  founding a University? [or educating the masses?]
            His answer is that “It has a very tangible, real, and sufficient end. Knowledge is capable of being its own end. Any kind of knowledge is its own reward.”   He quotes Cicero as observing that “all of us [are] drawn to the pursuit of Knowledge; in which to excel we onsider excellent, whereas to mistake, to err, to be ignorant, to be deceived, is both an evil and a disgrace.” Newman speaks “of a Knowledge which is its own end, when I call it liberal knowledge, when I educate for it, and make it the scope of a University.  His conclusion, at a time when “Liberal” was not a pejorative term, was that “All branches of knowledge are connected together.  There is a knowledge worth possessing for what it is, and not merely for what it does. ”                                         In contrast with the cumulated knowledge and perceptions of these and other intellectual giants, we are subjected to  the likes of a shill, Samuelson, who, no doubt, is paid to proselytize.  Sad!