A Liberal Arts Education: Why Bother?
Douglas Wilson
On this subject of higher education in the liberal arts, there is much to develop in every direction. And by "develop," I mean "shoot at." It is what our military calls a target rich environment.
What is a liberal arts education for? Why go to college? Why pay big bucks to go to college? What is the point?
There are two main reasons for going to college, one pragmatic and the other teleological, and one of the things we have to work through is the tendency of Christian parents (who share the sinful tendency of pragmatism with their fellow Americans who are unbelievers) to make their decisions in terms of the pragmatic considerations only.
Now the issue is the "ism" here in pragmatism, and not the functionality. Nobody thinks you ought to spend multiple years and dollars to do something that gets you nowhere.
First, the pragmatic consideration. A college education gets you a college degree, which is a door opener for many of the choicer jobs. Never mind that many people are not working in the same field their major was in, the mere fact of a college degree allowed them to clear the first hurdle in applying for the job. This is, pure and simple, a pragmatic consideration that everyone who wants to make a living should take into account. It is a real factor.
The second reason for going to college is teleological -- the point here being to get a real education in the midst of a faithful community. A liberal arts education is not vocational training for English teachers -- it is preparation for life and leadership.
There are all sorts of reasons why Christian parents would want their kids to be able to do an end run around the corrupting influences that stand between them and their pragmatic degree. I get that, and I applaud it. But for the life of me, I don't understand the idea of trying to get around the point of getting a real education.
This dynamic is currently at play both at the high school level, and the college level. We have to work through it. Distance learning online for homeschoolers is a wonderful development . . . depending. The classes offered by Veritas are meeting a real need . . . depending. The Omnibus textbooks, of which I am an editor, are a Godsend . . . depending. For college credit, the new College Plus program is about time . . . depending.
Depending on what? If Christian parents are avoiding the corruptions of unbelieving institutions in order to get their student a piece of paper that will be a very practical help in the years to come, then God bless them all. But if they have come to think that that piece of paper is "just as good as" what they might get from "sitting in some classroom," then far from presenting an alternative to the world's way of modernist education, they are simply demonstrating an advanced case of the same disease. Educational repentance in higher education means turning around. It does not mean running on ahead.
More on this to come.
Posted by Douglas Wilson in Blog and Mablog 15th December, 2009
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