Liberal studies

“ As a consequence, our actual system is an inconsistent mixture. Certain studies and methods are retained on the supposition that they have the sanction of peculiar liberality, the chief content of the term liberal being uselessness for practical ends. ”

“ Included in Who's Who in America and in Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography are several hundred times as many college graduates as non-graduates, in proportion to the total numbers in each group. Evidently, a liberal education is for many men a practical investment.
But practical as such liberal studies may be in the long stress of a great life-work, students may miss their higher values through pursuing them for immediate utility. ”

“ It is not just a play on words to say that the aim of liberal education is to make men free, and for this reason democracy must sustain and extend liberal education or perish, since democracy is the society of free men. ”

“ But we may hope for better things. We may, some of us, live even to see liberal education divest herself of exclusive restrictions and eighteenth century idealism and walk hand in hand with twentieth century progress ”

“ Following the guidance of the actual movement of ideas, we shall reach the centre and heart of Liberalism, and we shall try to form a conception of the essentials of the Liberal creed as a constructive theory of society. This conception we shall then apply to the greater questions, political and economic, of our own day; and this will enable us finally to estimate the present position of Liberalism as a living force in the modern world and the prospect of transforming its ideals into actualities. ”

“ Since I have admitted that our ancestors did not succeed in practice despite their sound conceptions, does it matter, then, that our institutions are dominated by misconceptions and confused theories of what liberal education should be? ”

“ When I say that American education has failed to achieve liberal ends by liberal means—and is still moving in the wrong direction—I appeal for support to the obvious facts with which we are all acquainted. ”

“ Disregarding, therefore, accidental, partial and temporary phases of liberal education, we note, in the first place, that in styling an education liberal we thereby associate it with liberalism in politics, in philosophy and theology, and in men's personal relations to each other. ”

“ Social studies at present do not provide an intelligible set of organizing principles; until they do we shall aim the mathematical and scientific work at the point where the medical and humanistic traditions cross; they agree that the proper study of mankind is man.
the curriculum The proper subject matter for the study of the liberal arts is man and the world, with all that these imply; the medium we have chosen to convey this knowledge and appreciation is the classical books arranged in both a chronological and pedagogical order; the methods of learning and teaching are the liberal arts ”

“ The European liberalism of the eighteenth century was civilised, but modern liberalism is no longer civilised. The liberalism of the past read books and understood ideas; modern liberalism reads nothing but newspapers, and uses the great liberal phrases of the past as catchwords, as a mere cloak for selfish interests. ”

“ The first led us to suppose that the liberal education which our ancestors advocated was essentially aristocratic in theory as well as in practice, and so prompted the false conclusion that there must be some other theory of liberal education more appropriate to a democratic society. ”

“ Now a kind of liberal education must underlie every wholesome political and social process, the kind of liberal education which connects a man’s feeling and his comprehension with the general run of mankind, which disconnects him from the special interests and marries his thought to the common interests of great communities and of great cities and of great states and of great nations, and, if possible, with that brotherhood of man that transcends the boundaries of nations themselves. ”

“ The point of view naturally affects the whole method of handling problems, whether speculative or practical, and to the historian it serves as a centre around which ideas and policies that perhaps differ, and even conflict with one another, may be so grouped as to show their underlying affinities. Let us then seek to determine the principal points of view which the Liberal movement has occupied, and distinguish the main types of theory in which the passion for freedom has sought to express itself. ”

“ The antithesis was, popular versus liberal education. There was the illiberal or servile education of the masses, designed to. fit them for the humble station in which it had pleased Providence to place them, and to content them therewith; there was the liberal education of the exclusive learned professions, and the exclusive aristocratic class, which was liberal by virtue of its being the education of the rulers and not the ruled. [12] Now, republicanism, by converting the people into rulers, transfers to them the claim to a liberal education, which shall be universal. ”

“ We have been solicitous to procure a just taste in policy and government, and have at length succeeded in this first and highest emulation. It may now be proper to apply the liberty, we have so happily gained, to other improvements. There is something, I have ever observed, congenial to the liberal arts in the reigning spirit of a free people. It must then be our own fault, if our progress in every elegant pursuit do not keep pace with our excellent constitution. ”

“ Provision must be made for thorough training that will direct the labor which produces the fruits of the earth. Thus to broaden the scope of liberal education it must be divested of all aristocratic limitations and rendered sufficiently democratic to meet the wants of the sons of toil. ”

“ But the real point of significance is that, though born and bred in an atmosphere of active Liberalism (our livelihood drawn from the conduct of a “liberal” newspaper) , I had no idea, as a boy, that politics had anything to do with industry or standards of living. ”

“ Liberals must be somewhat disappointed that a Liberal Government has done so little for education. The reforms for which they stand—their hopes for the nation—depend on the increase of knowledge and intelligence among the people. The establishment of Free Trade, wise economy and wise expenditure, and the support of the statesmanship which makes for peace, all presuppose an instructed electorate. ”

“ The Liberal declares that human beings exist before the State, and control it, that their opinion determines in what way the State, like the Church, the industrial system, and the home, shall be constructed, that opinion varies in different countries and in different ages, and will at one time and in one place acquiesce in despotism and at another time and in another place require adult suffrage, but that always, first and last, the subjects are masters of the State. ”

“ Both Civilisation and Education are the handmaids of Religion, but, each in its place, and the one may not thrust herself into the office of the other. It is a gain, any way, that we are within sight of giving to all members of the working classes notwithstanding their limited opportunities that stability of mind and magnanimity of character which are the proper outcome and the unfailing test of a Liberal Education ”

“ Without attempting to draw hard lines between communities, the Liberal sees in them distinctions of worth and capacity such as he sees in individuals, and he would give the same freedom of self-development to a nation as to a human being. ”

“ As a body of Liberal citizens we shall naturally seek a Liberal solution, and the foregoing suggestions (for which no originality is claimed) are inspired by the Liberal point of view. They apply to the industrial sphere principles which have been tried and proved in the political sphere, both in the central and the local government. ”

“ In politics he held opinions which were astonishingly in advance of those of his contemporaries. He was a Free Trader. He favoured the election of local authorities, the abolition of alehouses, the encouragement of workmen's clubs and friendly societies, annual national holidays, cheap county courts, the conversion of prisons into reformatory institutions, and national compulsory education. [46] This practical Liberalism was inspired by original Liberal theory. The old feudalism and government by territorial aristocracy must go, and the middle and working classes must take its place. ”

“ The Liberal who no longer feels at the bottom of his heart a sympathy with the rebel who chafes against the institutions of society, whether religious, political, social or economic, is well on the road to the other camp. But the dynamic force of Liberty, that great motive power of progress, though a good servant, may be a bad master; and the perennial problem of society is to harmonise its aims with those of the common good. ”

“ There may be some doubt in the minds of the small business man and the craftsman about the utility of a liberal education for earning a living. One who shares these doubts should read the early American State Papers and follow the current discussions of the fundamental conditions and principles of American society to get free of the prejudices which we inherit from societies that base themselves on invidious class distinctions. ”

“ If one were to ask the first half-dozen Liberals he met for a definition of their principles, varying and perhaps vague replies would be received. For in politics, as in other matters that combine speculation with practical action, it is only the few who speculate, while the many are content to act. And even most of those who tried to answer would be apt to reply that Liberal principles could be summed up in the old party watch-word—“Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform,” thus confounding Liberal principles with Liberal aims. ”

“ The problem of education and the state is a political problem. Here the major principle is the most general of all political truths, namely, the distinction between good and bad states, just and unjust governments. The ancients formulated this principle by saying that the criterion of justice resides in the end which the government serves. ”

“ Liberal education also must look forward, must put its traditions to work, must germinate, and become alive in the mind of the American, and then teach him by old principles to attack new problems.
We must either live by our education or live without it. ”

“ As liberalism is completed in self-criticising, "critical" [83] liberalism, in which the critic remains a liberal and does not go beyond the principle of liberalism, Man,—this may distinctively be named after Man and called the "humane." ”

“ Just as the Liberal believes that the best life within the nation is produced by the growth of free individuality, so he believes that the best life in the race at large is produced by the growth of free nationality. ”

“ He concluded by saying, “I am convinced that, if this country be governed by enlarged and liberal counsels, its power and might will spread and increase, and its influence become greater and greater; liberal principles will prevail, civilisation will be spread to all parts of the globe, and you will bless millions by your acts and mankind by your union.” ”

“ It is very natural to speculate upon the present state of affairs in this country, since the change has taken place. To render a republic possible and successful requires a liberal degree of intelligence among the common people, that is, the masses at large. ”

“ Liberal ideas flourish in Great Britain, they enlighten America, and they are nationalized in France; and this may be called the tripod whence issues the light of the world! Liberal opinions will rule the universe. They will become the faith, the religion, the morality of all nations; and, in spite of all that may be advanced to the contrary, this memorable era will be inseparably connected with my name ”

“ The Liberal conception of equality as between individuals is extended to the case of Churches, of nations, and of sexes. These classes are indeed not regarded by the Liberal as classes, but simply as associations, for limited purposes, of individuals, who are, in all essential respects, separate and distinct. ”

“ There is an uneasy dread in some minds lest a liberal education for all, the possibility which is now before us, should cause a social bouleversement, such an upheaval as obtained in the French Revolution. But this fear arises from an erroneous conception. The doctrine of equal opportunities for all is no doubt dangerous. ”

“ But none is the direct result of liberal education, though we may hope that liberal education does not oppose the acquisition and possession of some, if not all, of them. The direct product of liberal education is a good mind, well disciplined in its processes of inquiring and judging, knowing and understanding, and well furnished with knowledge, well cultivated by ideas. ”

“ We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forego the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks. ”

“ Their complete development and reduction to practical operation constitute the progress which all liberal statesmen desire to promote, and the end of that progress will be complete political equality among ourselves, and the extension and perfection of institutions similar to our own throughout the world. ”

“ The Liberal conception of the State makes the development of the individual an end in itself. The Tory conception makes it a means of public advantage, of obtaining workers for national industries and soldiers for national armies, and it is accompanied by proposals for conscription, protection, and the maintenance of popular education at a low level, which are redolent of restriction and subordination. ”