Page Four - Highacres
BARBAR I
PROFESSI
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 3
gle out of the cave of such
orthodoxy and dogmatism by the
express use of reason. But
this process is essentially
one of "unlearning" what we
have blindly acquired so that
we may free ourselves for the
intellectual apprehension of
the Truth. For Plato, this
is a life-long inductive pro
cess in which we increasingly
forsake particulars for a vi
sion of those general princi
ples, or ideals, those eternal
forms, that anchor the cosmos.
The knowledge of the Good, of
the highest form, is paramount
to a truly liberated mind, one
that has abandoned a petty
preoccupation with imminent
particulars for a vision of
universal laws.
It is during the middle
ages that the Greek sense of
a liberal educ - ation is grad
ually abandoned. Plato had
indeed advocated the study of
Music, Gymnastics, and espe
cially Mathematics, but not as
ends in themselves. They were
the "arts," the "skills" that
could lead one toward the
truth, but only by going be-.
yond them into Dialestis.
They were the can opener but
not the caviar. But by the
sixth century A.D. medieval
scholastics had standardized
the "trivium" and "quadrivium"
into a course of study that
has come down to us as the
"liberal arts." The "trivium"
consisted of grammar, logic
and rhetoric; the "quadrivium"
consisted of arithmetic, geo
metry, music and astronomy.
It takes little imagination
to see in this course of study
the basic requirements for
the normal Bachelor's degree
in almost any college of Lib
eral Arts. Whereas Plato ad
vocated these studies as a
means to a higher vision of
the Truth, the medieval
scholastics advocated them as
a means to the parochial end
of better serving God. We
today have simply completed
this trend toward particu
larizing those arts. We ad
vocate the liberal arts as a
means to becoming - a bus dri
ver or a Ph.D., as a means to
"professional success," by
Collegian, October 18, 1974
which we mean a devotion to
money, or some unquestioned
orthodoxy.
Ortega y Gassett, in his
essay "The Barbarism of Spe
cialization," has clearly ar
gued that the narrowness of
mind required by most "pro
fessions" is a kind of ignor
ance. Nowhere is this clear
er than in the way we edu
cate our teachers in our uni
versities, and in the way our
teachers educate the rest of
us throughout our schools.
If one seeks to obtain a Ph.D.
degree, he must write a dis
sertation that makes "a sig
nificant contribution to new
knowledge." He can increas
ingly only do that by writing
in a field so specialized
that few pople have written
in it before. He is required
to narrow and focus his view
rather than to expand it.
Then he is a "specialist."
Upon graduation he is hired
to teach his "speciality" at
some college or university
and he is rewarded for ex
tensive publication in "spe
cialist" journals. He be
longs to a specific disci
pline, of which he frequently
becomes jealous. So philoso
phers will avoid football
coaches, and engineers will
avoid poets. The modern uni
versity becomes a multi -versity
ridden with factions.
These attitudes carry over
into undergraduate education,
and to education in high schools
too. We coerce students into
choosing a curriculum in high
school - general, commercial,
or academic - that will lead
to a specialty. At college, we
C
ON
sharply define separate dis
ciplines, separate majors,
even within the college of Lib
eral Arts. When a student takes
a course in liberal arts, he is
given information and then asked Shields Building was at fault.
to regurgitate that information Some secretary had pushed the
on a multiple choice test. Such wrong button on the' computer;
activities more resemble a kind therefore, Mrs. Bushbottom'e
of conditioning than they do a Kiddy College class was sent
liberating education. We train to Highacres by mistake. tee
our teachers, train our students, situtation has been corrected
much as we train our dogs--with and things should be back to
some specific "professional" end normal by next week.
in view, or to train him only Dean Mac------ stated
in a narrow discipline, is to
deliberately tiain him in a mode
of ignorance. For no training
of any kind is consistent with
the liveral ideal of an "activ
ity pertaining to a free man."
In what way does it free him?
In what way does it liberate him?
To replace the tyrant of youth
ful ignorance with the tyrant
of mature parochialism or voca
tionalism or orthodoxy is not
to free man at all- ;
The way in . mhioh , we pro
fess to teach the liberal arts
is barbaric. Because we have
forgotten the true meaning and
goal of the liberal arts, be
cause we have forgotten that
they are "those skills which
make us free," we have crip
pled liberal education and
made it into a mode of voca
tional training. In doing this
we behave as barbarians, as men
foreign to the classical Greek
and Roman ideals of "liberalis"
and "artem." it is terrifying
to think that exactly those per
sons who pretent to imitate Soc
rates or Pericles, are really
the new Alarik.
*All of the word analyses
in this essay, and much of
the information upon which
it is based, and much of its
wording, are based on the
definitions of "Art," "Liberal,"
and "Barbarian" found in the
Unabridged Oxford Dictionary
of the English Language.
ACORNS
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 2
Mrs. Dr. David. Eric Bell
and Richard Campbell were
seen climbing some oak trees,
Richard asking, "What is Know
ledge?" and Eric replying,
"Who cares?"
Several days have gone
by now and the upper classmen
have recovered from the shock.
The freshmen have been quietly
seen in the Library with their
coloring books.
It was noted that the
that he felt there was no need
for further disciplinary ac
tion. He then quietly excused
himself and walked toward the
Library with his coloring book
under his arm.