First, the liberal education tradition insists that professional life is only part of adult life, that an education which is to prepare one adequately for adult life as a whole must be both deeper and broader than professional education. Liberal education is not directly an education of our moral or emotional natures, but it illuminates the concerns of those natures. Liberal education is also broader than professional education, inviting its students to reflect on a wide range of knowledge in order to gain a comprehensive perspective on the situations in which they find themselves and the choices they must make. This is the reason for core requirements, clumsy as they are as an instrument for achieving a comprehensive view. Second, the liberal education tradition asserts that technical training and the acquisition of information do not sufficiently actualize a human being's intellectual powers.
Liberal education develops further powers of the mind.
It fosters the power of reflection, the ability of thought to be aware of itself, to examine its own assumptions, its ways of analyzing and categorizing experience, its methods. Liberal education fosters, too, the powers of analysis and judgment, the ability to discern and articulate all sides of important issues in such a way that their full complexity is seen, and all alternative resolutions are laid out, but the power of decision is not paralyzed. Further, liberal education fosters the capacity for vision, the ability to see a wide range of experience as a whole in all its interconnectedness, identifying the bearing of each element on the others, and setting out the important elements in clear relief. Such vision enables us to project a comprehensive yet prioritized image of those goals which guide our march into the future. Finally, liberal education can in some measure foster the human capaci ties for discovery and creation.