Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-02-05
THE GOWNSMAN
Liberal Studies

A MPLY protected from the searching rays
Of super intellectually in the folds OF
his modest gown, your Gownsman ventured,
the other evening, into the atrium OF that
temple of the humanities, the Philadelphia
Society for the Promotion of Liberal stud
les, and listened in awe stricken attention
to some Of the arcana therein 'unfolded. He
went with a notion that he could, hlmselt'
tell liberal study on sight, or at least on
hearing, from the dead language that IT
would be sure to speak; and he knew that
there is nothing so dreadful about any SUB
icct of study as the possibility of anybody
ever making living out of it. The Gowns
man cannot truthfully say that on this oc-
casion the oracles were dumb. Indeed he Is
sure that their volubility was authentic, for
like their brother-or is it sister-oracle at
Delphi, these oraclcs were alike cabalistic
and contradictory, and your Gownsman
came away mystified, becloudcd, obfuscated
and obscured.
TT WOULD seem that busy contemporaries,
intent on getting somewhere before mid
night call this society the society OF
long name. Its friends, among whom thc
Gownsman is assuredly one, call 1t, WIN
rhyme and reason, the society OF high ann
OF the height of its aims there can be no
question, but there are many stars IN the SKY SKI,
and even the big Bertha carried only as far
as Paris, It was Christopher Morley, on
whom the light of the great white way is
already prophetically beating, who threw
the hand grenade with question as TO
whether the quality of liberality was less
in the study of English writer's, Chaucer,
for example, than in those of Greece and
Rome. And if it is as liberal to study Milton
and Wordsworth as it is to study Homer
and Horace, by the same token is not the
study of Molere liberal and that of Dante
and--he did not say it-Goethe? All this
was fine and a high explosive, but the
smoke arose and thickened, it seemed to the
Gownsman, with Mr.. Morlcy's doubt rs to
whether a man who lived by these human-
ties might be said to be pursuing liberal
studies. Such man ought to turn to science.
thought he; to such, science is the liberal
study.
I EAVlNG the question as to whether he
49, who lives by poetry must not live with
poetry and whether he who teaches Greek
always contrives to remain impervous to its
liberalizing influences. we notice that the lib
cral studies, for the encouragement of which
TINS society exists, have now increased i'll
number and kind to include the old classics
and the new, in whatsoever language writ
ten, besides science, Il very indctcrminate
and indefinite designation. A further con-
tribution came from Mr.. Fred Ireland, of
the United States House of Representatives
the Gownsman is glad that this sensible
gentleman is not of the Senate--who urged
the value of a study of the constitution of
our country as valuable contribution to the
llberality of our ideas, while DIR. George
f. Stradling, of the Northeast High School,
commemorated the liberal influences in his
own education as coming equally from Latin,
from philosophy and experimental physics,
In which he is an expert. Therefore, we
must add to the liberal studies which this
lv hopo
sides all the classics in prose and verse, free
or trammeled, the sciences, politics, philos-
ophy and, in short, what not?
TN THIS search of ours for the liberal sub
jects we shall get nowhere along the line
of topic, for subject matter has nothing,
or nearly nothing, to do with the question.
The Gownsmau agreed empbatically that,
with all their virtues in paeans to which
his voice has been often raised, Latin and
Greek are not the only liberal studies. In
deed he is of opinion that the decay Of
the influence of the classics in modern cdu-
cation is refcrablc III part to the liberal
attitude of teachers and favorers of the old
culture, in assuming that the sun of the
humanities shines only on them. Mr.. Nor
lcy's doubt as to whether a man may live
by literature aud still enjoy its liberalizing
influences all but touches the handspring of
the. question; liberal study is any study
disinterestedly pursued that is pursued +
itself, for the truth, for illumination the
uplift that is in it and not as means
to some other end, however excellent and
praiseworthy it may be.
| TIME touchstonc of liberal subject is in
its spirit, not in its contcut, although
nobody denies that there are topics which
| lend themselves more readily to liberalizins
| tendencies than others and these, "a rule
| are those which, retaining human interest,