Bury the Liberal vs. Professional Arts Debate (1996)

debate between relative value of a pure education and one that combines arts with arts has been fueling academic fires for decades. debate has no place in modern academy. Historically some students who pursued arts - business and education on undergraduate level - were made to feel second class citizens of university. Frequently, students admitted to these programs were accused of entering university through back door. And frequently this was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Many of these students were less credentialed than their counterparts in arts and sciences. However a review of history of academy should eliminate this accusation. Some of oldest universities were founded for purposes. University of Salerno, one of Europe's oldest, was founded for study of medicine. A college was founded at Cambridge almost 700 years ago to provide clerks for King's service. Law, medicine, arts and theology are four original higher faculties in a university. Historically, The universities have trained intellectual pioneers of our civilization [sic] - priests, lawyers, statesman, doctors, men of science, and men of letters (Whitehead, 1929, 95). Then, what is question of place of liberal versus professional arts in university? To get a good understanding of debate, one only has to read two books. One is John Henry Newman's Idea of a University (1852) and other is Alfred North Whitehead's Aims of Education and Other Essays (1929). These two authors go to heart of debate. For Alfred North Whitehead, essence of a education was: ... an education for thought and for aesthetic appreciation. It proceeds by imparting a knowledge of masterpieces of thought, of imaginative literature, and of art. action which it contemplates is command. It is an aristocratic education implying leisure. Platonic ideal has rendered imperishable services to European civilization [sic]. It has encouraged art, it has fostered that spirit of disinterested curiosity which is origin of science, it has maintained dignity of mind in face of material force, a dignity which claims freedom of thought ... For centuries, from Pope Nicholas V to school of Jesuits, and from Jesuits to modern ... schools, this educational ideal has had strenuous support of clergy. For certain people it is a very good education. It suites their type of mind and circumstances amid which their life is passed. But more has been claimed for it than this. All education has been judged adequate or defective according to its approximation to this type (1929, 46). Whitehead saw value of other types of education. It is no wonder that Harvard chose him to be inaugural speaker at founding of its famous Business School. For Newman (1852), education was for education's sake. He believed: This process of training, by which intellect, instead of being formed or sacrificed to some particular or accidental purpose, some specific trade or profession, or study of science, is disciplined for its sake, for perception of its own proper object, and for its own highest culture, is called Liberal Education; ... (175). essence of a good education for Newman was the cultivation of 'understanding,' a talent for speculation and original inquiry, and the habit of pushing things up to their first principles (183). This, I would posit, is origin of issue. For disciples of John Henry Newman, a pure arts education is only type of education. To enter into this debate, we must first ask: What is purpose of education? There is only one subject matter for education and that is how to live. To learn how to live, education must be useful. …