> In practice, modern “liberal arts” programs often dispense with logic, math, and empirical science...it’s insufficient to throw in a few courses on math that everyone quickly forgets.

Where are you getting any of this from? What in the world are you talking about?

Since you mentioned Georgia Tech, I looked up their liberal arts programs at the undergraduate and graduate level.

Selected undergrad majors: Computational Media (computer science and design)[1], Economics (pretty mathy, check out the curriculum[2]), Global Economics and Languages (ditto [3]).

Selected graduate majors: Digital Media (tons of programming and design work[4]), Human Computer Interaction (tech-y by definition [5]), Economics, Infosec [6]. Seems like any of those degrees would require plenty of "logic, math, and empirical science".

But then one might say, "Georgia Tech is an engineering school. Of course their liberal arts stuff is going to be tinged with rigor. But them lefty, coastal, liberal hotbeds can't reason their way out of a paper bag."

So I looked up Wellesley College, one such institution. They offer majors in such soft disciplines as Astronomy, Physics, Astrophysics, Biochemistry, Math, Chemistry, Biology, Computer Science, Geosciences, to name a few.[7] They graduate students in these majors every year.

I don't think you understand the breadth of disciplines that a liberal arts education can encompass. There are liberal arts degrees attained by taking the bare minimum of math, or science classes and then there are liberal arts degrees such as geology that have plenty of hard (haha!) science and math behind them.

> consider how kids learn about history. They read stories, mostly focused on individuals. But that’s not the only way to learn history. I took a class at Georgia Tech in the history of science, which looked at the impact on society of various technological advances

What does a class you took at Georgia Tech have to do with how kids are taught history in school? They are different things. Kids being taught history poorly doesn't invalidate the importance of the subject. Kids are taught math and science poorly too.

Advanced studies in history do explore questions of the sort you raised.

> Math, science, and logic should be the basic foundation for cultivating children’s world view, not literature, philosophy, or social studies.

I think philosophy and social studies are just as important as math and science, and maybe literature is less important. First off, logic has its roots in philosophy[8]. Social studies such as history, civics, and geography are important for a well-informed citizenry. Economics is pretty handy. You may scoff at literature as being useless, but it forms the basis of the entertainment industry - plenty of money there.

1. https://www.iac.gatech.edu/academics/undergraduate/bs/cm

2. https://www.iac.gatech.edu/academics/undergraduate/bs/econom...

3. https://www.iac.gatech.edu/academics/undergraduate/bs/geml

4. https://dm.lmc.gatech.edu/program/courses-2/

5. http://www.mshci.gatech.edu/program/about

6. https://www.iac.gatech.edu/academics/graduate

7. https://www.wellesley.edu/academics/deptsmajorprog

8. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic