Liberal Arts

(just for the record - I find the above cartoon offensive)

I've been doing a lot of research for my capstone history class, and I recently came across this quote from a graduation speech given at Lehigh University in 1911:

"There is a comparative neglect of culture in our education. In our institutions of learning the chief stress is often laid upon technical training and little on the humanities and the culture courses. We turn out craftsmen rather than men...We have developed a lop-sided civilization, like Ephraim, 'we are a cake not turned,' burned black on the side of material and individual development, raw and sodden on the side of our social and moral development."

I think it is interesting that this was said 100 years ago, and the same debate is still going on. According to this article, "Humanities studies peaked in U.S. colleges in the 1960s and started dwindling in the 1970s...Today, more than 20 percent of each year's bachelor's degrees are granted in business; in humanities, it's about 8 percent." The idea that you should go to college to get a job is, I think, fundamentally flawed. There are plenty of other ways to get a job - going to college should be about wanting to be more educated - more well rounded, more informed. This post is getting too long, but I believe that the above quote says it best anyhow.