The College Board has mandated that state colleges reduce the number of hours required for graduation. As the university makes its decision, it must be careful not to neglect the liberal arts.
At nearly all levels of education in our current society, the liberal arts programs are the first to be cut. This trend is both disheartening and foolish. It appears as if the administrators have forgotten the purpose of education.
They have denigrated it from formation to mere instruction. A four-year university education means nothing if it does not help the student form a strong character. It must promote both intellectual and moral virtues.
Granted, Mississippi State is primarily an agricultural school with a strong emphasis on the sciences. But many students still come for a liberal arts education. Requiring these latter students to take 15 hours of science and math is disadvantageous to all students, especially to those in the sciences.
Those seeking a bachelor’s of science are to be our future doctors, engineers, biologists and a plethora of other valuable professions. With the money and consequent power they will acquire, it is even more important for the core to provide them with a well-rounded education. Many of these professions require further education in graduate school where they will receive detailed instruction in their chosen fields.
But, while at the undergraduate level, a broader training in the intellectual tradition of the West is desirable. Plato argues that the role of education is to turn the eye to the form of goodness. It ought to give formation to all and instruction to few.
While it is not important for the liberal arts student to know such detailed topics as the control of stochasticity in eukaryotic gene expression, it is for the scientist on the graduate level. Yet it is important for all students to know man’s relationship to God, nature and fellow human beings. It is important for the scientist and mathematician to know Schrodinger, Landsteiner and Nash, but it is important for all to know Homer, Cicero and Malory.
As the scientist seeks a cure for cancer, the liberal arts student seeks answers to the timeless questions of man’s identity and purpose. The metaphysician is just as valuable as the physician.
Petrarch, the father of humanism, also faced a society that was abandoning a classical education. He vehemently attacks such neglect for the past: “O inglorious age! that scorns antiquity, its mother, to whom it owes every noble art that dares to declare itself not only equal but superior to the glorious past.”
The removal of liberal arts classes from the core displays not only a pompous attitude toward our intellectual ancestors, but also weakens our culture. It is our duty to produce cultivated and refined citizens.
Leonardo Bruni, a 15th Century Florentine academic, explains what he believes the role of education to be: “the high standard of education to which I referred at the outset is only to be reached by one who has seen many things and read much. Poet, orator, historian, and the rest, all must be studied; each must contribute a share. Our learning thus becomes full, ready, varied and elegant, available for action or for discourse in all subjects.”
Unfortunately, our society no longer attempts to breed such well-rounded, cultured citizens. We live in an age of specialization, and in such an age a broad education seems economically infeasible. Mississippi State can expect generous and abundant donations from her future scientists. But the cultural achievements, the novels, symphonies and works of art will come from the liberal arts. Society needs both.
The students of Mississippi State ought to make sure that the recent removal of speech from the core curriculum does not begin an assault on the liberal arts. If speech is cut, how safe is English, history and philosophy? The science students will benefit from the study of amines, anions and atoms, but everyone will benefit from Schubert, Shakespeare and Suetonius.
Ryan Starrett is a senior history major. He can be reached at [email protected].