The citations are in the MLA style.
In the debate on education reform, the most controversial perspective is
one that calls for no reform. Obviously, the education system could be
improved; the only serious debates now are how to reform it and why one method
is better than another. The two most controversial conversations currently on
the docket are whether morality should be a part of the educational system and
whether students should get a broad, general education or a narrow, specified
education. These questions come from a
difference in philosophical ideals. Increasingly, educators adopt the view that
morality is not something that teachers should promote and that a narrow
education is more useful. These two positions, however, undermine the whole
purpose of education: to shape a virtuous and intelligent populous which can
care for itself and lead others.
In
the United States especially, the goal of education is to develop moral people.
Benjamin Franklin suggested that “[w]ise and good men are... the strength of
the state; more so than riches or arms.... [and] that general virtue is more
probably to be expected and obtained from the education of youth, than from the
exhortation of adult persons” (Federer 240). This country was founded with the
trust that schools would continue to promote virtues. However, in the last
century, virtue has been undermined in the school system. C. S. Lewis noticed
this trend in the middle of the twentieth century in England, a trend which was
occurring simultaneously in the United States. In his work The Abolition of
Man Lewis uses a book he calls “The Green Book” to illustrate his
point (13). He argues that works like The Green Book subvert the work of
the educator to inculcate morals. Lewis notes that the way the authors achieve
this subversion is not direct: “It is not a theory they put into [the
schoolboy’s] mind, but an assumption, which ten years hence, its origin
forgotten and its presence unconscious, will condition him to take one side in
a controversy which he has never recognized as a controversy at all” (16-17).
The moral nature of education is part of an ancient tradition which has only
recently been broken, but the break was so sudden and so surreptitious that it
was accepted with little protest; Lewis refers to this tradition as the Tao
(29). He indicates that the difference between education into the Tao
and modern education is the difference between a bird teaching its young to fly
and a poultry keeper developing his chicks for the slaughter (Lewis 32-33). A
moral education is necessary for the populous to be able to care for itself; if
the education system does not develop morals to live by, the people will not be
able to live independently. Someone will have to tell them what to think.
If
people are to think for themselves, they had better think well. Uninformed
decisions could lead to very dangerous results. However, the problem here is
not whether students should be taught, but how. If the students are taught in a
narrow, focused education system, then the students will be able to perform
better in their jobs or careers. However, if they are trained in a broad,
general system, they will be able to make connections that a focused education
would not afford. Cardinal Henry Newman approached this dilemma in The Idea
of a University. Newman, defending the university against the utilitarian
cry for practical education, suggests that a general, or liberal, education
holds knowledge as an end in itself rather than a tool as a practical, or
servile, education does (524-525). He argues that knowledge “is an object, in
its own nature so really and undeniably good, as to be the compensation of a great
deal of thought in the compassing, and a great deal of trouble in the
attaining” (Newman 524). He later writes that “we are satisfying a direct need
of our nature in its very acquisition” (Newman 524). However, Newman insists
that knowledge can and does lead to more than itself; his main argument is that
it need not, but he agrees that it is useful in attaining other ends as well.
With that in mind he argues that the Liberal Arts teach that “which... provides
the most robust and invigorating discipline for the uninformed mind” (Newman
537). Yet modern thinkers argue that a practical and focused education would be
more beneficial. Even those who argue for a binary system, allowing students to
choose which they will pursue, assume that those who will choose the Liberal
Arts “don’t have a sense of direction,” implying that the Liberal Arts is a
mere failsafe for the students who do not know where they belong in the society
(Allitt 594). Patrick Allitt, though well meaning, has fallen for the trap set
up centuries ago, that education must bear fruit apart from virtue and
knowledge. The idea that “physicists who want only to study physics should be
free to do so, without laboring through courses in art history that seem to
them a waste of valuable time” is born from the assumption that knowledge
itself is not worth the thought it takes to understand, or the time it takes to
acquire (Allitt 593). This utilitarian view of education misses the point, however,
a liberal education affords students more tools to solve complex problems,
making it more useful than an education in the practical arts in the long run. Knowledge
itself is the main goal of an education, and a liberal education is best suited
to that pursuit.
Education
has been such a troublesome subject because those who argue about what it should
do have not taken the time to understand what it is. Cardinal Newman
says that “education is a higher word; it implies an action upon our mental
nature, and the formation of a character; it is something individual and
permanent, and is commonly spoken of in connexion with religion and virtue”
(529). The character that education forms is part of the purpose that Louis
Menand assigns education: “to empower people, to help them acquire some measure
of control over their lives” (597). However, implications and purpose still do
not answer the question of the definition of education. The word education
comes from the Latin educere, which means “to lead out.” An associated
word, pedagogy, has similar connotations; it comes from peid ago: “to
lead children.” Now, to lead requires a leader. Manand indicates this when he
argues, “[I]t isn’t what [teachers] teach that instills virtue; it’s how [they]
teach. [Teachers] are the books... students read most closely” (599). In the
definition of educere, the idea of leading also indicates that
the students are being led out; but from where? One assumes that Plato
answers this question with his analogy of the cave. The enlightened man leads
those chained out of the cave of ignorance into the light of the sun, viz.,
knowledge.
In an education
system where the end goal is the production of workers, as opposed to
self-reliant citizens, reform is necessary if the society is to resume its
original, successful course; likewise, this reform would be best if it were to
make the education method like the one in place during the height of the society’s
growth. Therefore, the system best suited to the reform of the current methods
of education is that of the Liberal Arts— let free men be taught as such.
Works Cited
Allitt, Patrick. “Should
Undergraduates Specialize.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 16
June 2006. Rpt. in Current Issues and Enduring Questions. Eds. Sylvan Barnet and Hugo Bedau. Boston:
Bedford/St.Martin’s, 1999. 591-594.
Print.
Federer, William J.. America’s God and Country: Encyclopedia of
Quotations. St. Louis: Amerisearch, 2000. 240. Print.
Lewis, C. S.. The Abolition of Man: Reflections on
Education with Special Reference to the Teaching of English in the Upper Forms
of Schools. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1965. Print.
Menand, Louis. “Re-imagining
Liberal Education.” Rollings College,
Florida. Speech. Rpt. in Education and
Democracy. Ed. Robert Orill, City of New York College Entrance Examination
Board, NY, 1997. Print. Rpt. in Current Issues and Enduring Questions. Eds. Sylvan Barnet and Hugo Bedau. Boston:
Bedford/St.Martin’s, 1999. 597-599.
Print.
Newman, John Henry. “Discourse
V, Knowledge its Own End.” The Idea of a
University, Defined and Illustrated. London: Longmans, Green, and Co.,
1898. 99-123. Rpt. In The Great
Tradition: Classic Readings on What it Means to Be an Educated Human Being. Ed.
Richard M. Gamble. Wilmington: ISI Books, 2010. 522-533. Print.
---. “Christianity and Letters.”
The Idea of a University, Defined and
Illustrated. London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1898. 256-265. Rpt. In The Great Tradition: Classic Readings on
What it Means to Be an Educated Human Being. Ed. Richard M. Gamble.
Wilmington: ISI Books, 2010. 533-537. Print.
In love,
Justus
(Written from my desk at school)
In love,
Justus
(Written from my desk at school)
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