That raises a few questions. Why cannot a person specialise in chemistry and then later on widen his knowledge to include a “sound liberal education.”
There is no reason why one cannot do that. And if he missed a liberal education before specializing, then he should certainly pursue it afterward, either formally in college, or on his own making liberal education a lifetime pursuit.
But anyway, what is a sound liberal education? What constitutes a sound liberal education and how will it help you in life?
A liberal education, in contrast to vocational training which is what most colleges offer, trains the person as a person, rather than as an engineer, or nurse, and so on.
By liberal education I mean education in the liberal arts. Do not think of what the majority of colleges call a liberal arts program, which consists mostly in a smattering of introductions to various subjects, with nothing that unifies the knowledge or various discipline. One is left seeing the world through a kaleidoscope.
St. Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, CA is one of the few good liberal arts colleges. If you look over their mission statement and curriculum you will get an idea of what liberal education is all about.
St. John’s College in Annapolis has been another good liberal arts college. The liberal arts curriculum is based on and is a modification of the traditional education of the Catholic Medieval universities that taught the seven liberal arts. The Catholic Encyclopedia article explaining the
Seven Liberal Arts education is one of the best I have found on the internet.
A true liberal arts education unifies knowledge under the principles of classical philosophy, and further so under theology.
Philosopher and educator Mortimer J. Adler has organized liberal education under “The Great Ideas Program” in which the great ideas of western civilization in all areas, science, history, poetry, philosophy, theology, and so on are studied from original sources (in translation usually) from the greatest works available in each area such as Plato and Aristotle, Thucydides and Hippocrates, Sts. Augustine and Aquinas, Dante Shakespeare, Galileo and so on. You can read up on the Great Ideas approach to liberal education here:
Center for the Study of The Great Ideas.
People are questioning this because it appears that there are clergy who have had a liberal education, but have failed the test of having a good moral character. In other words, this sound liberal education did not do them any good. Whereas there are some chemists who have very high moral standards and are of good character. Yet they are lacking in this socalled sound liberal education since they have specialised in chemistry.
The clergy problem is related to the problems with many seminaries who don’t properly screen candidates, and they do not train properly in spiritual formation. Many seminaries are in a state of moral and spiritual crisis (and don’t even know it). I have known a number of seminarians that have had real problems in the seminary solely because they accepted the official teachings of the Church in matters of faith and morals. One seminarian (Dan is his first name) had difficulty getting ordained merely because he believed in the Sacraments. Yes, it is that bad in many seminaries.
So, the problem is more complicated and more serious than is realized by those who focus on liberal education.
I spoke with a college professor who teaches at a public college. He is Catholic and teaches the great books, but not from an obviously Catholic perspective since he is in a public institution… He said he has had many students convert to Catholicism just from studying the great books even though he never promoted Catholicism in the classroom.
On the other hand, education does not guarantee moral virtue. There are intellectual virtues and moral virtues. Knowledge does not automatically make one virtuous. Socrates made the mistake of thinking that if people knew the good then they would become good. He thought moral evil was just a matter of ignorance. Socrates judged the matter to quickly. More correctly, a person can be properly educated but still choose to live a life of sin. It’s called free choice, or rather an abuse of freedom.
On another note, there is a proper order to education, as St. Augustine says, “It is the duty of good education to arrive at wisdom by means of a definite order.” And Cardinal Newman said, “Education is a high word; it is the preparation for knowledge, and it is the imparting of knowledge in proportion to that preparation.” Newman also said, “I say then, if a liberal education be good, it must necessarily be useful too.”
Thus the proper order of education means a liberal education first, with its training in logic and the Socratic method of dialogue. Many of the great scientists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century received an early liberal education. It is also known that generally one who receives a liberal education and then goes on to specialize does much better in his area of specialization than those without liberal training.
That’s my quick spiel. Hope it answered some of your questions.
. Specialization restrictions your freedom…