A Proposal for the Fulfillment of Catholic
Liberal Education
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VII. LIBERAL EDUCATION, ITS PARTS AND THE ORDER AMONG THEM
It remains to consider in detail the nature of liberal education,
its essential parts and the order among them, in the light
of the understanding of Christian education presented above.
Everyone seems to agree that liberal education is the best
education. Discussions about liberal education usually begin
with a sort of agreement, but as they proceed, almost inevitably
reveal profound differences in the light of which the original
agreement seems superficial and even illusory. But when we
consider the root meaning of "liberal" we are not
surprised. Common to all theories of liberal education is
the notion of freedom, and while all men recognize
and value freedom, they do not all agree about what it really
is. Thus, it is hardly strange that, involved as they are
in more basic disagreements, men fail to reach agreement about
the nature of liberal education. A fruitful discussion of
liberal education will have to be based, therefore, on a true
understanding of freedom.
Liberal education aims to benefit the learner in a specifically
human way. This is implied even by its name which means "the
education of a free man." For no animal except man is
capable of freedom. But more precisely, it is the education
of a free man insofar as it helps him to achieve freedom.
Yet it does not try to help him through any and all means,
but specifically through knowledge. Accordingly, we must ask
what kind of knowledge suits the free man so that he becomes
free in the acquiring of it.
We must therefore first understand the essential character
of the free man. Perhaps it will help to contrast him with
his opposite, the slave. The slave is characterized by living
for another--he is, as Aristotle says, "not his own but
another's man," "a living possession." Thus
it follows that the free man lives for his own sake; he is
his own man. Does this mean that the free man is selfish?
It would be strange indeed to say that a man loses his freedom
when he lives for the sake of the community. Rather, since
the good of a community exists in its members, even
though he does not pursue a private advantage, he is yet pursuing
a good which he himself shares. By contrast, the slave, insofar
as he is a slave, is ordered to an end which he does not share.
Therefore, the life of the free man properly consists of such
activities as are in themselves worthwhile.
Now there are in general two kinds of knowledge. Such knowledge
as medicine or jurisprudence, for example, is practical:
it is desirable exclusively or at least chiefly for the sake
of action. But another kind, theology or natural science,
for example, is theoretical: it is desirable in itself.
Therefore, if the free man is properly concerned with what
has intrinsic value, his education must concentrate upon theoretical
knowledge.
Knowledge does not become theoretical simply because someone
does in fact desire it, but is or is not theoretical because
of its own intrinsic character. We can see that this is so
by considering how one desires theoretical knowledge. When
knowledge is desired from a theoretical motive, it is desired
for the sake of the knower as such, that is, for the perfecting
of his understanding. But human understanding cannot be perfected
by knowledge of an order which it has itself produced, as,
for example, the order in an artifact or in a constitution.
Such an order, since it is the effect of human intelligence,
is to that extent inferior to man; but nothing is perfected
by reflecting within itself that which is inferior to it.
Thus, the natural objects of theoretical interest are the
things better than man, so that whoever intends to become
a free man will be chiefly concerned with the study of God
and divine things. This means that his proper concern will
be the study of theology, which has God as its subject, and
proceeds in the light of faith.
But, as theology itself teaches, there is a knowledge of
God and divine things which proceeds in the natural light
of human reason. This knowledge, traditionally named metaphysics,
or first philosophy, is also an essential part of liberal
education, because it is necessary for the full development
of theology.
It does not follow, however, that liberal education will
omit the study of man himself or of other natural beings.
Aristotle gives the reason:
Having already treated of the celestial world, as far as
our conjectures could reach, we proceed to treat of animals,
without omitting, to the best of our ability, any member
of the kingdom, however ignoble. For if some have no graces
to charm the sense, yet even these, by disclosing to intellectual
perception the artistic spirit that designed them, give
immense pleasure to all who can trace links of causation,
and are inclined to philosophy.
(Parts of Animals, Bk. I, Ch. 5)
If nature were not the work of an intelligence superior to
ours, the effect of a divine art, we would not become more
perfect just in understanding it. Our relation to nature would
be only practical, and we would confront nature as the potter
confronts his clay. Marx is thus consistent with his atheism
when he says that "the philosophers have only interpreted
the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change
it." Further, the study of the fundamental properties
of nature, such as change and contingency, provides basic
notions which are necessary for all the sciences, and gives
an entrance into metaphysics, since it leads to the discovery
of an intelligible order which transcends nature. Therefore,
the education of a free man must include the study of nature.
There is yet another intelligible order which human reason
does not originate but can discover and understand. The order
found in quantity, that is, in number and in magnitude, though
it does not so profoundly reflect its divine origin, is nevertheless
uniquely accessible to our minds. Further, since nature exhibits
a quantitative order, it cannot be adequately understood without
the aid of arithmetic and geometry, the sciences which consider
that kind of order. Therefore, both in itself, as study of
a divinely established order, and in its contributions to
higher sciences, mathematics must be part of the education
of a free man.
We have been arguing that the education of a free man will
concentrate upon theoretical knowledge. Does this mean that
it will be exclusively theoretical, or will some kind of practical
knowledge also be necessary? The productive arts, whether
servile or fine, are clearly no essential part of a free man's
education. Of course, he should be able to recognize and appreciate
the various kinds of artifacts, but his knowledge will be
that of a judge rather than a producer. Because he seeks the
kind of life which is intrinsically worthwhile, he will be
a good man rather than a good carpenter or musician. Even
medicine, although it concerns the well-being of man himself,
is no essential part, for a man is no healthier by being himself
a doctor. Thus, we may conclude that any practical knowledge
concerned with production, or with a good which can be possessed
equally by those who know and those who do not know how to
procure it, is no essential part of a free man's education.
It seems to remain, then, that the sort of practical knowledge
appropriate to a free man is that which studies the end of
human life, the knowledge traditionally called ethics and
political philosophy. And as we reflect further on the character
of the free man, this becomes more probable. We distinguish
the free man from the slave and the child alike by the fact
that he rules himself. Now the arts of production and acquisition
cannot adequately rule, for they only provide the instruments
for a good life, but do not direct their use. However, such
direction is necessary, for good things used badly do the
most harm. It follows that no man can rule himself unless
he understands the end of human life with some clarity, and
knows the right use of every sub-ordinate object in view of
that end. Thus, the education of a free man must include ethics
and political philosophy.
All this implies that the free man and the good man are one
and the same. The good man is characterized by right desire
and good habits, and no man can rule himself unless he intends
the right end and habitually pursues the appropriate means.
For the end to be achieved is the principle of every rule,
and contrary desires and disorderly habits prevent even well-intentioned
men from successfully governing themselves. Furthermore, the
very notion of the bad man is that he lives a bad life, while
the free man is characterized by the intrinsic worth of his
life. Accordingly, to seek freedom, rightly understood, is
to seek virtue.
From the foregoing, one might get the impression that the
primary requisite for living a good life is knowledge, and
that a man becomes good by studying ethics. But this would
be contrary to common experience and to the explicit teaching
of the greatest masters. (It would also be contrary to what
was said in the first part of this paper.) The good life is
primarily a matter of right desire and good habits. Aristotle,
speaking of those who live "as passion directs,"
remarks that "to such persons, as to the incontinent,
knowledge brings no profit" and that "any one who
is to listen intelligently to lectures about what is noble
and just and, generally, about the subjects of political science,
must have been brought up in good habits." Not only is
ethics useless to a man badly disposed, but he cannot even
rightly understand it.
Accordingly, we must recall and clarify what we stated at
the outset. Liberal education does not try to help the student
achieve freedom through any and all means, but specifically
through knowledge. The professional educator is surely a fool
if he supposes he can lead a student to freedom regardless
of whatever habitual formation that student has received and
is receiving besides his scholastic instruction. The factor
most crucial, of course, and (humanly speaking) irreplaceable,
is the family life from which the student comes; next, perhaps,
come the friends whose company he enjoys and who inevitably
influence his attitudes for better or worse. A school devoted
to liberal education is effectively concerned with only part
of the necessary means to freedom, and insofar as matters
of conduct are concerned, a secondary part. Thus it is evident
that parent and educator naturally form a community, for each
supplies an essential part of the object which they both intend--a
rightly ordered life for the student. Ethical knowledge is
no good without right desire and good habits; nevertheless
(in Aristotle's words) "to those who desire and act in
accordance with a rational principle knowledge about such
matters will be of great benefit." Thus we concede that
ethical knowledge is not the decisive influence on the moral
health of the student, while upholding the argument given
above that, given a well-ordered soul, a man is greatly profited
by a detailed and explicit knowledge of the good life.
Nevertheless, there is a way in which a good school directly
encourages the formation of good habits. The whole of an appropriate
curriculum but especially its theoretical parts, if rightly
conducted, will habituate the student to the life of reason.
The preparatory sciences, such as mathematics, are most important
here, for in a manner proportioned to the student's age and
experience, they lead him to respect reasonable argument,
while giving him confidence in his own ability to proceed
reasonably both by himself and in company with others. Now
the basic ethical problem, most simply stated, is to conform
one's will and appetites to right reason, that is, to live
according to reason. Accordingly, when the student comes to
consider the rational ordering of life as a whole, as he must
when he studies ethics and politics, the enterprise will seem
natural to him, as simply extending a principle whose power
he already feels in his day-to-day work as a scholar. Thus,
the habituation to study and rational reflection, though ineffective
without other kinds of habituation as well, not only perfects
the understanding, but also tends to rectify will and appetite.
With respect to this habituation, the teachers are even more
important than the structure of the curriculum. How can they
help, while remaining within the limits of their competence
as teachers? Sometimes teachers try to think for their students,
even though they know better, when they become discouraged
by passivity and inertia. At other times, provoked by hostility,
they become drill masters. At the best of times, they lead
attentive and friendly students from what they know to what
they don't know, showing them the unsuspected implications
of the knowledge they already have. But in these cases, the
teacher leads more by example than direction, in conformity
with the essential character of his vocation. For the teacher
desires the students to share in a good which he already possesses,
at least more fully than they do, something not required for
an ulterior purpose, but desirable in itself. Whatever suggests
force or necessity is alien to teaching; the teacher must
draw from in front, rather than push from behind. Thus, the
common-sense observation that one man influences another more
effectively by example than by any other means is borne out
in the intellectual life as well.
The view of liberal education which we have been arguing
might be well summarized by a brief discussion of wonder,
the proper human motive for higher education. Wonder involves
two things simultaneously: ignorance and knowledge. It is
because we at once know something and at the same time do
not know everything that we find ourselves wondering. It should
be carefully distinguished from mere curiosity, for it implies
knowledge of a fact or group of facts, and it bears directly
upon the explanation of those facts; it involves an acceptance,
a certain delight and joy, a sort of fascination with the
way things are, and a confidence in their ultimate intelligibility.
Indeed, it is because he is so taken with the facts that a
man who wonders lives in heightened expectancy of encountering
the manner of their arrangement.
Mere curiosity, on the other hand, is not so much interested
in the question "why", but in the question "how".
It is more concerned to see how certain generalizations work
or how they apply to varying circumstances. As opposed to
wonder, it assumes the validity of a principle, in order to
see how effectively it will exploit a given situation. This
is not to say that the methods of verification in experimental
science may not very well be an instrument of wonder of high
order, but when those instruments are employed not in order
to explain, but in order to expand experience, curiosity and
not wonder is the immediate motive.
The proper satisfaction of wonder is knowledge of the causes.
But causes are of two sorts: a cause may simply be primary
within some particular order, or it may be primary without
qualification, a cause of causes. Knowledge of the latter
is called wisdom; the science which treats of the first causes
in the light of the natural capacity of human reason is metaphysics,
which may be called wisdom only with the qualification `human';
the science which studies God in the light of what He has
revealed about Himself is wisdom without qualification. Thus,
theology is the principal satisfaction of wonder on this side
of the grave, though it hardly appears to be such, since the
answers it gives, though they take us far beyond any human
science, make us increasingly aware of our ignorance of God.
(Accordingly, the study of theology would be unbearable without
hope of eternal life.) Here, of course, we speak only of such
wisdom as is properly pursued by scholastic study and instruction.
The sciences which pertain to liberal education are a community
of unequals. Wisdom, divine and human, is primary, the rest
are subordinate. But all are in harmony, as a consideration
of their mutual relations has already indicated. The inferior
sciences prepare the learner for the superior, while the superior
sciences strengthen and illuminate the inferior. Yet the value
of the inferior sciences is not exclusively (even though chiefly)
in contributing to the learning of the superior; they have
in themselves a likeness to the first Truth which, though
secondary, is not contained without deficiency in the superior.
Thus, for example, even if metaphysics could be learned without
natural science, the latter would still be worthy of study.
Now if it be possible for man to have wisdom, at least in
some measure, it will be only at the end of very arduous efforts,
and perhaps only at the end of a lifetime. But the whole of
his life and the special disciplines he pursues will rightly
be named philosophy--the love of wisdom--for he undertakes
every study for the sake of wisdom. And insofar as he lives
for wisdom, his whole life is devoted to that which in itself
makes life worth living; thus, he is not a slave but a free
man. Accordingly, only the kind of education which introduces
a man to the philosophic life is properly named liberal.
Some puzzlement may be occasioned by the fact that we have
nowhere spoken of the liberal arts. Are they what we have
been discussing all along? To be sure, in modern times, liberal
education is usually identified with the liberal arts, but
traditionally they are distinguished. Liberal education
names the whole procedure of the philosophic life, including
the study of wisdom itself; liberal arts, on the other
hand, properly names seven introductory disciplines which
though intrinsically of lesser philosophic interest are "certain
ways by which the lively soul enters into the secrets of philosophy."
(Hugh of St. Victor) These arts are twofold: some concern
the proper method of discourse, such as grammar, rhetoric,
and logic (the trivium), while others treat of quantity
and the quantitative, such as geometry, arithmetic, astronomy,
and music (the quadrivium). (The introductory studies
of the stars and of music consider only the quantitative aspects
of their subjects.) The former are clearly instrumental in
purpose, being concerned exclusively (though in quite different
ways) with common methods; the latter study kinds of
order which though less profound are more intelligible to
the beginner, and inescapably provoke wonder about the more
difficult and important issues of philosophy proper. Thus,
it is clear that the quadrivium (the mathematical disciplines)
have already been included in our survey. The trivium
must here be added. Taking logic as the principal part of
the trivium, we are thus left with a threefold division of
doctrine, into theoretical, practical, and logical. We are
encouraged to rest in this division by recalling that it is
the one given by St. Augustine as a likeness of the Blessed
Trinity. (City of God, Bk. XI, ch. 25)
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