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A Proposal for the Fulfillment of Catholic Liberal Education
Introduction
This document was first published in 1969 as a proposal for
a new Catholic college. Written during a time of manifest
educational decline and disintegration, it begins with a critique
of what Catholic education generally has become, tracing its
debility to an unreflective compromise of its own precious
intellectual heritage with the prevailing skepticism of most
secular colleges and universities.
More important than the introductory critique, however, is
the understanding of Catholic liberal education upon which
it is based and which is fully elaborated in the remainder
of the proposal. Fundamental in this understanding is the
principle that the essential purpose of a Catholic college
is to educate under the light of the Faith.
To indicate how Christian faith can be a guide in the intellectual
life as well as in the moral life, the proposal explains that
genuine intellectual freedom, to which liberal education is
ordered, lies in knowledge of the truth. Accordingly, divinely
revealed truth, the highest and most worthy object of study,
properly orders and illumines the study of other disciplines.
Moreover, the Catholic college, in forming the intelligence
of its students, is to draw from the rich patrimony of the
teaching Church, including, as its documents so clearly emphasize,
the wisdom of the perennial philosophy found in the writings
of St. Thomas Aquinas.
The ideal of liberal education as perfecting man's rationality,
once the cornerstone of higher learning, has been all but
lost in our own time. The view that liberal education begins
in wonder and aims at wisdom--that is, a knowledge of an order
which human reason does not create but can discover and understand--has
by and large been replaced by the notion that such an education
aims at a kind of cultural enrichment, so that the primary
focus of study becomes the works and inventions of man rather
than the larger order of which he is a part.
This document reaffirms that understanding of liberal education
which looks to wisdom as its end. It proposes a program of
liberal studies which integrates and orders the various theoretical
disciplines and which makes the student a judge in the diverse
branches of knowledge by developing his competency within
them, so that he grasps, through his own practice, the principles
and methods of procedure proper to each.
The program begins with the traditional liberal arts: grammar,
rhetoric, and logic (the trivium), and geometry, arithmetic,
astronomy, and music (the quadrivium). It proceeds
to the particular philosophical disciplines (e.g., the general
study of nature, ethics, politics, metaphysics), and it terminates
in theology, the perfecting discipline which is its principal
part.
The texts to be studied within the curriculum are the original
writings of the greatest minds in our intellectual tradition.
They are to be read not primarily for historical or cultural
reasons, but because they are the best attempts to understand
things in themselves while attending to our common experience.
These writings, sometimes called the "Great Books,"
are to be analyzed and discussed in small tutorials and seminars
so that the student, by actively participating in his education,
begins on the path to wisdom and comes to make the intellectual
virtues his own.
In 1971, Thomas Aquinas College was founded to fulfill the
proposal expounded on these pages. From the very beginning
the College has been characterized by an uncompromising faithfulness
to the principles set forth in this document. Over the years
the College has attracted students and faculty of exemplary
character and noble aspirations. They have undertaken its
demanding academic program in a zealous spirit, and Providence
has blessed the College with remarkable success.
As the College continues in its work, we pray that God will
continue to bless its efforts as He has so generously in the
past.
Thomas Aquinas College
Thomas E. Dillon
December, 1981
Dean of the College
I. THE CRISIS IN THE CATHOLIC COLLEGE
American Catholics are becoming increasingly aware of the
growing tendency of Catholic colleges to secularize themselves--that
is, to loosen their connection with the teaching Church and
to diminish deliberately their Catholic character. Catholic
parents in particular are becoming alarmed at the effects
that this secularization has or threatens to have on the intellectual
and moral formation of their children. The colleges themselves
display a growing inability to define themselves in such a
way as to justify their continued existence as Catholic institutions.
At first glance, the cause of this tendency appears to be
economic. A growing number of administrators and controlling
boards are trusting to the strategy that by secularizing their
institutions they will enhance their eligibility to receive
monies from educational foundations and from the government.
It is questionable, however, whether the strategy has been
thought through, for it is far from clear that Catholic parents
will send their children to an institution that calls itself
a Catholic college but that appears indistinguishable, except
in cost of attending, from the nearest tuition-free state
college.
And if Catholic parents should find themselves unable to
distinguish between the Catholic college and the secular institution,
their confusion would not be without basis in the actual character
of the emerging Catholic college itself. For, fundamentally,
the explanation of the growing secularization of American
Catholic higher education is doctrinal rather than economic.
The willingness of a college to secularize itself in the hope
of monetary gain presupposes that it already views its Catholicity
as something that is subject to negotiation, which in turn
presupposes that it has rejected the traditional doctrine
that the essential purpose of a Catholic college is to educate
under the light of the faith. We find, in fact, that the most
outspoken proponents of the secularization of the Catholic
colleges are not arguing about economic considerations but
are attacking the very idea of a college that educates under
the light of the faith. We find, further, that Catholic college
graduates, students and professors are, by and large, unable
and unwilling to resist these attacks. Indeed, the most virulent
attacks now being made on Catholic education--as well as on
the Church itself--emanate from some of these graduates, students
and professors. That this should happen points to a grave
deficiency in Catholic education; institutions whose essential
purpose is to combine Catholic wisdom and secular learning
have given birth to a generation of teachers and learners
who in large part reject such a purpose as irrelevant or contradictory.
Inescapable is the realization that the Catholic college has
not been true to its purpose. Yet this realization, somber
as it may be, should not be surprising, for a brief look at
the American Catholic college as we have known it in the past
reveals fundamental flaws which, given time to bear their
fruit, have made the present crisis inevitable.
There was a time when the Catholic college justified its
existence by saying that it gave its students, almost all
of them Catholics, an education which had as some of its components
courses in Catholic philosophy and religion. This meant that
all its students took mandatory courses in these disciplines,
whose truths, it was hoped, would permeate them and shape
their lives. The rest of the curriculum was put together in
imitation of the pattern of courses existing in secular schools
and was assumed to achieve the same purposes as were achieved
by secular education. Hence it was the boast of the Catholic
college that it had all that secular education had and more;
it was Catholic without ceasing to be secular, and in fact
it was thought to prepare its students even better than other
schools for this world because it gave them a philosophical
formation which would sustain them in whatever state of life
they chose.
But there were certain anomalies: a) While the college was
boasting that its curriculum was up-to-date, that it had courses
in the latest disciplines such as sociology and modern psychology,
whose paradigm is Newtonian mechanics, it was also proposing
philosophy courses based upon a general conception of reality
opposed to the philosophical presuppositions of sociology
and modern psychology. Similarly, its courses in physics and
chemistry presupposed, without question, a philosophical view
about the nature of matter and motion which contradicted what
was taught in the philosophy courses. b) But even within the
philosophy curriculum itself anomalies existed. The philosophical
formation of the students was essentially faulty in that faculties
themselves were fundamentally divided on the question of whether
there is philosophy or merely philosophies. The effect of
this division was to propose to the students that philosophical
education would at once lead to a certain understanding of
reality, which understanding was at the same time relative
basically to the changes of time and place. This opposition
was in effect between those who claim something can be known
and those who are skeptics--and the resultant effect on the
students, who quite naturally attempted to integrate both
positions, was skepticism. Skepticism, of course, defeats
the purpose of the intellectual life by denying the possibility
of knowing anything. c) The proponents of perennial philosophy
sought to be true to the nature of Catholic education as traditionally
understood by the Church and, more particularly, as repeatedly
emphasized by the papal encyclicals since Leo XIII, but even
here the American Catholic college has been troubled by yet
another failing. Where the papal encyclicals made it plain
that the perennial wisdom was to be studied through the works
of the great masters themselves, and above all through the
writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, it has been more often the
case that students have rather become acquainted with this
wisdom through textbook versions. In this attempt to proportion
such wisdom to the modern student's mind so as to minimize
its intrinsic difficulties, the proper character of this wisdom
was distorted and misrepresented in various ways. In part
this misrepresentation was due to the impossibility of simplifying
these difficulties and in part the result of attempting to
restate traditional doctrines through the thoughts and language
of contemporary philosophies which in fact understand reality
in ways incompatible with this wisdom. In the measure that
this was true, the perennial philosophy was lost. d) Even
more seriously, the religion courses were isolated, and in
no way performed a sapiential function with respect to the
rest of the curriculum, contenting themselves with a superficial
restatement of the truths of Catholicism. No attempt was made
to acquaint students with the greatest Fathers and Doctors
of the Church, or to deepen their understanding of the richness
of the Catholic heritage. Theology was not treated as the
science it is, and as a means to the intellectual, as well
as to the moral growth of the student. The possible penetration
he might have had into the highest truths was little realized.
Yet, all the while, the religion courses claimed to be the
important part of Catholic education.
A critique of Catholic education would seriously fall short
of accomplishing its objective if it overlooked the purely
educational weaknesses that Catholic education shares with
all American colleges in the area of liberal education. The
American college has long ago abandoned genuine liberal education.
In its place it has in part substituted vocational education
for what once was an education for man simply as man. And
in another part where it has preserved certain studies that
do not lead to some practical application it has done so only
because they lead the student to a greater appreciation of
the "learning" and "culture" of his civilization.
The second part goes by the name of humanism so as
to designate its subjects precisely to be those things that
are from man as distinguished from those things that come
from nature. These two parts make up an indiscriminate whole
and are both called education univocally. This profound confusion
which is now bearing its unhappy fruit in the irrational academic
uprisings and revolutions, with their endless and aimless
proposals for reform, has for a long time been adopted, somewhat
unwittingly, by the Catholic colleges themselves.
In a more particular way this general debility of the American
secular college, which served as the model for the Catholic
college in areas other than philosophy and theology, has these
effects. The secular college does retain vestigial requirements
in some areas of liberal education, but it was settled long
ago that the main function of the college was to train students
for the professions by meeting the demands of professional
and graduate schools. The student had to begin specialization
early in his college career lest he fall behind in the race
toward professional success. Educators were not always happy
with the growing trend toward specialization, but it was realistic
to assume that this was what most students wanted. Educators
could find solace in the dogma of instrumentalist pedagogy
that successful education occurs in direct proportion to its
compliance with the interests of the student--an interest
which is assumed to be antecedent to enrollment and already
fully determinate. Finally, since few educators were prepared
to defend the proposition that one course of instruction might
be of itself more educative than another (or the proposition
that there is a discoverable order among the existing disciplines),
no one was able to resist the deluge of course proliferation
which created the modern college catalogue. Indeed, few spoke
out against it, and there were those who maintained that the
student's academic freedom had, in a significant sense, been
enhanced by the multiplication of options set before him.
Until the anarchic events of the late nineteen sixties, few
seemed to realize the potentially disastrous consequences
of the principle that the student himself is the best judge
of which studies are most relevant to his intellectual development.
Nor was it noticed how undergraduate dialogue would be restricted
by full specialization of interests on the part of both faculty
and student body. The professor in his specialty becomes more
and more insular and removed from both his students and his
fellow educators. He meets his students in the lecture hall,
and he meets his colleagues in learned journals and at conventions,
and while these functions do not altogether exhaust his responsibilities,
they are certainly the functions which define his role. The
very excellence of specialization itself multiplies and widens
the divisions of academia.
The Catholic colleges had hoped to overcome the adverse effects
of the elective system and of premature specialization by
casting philosophy and theology in the role of sapiential
or integrating disciplines. To some extent this project was
successful, but the overall effect was less than what had
been hoped for. The philosophy and theology departments were
victims of their own specialization, and not fully prepared
to engage other disciplines in dialogue. Moreover, with the
general decay of the liberal arts because of the elective
system, philosophy and theology could not often be taught
with sufficient emphasis on their inner structure qua
intellectual disciplines. As a result they often assumed a
needless and unbecoming authoritarian stance, which not rarely
made them unpopular. Pressures now exist within the student
bodies of most Catholic colleges, if not in most of the faculties,
to abandon the traditional requirements in philosophy and
theology. Most colleges have already reduced the number of
hours required.
It is not surprising, therefore, that under the pressure
of ever widening vocationalism and humanism, Catholic education,
immersed in this tide, is capsizing. Blurred in its vision,
it cannot well distinguish and justify true liberal education
apart from vocational and professional training, in a time
when technical and technological progress seem to be everything
that is commonly regarded as worthwhile. Correlated with man's
hope in technology is his despair in knowing the truth about
reality, which desperation gave rise originally to humanism.
Even against the humanistic part of modern "liberal education,"
wherein man turns back upon himself for the meaning of all
things, which view always favors the "world" against
God, and man against his Creator, the benighted Catholic college
has found itself defenseless. This capitulation shows on the
one hand the general lassitude and dullness to which we are
all heir, but on the other hand it shows more importantly
what was noted above: the Catholic college has never really
understood itself, has never, that is, thought out the exigencies
of a liberal education which is undertaken in subordination
to the teaching of the Church, and which has as its aim an
intellectual perfection which is possible and proper to the
Catholic alone. Such an education demands that all the parts
of the curriculum not ordered to technical concerns should
be conducted with a view to understanding the Catholic Faith,
and that the Faith itself should be the light under which
the curriculum is conducted.
II. CAN FAITH ILLUMINE UNDERSTANDING
The first and most pressing duty, therefore, if there is
to be Catholic education, calls for reestablishing in our
minds the central role the teaching Church should play in
the intellectual life of Catholic teachers and students. Since
the Faith liberates the believer from error in his submission
to its teachings, it both guides and strengthens his intelligence
in the performance of those activities which constitute his
very life as a thinker; and man, since he is distinguished
by rationality, lives above all through the living activity
of thinking. We should not be surprised, therefore, that we
are promised such help by Our Lord Himself when He says "I
have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly."
(John, 10, 10.)
The following examples show, by way of illustration, how
an adherence to Christian Doctrine helps the believer as he
thinks about the most serious and difficult questions: 1)
One of the most persistent questions which has occupied the
time and prompted the labors of the greatest thinkers concerns
the origin and cause of moral rectitude. It is not surprising,
therefore, that Socrates, one of the greatest and most influential
thinkers, should have given so much of his attention to it.
He examines, in the Protagoras, the common opinion
that man can, even when he knows the good, be mastered by
pleasure, and that he can as a consequence act against his
knowledge and commit an evil act. But upon examining the basis
of the opinion, he rejects it, and holds rather that all wrong
doing is the result of an ignorance of the knowledge of weights
and measures as it applies to the various pleasures and pains.
If, therefore, we were taught which are the greater pleasures
and which are the lesser, and which pains are to be endured
in the light of future pleasures, we would, according to him,
possess the sufficient requirements for moral rectitude. This
means, when we sum it up, that virtue is knowledge and that
it can be taught--a view which has become one of the most
persistent and far-reaching positions about ethics in our
civilization.
No reader, if he follows the Protagoras closely, can
escape the perplexity which Socrates' arguments arouse in
him; he will, as a consequence, begin to formulate the fundamental
questions about the moral life in the light of Socrates' discussion.
But suppose the reader is a Catholic, and that he both adheres
to his Faith and has an appropriate understanding of it; he
will believe Ezekiel and St. Paul when they teach him that
moral goodness and the good acts which follow upon it are
the result of graces which not only illumine the mind, but
which touch the heart as well. God, in speaking to Ezekiel,
tells him:
I will gather you together from the peoples, I will bring
you all back from the countries where you have been scattered,
and I will give you the land of Israel. They will come and
will purge it of all the horrors and the filthy practices.
I will give them a single heart, and I will put new spirit
in them; I will remove the heart of stone from their bodies
and give them a heart of flesh instead, so that they will
keep my laws and repeat my observances and put them into
practice. Then they shall be my people and I will be their
God.
(Ezekiel, 11, 17-21.)
And St. Paul teaches:
We would have been justified by the Law if the Law we were
given had been capable of giving life, but it is not: scripture
makes no exception when it says that sin is master everywhere.
In this way the promise can only be given through faith
in Jesus Christ and can only be given to those who have
faith.
(Galatians, 3, 21-22.)
We are taught here that in order to obey God, He Himself
must remove "the heart of stone" from our bodies
and give us a "heart of flesh." Hence God tells
Ezekiel "I will give them a single heart, and I will
put a new spirit in them; I will remove the heart of stone
from their bodies and give them a heart of flesh instead,
so that they will keep my laws. . ." St. Paul extends
this doctrine further when he teaches that the knowledge of
the Law condemns us and that it leads us to grasp our own
incapacity to fulfill it. If, therefore, we are to act rightly,
we must be given the graces which change us from desiring
evil to desiring good, and which help us to pursue our legitimate
desires.
On the one hand, therefore, we have the Socratic position
that the knowledge of the right order amongst the goods we
seek will render us impeccable, while on the other hand we
are taught by our inspired teachers that such knowledge of
itself does nothing but condemn us. Resting, therefore, in
the truth of his Faith, our reader will believe that Socrates
must be wrong, whether he himself can see the error or not.
But should he, as a serious thinker, pursue the question,
he would be aided greatly by his adherence to the truth, for
that very adherence would aid him to search for the roots
of the Socratic error. Should he so pursue the question he
could be led to distinguish the various kinds of ignorance,
and to see as a consequence that Socrates has advanced the
discussion by teaching that every sin involves ignorance,
but that he is fundamentally wrong in thinking it to be an
ignorance of the general knowledge of morals. Our reader could,
in other words, follow the procedure which led Aristotle to
both learn from Socrates and to reject the position while
saving all the truth it possesses; in this way he is aided
by the Faith to come even to those truths which reason can
discover. Christian faith, therefore, enables us to see better
the partial truth of Socrates' position from a vantage point
which saves us from adopting his errors, an achievement which,
though possible to reason, is hardly possible to any but the
greatest thinkers after arduous labor.
St. Augustine shows us the stance of the believer as he faces
these same questions. He says that grace is given "not
only that we discover what ought to be done, but also that
we do what we have discovered--not only that we believe what
ought to be loved, but also that we love what we have believed,"
and he says further:
If this grace is to be called a `teaching,' let it at any
rate be so called in such wise that God may be believed
to infuse it, along with an ineffable sweetness, more deeply
and more internally, not only by their agency who
plant and water from without, but likewise by His own too
who ministers in secret His own increase--in such way, that
He not only exhibits truth, but likewise imparts love. For
it is thus that God teaches those who have been called according
to His purpose, giving them simultaneously both to know
what they ought to do, and to do what they know.
(On the Grace of Christ, cc. 13 &
14.)
2) One of our indubitable experiences is of the recurring
opposition of our higher aspirations and our lower passions.
So much is this opposition a part of our lives, a part which
is absent from the lives of the brutes, that it has affected
the formulation of various views of human nature. Socrates
teaches, in several of the dialogues, that the individual
man is a soul, and that the body is attached to it in this
life as a punishment for the misdeeds of a previous existence.
In order to escape further punishment and gain the happiness
of which it is capable, the soul must, by living a philosophic
life, turn its attention to eternal things, so that it may
prepare itself to exist forever without the body, which existence
is its final beatitude. So plausible is this view, based as
it is upon our internal experience of the conflict within
us, that many Christians have thought that their own lives
were bifurcated into a lower or animal existence which is
concerned with this world, and a spiritual life of the soul
alone which is begun here, but which is real only in the after-life.
If we reflect, nevertheless, on the teachings of the Christian
Faith, we can see that this position cannot be true; St. Paul
insists on our believing in the resurrection of Christ as
well as in our own which is to take place in imitation of
His. So important does he think it is to believe in the resurrection
that he says that if Christ be not resurrected, our whole
Faith is vain, for it is through our resurrection that death,
the punishment for sin, is conquered, whereby we become human
persons again. Accordingly, Christians believe that the Blessed
Virgin, by her assumption, exists as a human person with Christ,
while the other saints await their final state. The Socratic
position, on the other hand, would rob death of its sting,
for it would mean the actual separation of two already separate
things, and not the cleavage which divides the human soul
from the body it had informed to make a man.
As in the previous example, Socrates' position arises from
the consideration of important truths, and he does explore
with remarkable intensity the life lived for the sake of the
truth as compared with the life of passion and animal appetite,
and shows their incompatibility--which suggests to him that
the body and the soul are conjoined as opposites which war
with each other. The Christian, however, by the doctrine of
original sin as well as by the other doctrines of his Faith,
can both see how Socrates could hold such a position, and
yet understand in a way closed to him the cause of that seemingly
essential opposition which leads him to deny the substantial
unity of soul and body, and finally to deny the importance
of the body except as a punishment for sin.
3) Both theologians and philosophers have always wondered
whether or how Divine foreknowledge is consistent with free
choice. Most of those who have considered this matter have
concluded that they are logically incompatible, and have either
upheld Divine foreknowledge at the expense of free choice
or maintained free choice by denying Divine foreknowledge.
Martin Luther, for example, in his Bondage Of The Will,
argues that since everything in God is necessary His foreknowledge
must be necessary, and since (he says) necessary knowledge
must be of necessary things, the human actions which God foreknows
are as a consequence necessary and not free. Spinoza argues
a similar position in Part I of his Ethics. Cicero,
on the other hand, in his Nature Of The Gods, holding
to freedom of choice as a fact of experience, feels constrained
to deny that God foreknows all things, despite the evident
impiety of such a view.
By contrast, St. Augustine in The City Of God and
in On Grace And Free Will shows unmistakably that Sacred
Scripture teaches both the infallible foreknowledge of God
and the freedom of the will. This indicates to St. Augustine
and to his Christian readers that the contradiction is only
apparent, and that their understanding of both Divine foreknowledge
and the nature of the human will is inadequate. Thus, in Book
V of The City Of God, he says that "against the
sacrilegious and impious darings of reason, we assert both
that God knows all things before they come to pass, and that
we do by our free will whatsoever we know and feel to be done
by us only because we will it." He then proceeds to consider
the arguments of Cicero and others in detail, and begins to
develop a more profound doctrine of Divine foreknowledge and
human freedom, a doctrine which is completed and perfected
by St. Thomas Aquinas. Instructed by faith, then, St. Augustine
is aware of his ignorance where many wrongly presume their
knowledge, is encouraged to undertake a difficult inquiry
by knowing beforehand that a solution is possible, and is
guided throughout by a knowledge of where his investigation
is heading.
These few examples illustrate, as could many more, that the
Catholic Faith is a guide in the intellectual life as well
as in the moral life for those who subject themselves to it,
and that the understanding is crippled radically when it refuses
to stand in the higher light which is given it. The acceptance,
however, of that higher light as a guide demands that one
restate and clarify in principle the whole of Catholic education,
and show it to be fundamentally superior to and different
from any education which is deprived, or which deprives itself,
of the strength conferred upon it by the teaching Church.
This view demands that the intellectual life be conformed
to the teachings of the Christian Faith, which stand as the
beginning of one's endeavors because they guide the intelligence
in its activities, and as the end (which we will see later)
because those endeavors are undertaken so that the Divine
teachings themselves may be more profoundly understood.
III. ACADEMIC FREEDOM
This conception of the intellectual life, which is the orthodox
Catholic position, seems contrary to the prevailing view of
modern society and of those Catholics who are becoming increasingly
secularized in their thoughts and their actions. The prevailing
view holds as a principle that the uncritical acceptance of
religious doctrine not only inhibits, but even destroys the
life of intelligence. The statement of this principle takes
many forms, but they are finally reducible to the single contention
that the believing Christian, since he refuses to submit his
belief to rational examination and hence to the possibility
of rejecting it, has traded the freedom of his mind for the
blind security of unquestioned authority. The consequence
is that Christian schools, in so far as they are subject to
Christian Doctrine, are thought to be less free, and the education
they offer is thought to be necessarily inferior. It is well,
therefore, since this is the root objection, to consider it
in some detail.
Since the Christian faith involves undoubting belief in certain
assertions for which there is no natural evidence, but which
are nevertheless taken as the ruling principles of thought
and action, the intellectual life of a Christian is generally
assumed to be less free. This is because intellectual freedom
is customarily defined by the mentality of free inquiry, the
mentality which sees itself as not enslaved to any fixed conception
but free to subject every doctrine to critical examination
and possible rejection. Academic freedom is supposed to be
the protection and promotion of this intellectual freedom
by institutions of learning. Accordingly, schools whose academic
policies are based on religious doctrine limit academic freedom
and thereby depress the intellectual life of the scholarly
community. Such a view, for example, has been expressed by
the American Association of University Professors:
Freedom of conscience in teaching and research is essential
to maintain academic integrity and fulfill the basic purposes
of higher education; consequently, any restriction on academic
freedom raises grave issues of professional concern.
(Statement on Academic Freedom In Church-Related
Colleges and Universities; A.A.U.P. Bulletin, Winter,
67)
It is clear that they hold religious doctrine to be a restriction
on academic freedom, for later in the same statement, the
conditions upon which a religious school insists when it appoints
a teacher are described as "institutional limitations
on his academic freedom."
Now inasmuch as this conception of intellectual and academic
freedom is based on the principle of free inquiry--i.e. the
position that every doctrine is subject to critical examination
and possible rejection--it is suitable (and hardly unfair)
to examine critically the general principle itself. If it
claims to be a dogma, the only dogma immune to criticism,
by what right does it claim its exemption from the general
principle? Or, on the other hand, if it too is open to question,
by what principle are we to justify our examination of it?
Not by the principle of free inquiry, for it is presently
under judgment and therefore in suspense.
To proceed further, free inquiry is usually justified by
its effect in the pursuit of truth. More truths will be discovered,
and more surely held, it is said, if all beliefs are subject
to question and possible reversal. But such an assertion,
if it is not a "dogma," must be grounded on the
actual examination of the issues upon which men have disagreed,
a judgment where the truth lies in each case, and then
a determination of whether and how much the principle of free
inquiry was an advantage. It would then follow that the resolution
of those issues--the test cases of intellectual progress--would
be immune to criticism under the principle of free inquiry,
since the value of the principle is predicated on their resolution.
A further difficulty is that the principle of free inquiry
would be nullified by the achievement of its stated purpose.
As long as a man is ignorant, it is consistent with his condition
to remain open to both the affirmative and negative answers
to the issue in question. But when and if he comes to know
(which is the purpose of his investigation) the matter ceases
to be doubtful to him, and his mind closes to the possibility
that the opposite might be true. He is no longer free to doubt,
except willfully. Thus by the assumed definition ignorance
makes free, while knowledge enslaves. A reply to this objection
might assume that knowledge is simply unattainable, inasmuch
as all things are in all respects always changing, or inasmuch
as our minds, not being omniscient, cannot reach the certain
truth about anything. But this, as before, would base the
principle of free inquiry on particular and controversial
philosophical theories, which as a consequence would be immune
to criticism under the principle.
Also, every criticism, unless it be simply an expression
of the will to criticize, must finally be based on premises
not subject to criticism. For if the premises of some criticism
are themselves to be criticized, and the premises of this
second criticism are in turn to be criticized, and so on,
then either the process must rest in premises not subject
to criticism, or all criticism is a game which begins anywhere
and ends nowhere, advancing not a step towards the truth.
Not even logical consistency can be established, for presumably
the principles of logic are subject to criticism as is everything
else.
Since academic freedom is thought to derive from and be justified
by the principle of free inquiry, and since in turn considerations
of academic tenure are supposed to be governed by the principles
of academic freedom, the college professor comes to be judged
by standards which have no relation to the purposes of his
life as a scholar and a teacher. For it is usually maintained
that the academic standing of a scholar should be determined
by his "competence," while at the same time academic
freedom requires that competence be judged in abstraction
from what is true and what is false in the area of his competence.
But since knowledge of the truth is the end of all study and
teaching, to judge a scholar in this way is comparable to
judging a doctor while abstracting from all consideration
of health and disease, or to judging a cook without tasting
what he cooks.
As a result, when scholars must determine the professional
standing of one of their colleagues, they must find some definition
of competence which prescinds from the very purpose of competence;
thus, they are compelled to fall back upon "accepted
standards" of competence, standards which are either
based on what is altogether secondary, or so vaguely and generally
described as to be nearly useless as directives, or which
even carry in disguise definite views of the true and
the false in the various disciplines. But what is worse, the
standards are thought to be standards precisely insofar as
they are accepted; in other words, the accepted rather
than the true is the standard not only in fact (because
of human fallibility) but also by intent. Thus the consistent
application of academic freedom becomes by definition the
very tyranny which it is supposed to prevent.
Indeed, it would seem that the government of any institution
by rules which prescind (or pretend to prescind) from all
differences of belief, or which negate in principle the possibility
of governing by the truth, must of necessity be tyrannical.
For concrete and particular decisions must be made, about
the curriculum, student life, hiring and firing, promotion
and so forth, but cannot be directed by rules which by their
abstract and negative character in effect deny that there
are any rules. Thus, no individual decision can be really
justified or condemned out of principle, leaving an infinite
latitude in practice to the men who actually make the decisions,
who thus rule by their own absolute discretion.
IV. FREEDOM AND CATHOLIC EDUCATION
The Christian Faith and the theological tradition of the
Church present a view of freedom which is altogether opposed
to the foregoing notions. Rather than supposing that men can
attain the truth by the exercise of freedom, they teach that
men become free by finding, or being found by, the truth and
abiding in it. For the Christian believes that Christ Himself
is the Truth, and believes Him when He says, "If you
make my words your home you will indeed be my disciples, you
will learn the truth and the truth will make you free."
(John 8, 31-32.) Indeed, Christian belief considers the attempt
to gain knowledge by the assertion of freedom as the original
cause of human enslavement, for it brought sin into the world,
which is at once the worst slavery and the cause of every
other slavery.
Divine Revelation therefore frees the faithful Christian
from those specious and yet absurd notions of freedom which,
because they are false and subvert the life of reason, deceitfully
enslave all who believe in them. In particular, it teaches
that self-rule is not the same as independence, but rather
that the assertion of complete independence destroys the capacity
for self-rule. For to say that a man governs himself is to
say that he has within him the principle which governs him.
But when a man seeks to achieve total independence by subjecting
every belief to criticism, and puts his intellectual life
outside of every principle given to him (either from his experience
which is formed by and thus dependent on nature, or from faith),
he loses by this act every possible source of rational direction,
and is in fact proposing the nothingness of total ignorance
as a principle. Thus, it happens that will and appetite, no
longer subordinate to reason, give life whatever definite
form it has, since reason, in the indeterminacy of the critical
attitude, can no longer direct itself or anything else. And
so the human mind, refusing to submit to any rule, becomes
subject to its natural inferiors.
This paradoxical self-enslavement is clearly taught by the
Christian tradition, in the history of our first parents,
whose disobedience to God was immediately followed by a loss
of self-control, and in the teaching of St. Paul, who speaks
at once of the fact of human bondage and of deliverance from
it by faith and obedience:
I can see that my body follows a different law that battles
against the law that my reason dictates. This is what makes
me a prisoner of that law of sin which lives inside my body.
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body
doomed to death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ,
our Lord!
(Romans 7, 22-25)
The Christian tradition also teaches that true freedom does
not essentially consist in the removal of whatever stands
against and limits the human will, nor in the creative expressions
of that will, but rather in the inward re-birth and transformation
of ourselves by the grace of God.
Yes, even today, whenever Moses is read, the veil is over
their minds. It will not be removed until they turn to the
Lord. Now this Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit
of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, with our unveiled
faces reflecting like mirrors the brightness of the Lord,
all grow brighter and brighter as we are turned into the
image that we reflect; this is the work of the Lord who
is Spirit.
(II Cor. 3, 15-18)
Though St. Paul is speaking here of supernatural freedom,
his doctrine serves to reform the notion of freedom in general.
Men do not become free by leaving behind or stepping outside
of all that they have received, but rather by receiving, keeping
what they receive, and growing into it. No doubt they leave
behind ignorance, falsehood and vice, but in so doing they
relinquish precisely that alone which enslaves them. Ignorance,
falsehood and vice consist in man's measuring all things from
his own authority alone, leaving him enslaved by error. "Everyone
who speaks from himself is a liar." Thus, no one becomes
a man by outgrowing childish things, but outgrows childish
things by growing into the things of a man. Only accidentally
is true freedom from; essentially it is the formation
of the inward man by the true principles of thought and action.
The Christian tradition, insisting on the primacy of revealed
truth, distinguishes it from the truth which is discoverable
by human reason. Because it maintains, however, that grace
presupposes and perfects nature, it has always defended the
natural power of human reason from its skeptical critics.
The fundamental competence of the human mind, even for discovering
profound truths, has always been upheld, in modern times by
the first Vatican Council, but also at the very beginning
by the apostle Paul:
The anger of God is being revealed from heaven against
all the impiety and depravity of men who keep truth imprisoned
in their wickedness. For what can be known about God is
perfectly plain to them since God himself has made it plain.
Ever since God created the world his everlasting power and
deity--however invisible--have been there for the mind to
see in the things he has made.
(Romans 1, 18-20)
Accordingly, to speak in summary, the Christian intelligence
is formed by an acceptance of certain fundamental distinctions
and a recognition of the order among the objects of thought:
some are of faith, others of reason; some certain, others
doubtful; some self-evident, others not; some demonstrable,
others not; some subject to criticism, others not. This awareness
of the distinction between the primary and the secondary in
human knowledge makes true freedom of inquiry possible, for
only the recognition of the difference between the unquestionable
foundations of criticism and doubtful matters subject to criticism
can give reasonable direction to inquiry. Or to speak generally,
to live in freedom is to live by the truth.
V. THE CATHOLIC TEACHER
It follows that a school which defines itself by ignoring
such distinctions will be at best a number of professors pursuing
disparate or contrary purposes in the context of uneasy co-existence.
Individual teachers may accomplish something with their students,
and administrators of good character may supply their personal
principles for the lack of institutional order, but they will
do so in spite of the rationale of their school, which of
itself tends to nihilism and tyranny. On the other hand, it
does not follow that a school which does define itself in
the context of those distinctions will be successful in realizing
its true purposes. The condition is necessary but not sufficient.
For even given that the importance of distinguishing the primary
from the secondary--in all the ways mentioned above--is a
matter of conviction, and given that the distinctions are
actually seen in many cases, there still remain many ambiguities
whose attempted resolution may ultimately defeat the intended
purpose of the school. The cause of these ambiguities is that
the principles which guide thought and action, whether they
are received from experience or by faith, are understood somewhat
indistinctly at first, even when their truth is certain. Hence
it remains a primary necessity throughout the intellectual
life to clarify the principles. But here arises the possibility
of serious mistake, for an attempted clarification may depart
from the original principle; thus, though secondary or even
false, the seeming re-statement will take on the authority
of the original, with the most destructive results. And if
such failures arise concerning the principles, how much more
must they arise concerning what is demonstrable or probable,
the proper object of teaching and learning?
So it is that from the beginning men have sought teachers--other
men who share the same principles but see them more clearly
as well as seeing the order which results from them. Thus,
among men, the relation of teacher and learner presupposes
shared principles and yet an inequality in the understanding
of those principles. But the need for a teacher at the same
time poses a problem: how is the inferior to recognize the
superior, since his inferiority consists precisely in the
lack of that which would enable him to judge? Because this
problem is unavoidable as well as difficult, sophists have
always abounded and prospered.
The only secure resolution of this problem is that the shared
principles themselves should unmistakably indicate the teacher.
Now nature, insofar as it shapes our experience, is the guiding
principle of the life of reason, but it fails to distinguish
reliably between the teacher and the sophist. For nature instructs
us through the external features of things, which often fail
to correspond to what is internal. Divine Revelation, on the
other hand, not only communicates the truth but also designates
teachers to clarify, define and explain it. Thus, our Lord
told His apostles "anyone who listens to you listens
to me" (Luke 10, 16) and commissioned them to teach,
promising to remain with them forever. On this account, the
believer embraces at once Christ as the supreme teacher and
the successors of St. Peter and the Apostles as altogether
truthful and divinely appointed interpreters of His teachings.
And further, insofar as many doctrines which pertain to human
wisdom are of crucial importance for the Christian life, the
teaching authority of the Apostles extends to them also; indeed,
nearly every central philosophical issue is relevant in some
way to divinely revealed truth. Thus it follows that the Catholic,
in the very act of his belief, has also found the teachers
who will define and explain what he believes, show him its
consequences, and rectify his whole intellectual life as well.
Here then grace perfects nature even with respect to what
is strictly natural.
The Catholic school, therefore, if it is to be faithful to
the teaching of Christ, will differ from its secular counterpart
in two essential respects. First, it will not define itself
by academic freedom, but by the divinely revealed truth, and
second, that truth will be the chief object of study as well
as the governing principle of the whole institution, giving
order and purpose even to the teaching and learning of the
secular disciplines.
VI. WHAT IS LIBERAL EDUCATION
Earlier in this work reference was made to the almost universal
abandonment of genuine liberal education in the American colleges.
It was observed that liberal education, which in the past
was the soul of higher education, has been largely replaced
by professional and technological curricula. What remains
under the name of liberal education is a collection of courses
which purports to acquaint the students with various facets
of "culture" and "learning."
This version of liberal education is fittingly called humanism
because its concern is with the works of man. Man's scientific
and literary accomplishments are thought worthy of falling
within this collection of things to be studied because they
are brilliant human achievements. Humanism, which in the Renaissance
began to preempt all other contenders as the Weltanschauung
of higher education, seems chiefly to have come about as a
justification for education, when men came increasingly to
doubt the power of reason to know reality. The modern doctrine
of academic freedom, in the main accepted by contemporary
schools, officially makes this same skepticism the fundamental
tenet of education. Holding as it does that every dogma (save
itself) is of its nature open to free inquiry, academic freedom
implies that nothing which the human intelligence claims to
know is really known, but only dubitable. This is to say that
absolute skepticism is the abiding condition in education
and that reality everlastingly and in every way eludes man
in his efforts to know it. The fact that contemporary "liberal
arts" are so thoroughly historical and humanistic is
explained in that the value of man's intellectual achievements
is not grounded in the truth of his accumulated wisdom, but
in the fact that wisdom is a human creation, a glorious product
in which to rejoice. Liberal education then is not seen at
bottom as something good for man, but as something
worth studying and preserving for the simple reason that it
is from man.
Against the popular inclination to identify liberal education
as humanistic, is another view of longer standing that urges
itself upon us by its intrinsic merits. That man uses his
leisure to become acquainted with the ideas of the greatest
thinkers in his tradition and to steep himself in an understanding
of the intellectual culture that produced him may be a good
thing, but it appears false that such should be the sole or
even primary intellectual interest that occupies his leisure.
Though one might intend to confine his study to the learned
achievements of men, the very subject he studies will show
the vanity of such a limited end, for these learned achievements,
preserved in what are often called the Great Books, are themselves
efforts to bring the student or reader to some understanding
of reality itself.
One cannot read these cherished Great Books of western civilization
as simply of historical and humanistic interest without betraying
their authors, whose principal purposes, by and large, were
through their writings to speak not historically, but rather
scientifically and philosophically, proposing universal truths,
abstracting from the here and now. Education is recognized
almost universally by these great authors to be not about
ideas, as if they were important simply in themselves, but
about things. The great ideas that humanism regards as outstanding
instances of human creativeness were thought to be worthy
by the minds that produced them, not because they were creative
or novel, but because they were inventive of nature's truth.
Unless this basic orientation to truth be recognized and
retained, education and intelligence quickly become meaningless.
The older position on liberal education and the common sense
conception of knowledge both see the life of the intelligence
defined by reality as its object and justified by truth about
that reality as its end. Philosophy begins in wonder so that
it might end in wisdom. And unless man, even when he first
wonders about reality, apprehends it in some fundamental way,
albeit imperfectly and confusedly, his wonder is meaningless
and his hope to know the truth is vain. In fact man since
time immemorial has had a non-reflective confidence that he
does understand reality from his first experience with it,
and that he is already a knower of the world "out there"
as he begins reflectively to consider its meaning, to clarify
its nature in his understanding, and to pursue its secrets.
Reality is possessed through knowledge by all men in
a general and indistinct but eminently certain way.
That there is a pre-reflexive, common consciousness of reality
is patent in the fact that men are able to communicate with
each other at all. If all men did not in some way form like
ideas of the world "out there," there could be no
meeting of their minds through speech and conversation. At
least the basic ideas of reality must be in men's minds, and
indeed what is first meant by reality would be that
which these primary concepts represent. The assumption of
a common experience and of common conceptions about it belongs
not only to men living in the same era but also to all men
in all ages, as is shown by the very writing and reading of
the aforementioned Great Books. When men come to reflect upon
their knowledge of reality they are already possessors of
it, and their reflective and methodical elaborations of it
do not destroy this possession, unless these efforts in effect
deny the reality and the truth of these common and fundamental
concepts, and unless they fail to build their science upon
them. Such a denial would reject the primary experience that
makes all else meaningful. But the science that establishes
and builds itself faithfully upon common experience constitutes
that wisdom called the perennial philosophy, and it is this
which is the substance of our intellectual patrimony and which
alone makes true liberal education possible.
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)
VIII. LIBERAL EDUCATION AND THE CHRISTIAN FAITH
Whether we consider liberal education as achieving freedom,
or as satisfying wonder, we see that theology is its principal
part. Contrary to what is often assumed, liberal education
does not take place in spite of or even apart from the Christian
faith. Rather, the Christian student, because of his faith,
can be liberally educated in the most perfect and complete
way. For the sciences which are the object of such an education
form an ordered whole. By its own essential character, theology
completes and perfects the intellectual life of a free man,
for it has in a pre-eminent way that which is desired in all
of them. Liberal education undertaken by Christians and ordered
to theology turns out to be liberal education in its fullness.
The religious college quite properly can claim to be the liberal
educator par excellence, because through wisdom based
on faith the student's natural appetite for the truth can
be perfectly satisfied. He might see "through a glass
darkly," those highest things which the non-believer
will not see at all.
Liberal education, then, begins in wonder and aims at wisdom.
It involves parts of greater and lesser worth and greater
and lesser difficulty, united by their common order to wisdom.
In keeping with the immeasurable value of its end, and the
discouraging remoteness of that end, it does not disdain the
study of those humbler disciplines which are the indispensable
first steps on a long road. Thus it begins with the liberal
arts, proceeds to the particular philosophical disciplines,
and terminates in wisdom.
IX. THE PRESENT NEED FOR GENUINE LIBERAL EDUCATION
Though the relevance of liberal education for human nature
is profound, few men appear to be aware of its importance,
and those who are aware seem only to be imperfectly conscious
of it. Yet despite our overwhelming preoccupation with practical
matters, the desire to know does not altogether escape any
of us. Hence Aristotle can say, at the beginning of the Metaphysics,
that "men are by nature philosophers, lovers of wisdom."
It is true, further, that men cannot remain ignorant of the
need to educate themselves about philosophical matters without
consequences. To remain in such a state is to live in a way
that is less than human. Socrates had this in mind when he
judged that "the unexamined life is not worth living."
To deny philosophy on the other hand is impossible. "You
say," writes Aristotle in a celebrated dilemma, "one
must philosophize. Then you must philosophize. You say one
should not philosophize. Then (to prove your contention) you
must philosophize. In any case you must philosophize."
The questions pursued by liberal education are inescapable.
So long as man exists these questions will emerge, and if
they are not answerable truthfully, then man lives enslaved
in darkness or in error. And when a doctrine such as that
of academic freedom rules over all efforts to pursue these
questions, as is the case in our times, we become like those
silly women of whom the Apostle says that they are "always
learning, and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth."
(II Tim., 3, 7.) We remain slaves.
X. THE CURRICULUM
We propose the founding of a four-year Catholic college concerned
exclusively with liberal education as defined and explained
above. This college will explicitly define itself by the Christian
Faith and the tradition of the Catholic Church. Thus theology
will be both the governing principle of the whole school and
that for the sake of which everything is studied. And since
the school will aim at the kind of education which is best
in itself, every student will pursue the same sequence of
courses, which will be designed to introduce him to every
essential part of the intellectual life. Further, since the
teachers will aim to introduce the student to the fullness
of the intellectual life, each of them will have to be living
that kind of life himself; this means each will study and
learn every part of the curriculum and become able to teach
any part of it. The curriculum itself will be structured in
detail, basing itself upon the natural order of learning and
taking as examples and guides the work of the best minds in
each of the disciplines; this means that, with few exceptions,
no textbooks will be used but rather the original works of
the greatest scholars.
The curriculum of this college introduces the student to
a comprehensive study of theology, philosophy, mathematics,
language and experimental science through reading and closely
discussing the greatest scholarly works in these fields. The
classes, which are not to exceed twenty students, will be
tutorials and seminars, not lectures. Tutorials and seminars
proceed by way of rigorous discussions of the readings; they
require a more active participation on the part of the student
than do lectures. The tutorial, in contrast with the seminar,
treats its subject in greater detail and its procedure is
more determinate, requiring greater direction from the teacher.
Though this curriculum is demanding it is so necessarily.
One cannot become educated in any strict sense unless he acquires
for himself a competency in the various disciplines, so that
he understands from within them rather than somehow from without.
In this way he possesses them and the order among them as
his own intellectual virtues. There is no other way of attaining
this intellectual perfection save through the arduous work
of doing these sciences and disciplines as the scientist himself
does them.
However, liberal education, though difficult, is not an impossible
task, for education admits of a distinction into two different
kinds: that of the specialist and that of the educated man
simply said. A reference from Aristotle spells out the meaning
of this distinction:
Every systematic science, the humblest and the noblest
alike, seems to admit of two different kinds of proficiency;
one of which may be properly called scientific knowledge
of the subject, while the other is a kind of educational
acquaintance with it. For an educated man should be able
to form a fair off-hand judgment as to the goodness or badness
of the method used by a professor in his exposition. To
be educated is in fact to be able to do this; and even the
man of universal education we deem to be such in virtue
of his having this ability. It will, however, of course,
be understood that we only ascribe universal education to
one who in his own individual person is thus critical in
all or nearly all branches of knowledge, and not to one
who has a like ability merely in some special subject. For
it is possible for a man to have this competence in some
one branch of knowledge without having it in all.
(I De Partibus Animalium, c. 1.)
We aim through this curriculum to produce "the man of
universal education," that is, the one who is "critical
in all or nearly all branches of knowledge." Thus we
propose an education appropriate to man and one most suitable
as the foundation for any specialization.
Theology Tutorial
The theology tutorial will be devoted principally to the
study of the Bible and of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church,
chiefly St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. The order of
study will be primarily doctrinal rather than historical,
that is, based on the natural order of learning and on the
differences among the various theological topics. Theology
will be studied every semester and the order of the courses
will be so designed as to lead up in the later years to a
study of the central mysteries of the Christian Faith.
Philosophy Tutorial
Philosophy, under the Christian dispensation, is seen not
only as worthy of pursuit for its own sake, but as a handmaid
to theology. The philosophy tutorial, therefore, will be conceived
in this light, and those philosophers will be principally
studied whose doctrines are most helpful to theological understanding.
Accordingly, philosophy will not be conceived as a particular
science among sciences, but rather as the whole order of human
sciences as they tend toward wisdom; for the philosopher,
as originally understood, is a "lover of wisdom"
and thus preeminently concerned with the teaching of the Church,
that the philosophical studies in this school will be governed
by the method and doctrine of St. Thomas Aquinas.
Mathematics Tutorial
The mathematical sciences will be studied in great detail
throughout each of the four years. The study will include
both pure mathematics (principally arithmetic, geometry, algebra,
analytic geometry, and the calculus) and those natural sciences
which are strictly mathematical, such as astronomy and mechanics.
The reason why so much time will be devoted to such studies,
given that they are not the highest, is that they provide
discipline which is especially proportioned to the young and
inexperienced, and prepare them for more exacting disciplines,
while giving them confidence in their powers to pursue them.
The object will not be to familiarize the students with the
latest advances in science, but rather, by getting them to
work through some of the finest examples of scientific procedure,
to help them understand the fundamental conceptions as well
as the essential character and method of mathematical science.
Such older authors as Galileo, Newton and Huygens will be
among the principal authors studied, even though their doctrines
have in some cases been superseded.
Language Tutorial
The language tutorial will continue through the first two
years, and will be devoted to the study of Greek or Latin.
Its primary purpose will be to introduce the students to the
liberal art of grammar. Because they are highly inflected,
Latin and Greek are singularly appropriate for illustrating
the nature of grammar; further by their very strangeness they
lead the student to compare and contrast them with his own
language and of how one differs from the other. Also the learning
of Latin and Greek gives direct access to the greatest teachers.
And finally, because many English words have Latin and Greek
roots, knowledge of these roots leads the student to see much
of his own language in its origins.
The Laboratory
All natural science is based upon experience; but this experience
is of two kinds. There is a spontaneous inescapable experience
of nature which all men have, and which gives rise to a somewhat
indistinct and general knowledge of nature. But this com |
