The Purpose of Education

Much maligned, but seldom read, Herbert Spencer on education:

" How to live? - that is the essential question for us. Not how to live in the mere material sense only, but in the widest sense. The general problem which comprehends every special problem is - the right ruling of conduct in all directions under all circumstances. In what way to treat the body; in what way to treat the mind; in what way to manage our affairs; in what way to bring up a family; in what way to behave as a citizen; in what way to utilize all those sources of happiness which nature supplies - how to use all our faculties to the greatest advantage of ourselves and others - how to live completely? And this being the great thing needful for us to learn, is, by consequence, the great thing which education has to teach. To prepare us for complete living is the function which education has to discharge; and the only rational mode of judging of any educational course is, to judge in what degree it discharges such function." - Education: Intellectual, Moral and Physical


BK: This is what liberal arts education has forgotten. Colleges struggle to find a mission. Departments focus on their disciplines and denigrate other fields as second class knowledge. This author has done it in his less thoughtful moments. To communicate how our specialties fit into the broader picture, though, is the task for the undergraduate educator. This is the challenge for Liberty Studies as well: to explore how and when liberty is essential for the good life, while acknowledging that it is not the only component of living completely.