Liberal Studies in a Technological Time

Extract

The term ‘liberal studies’ arouses responses of approval, derision and perplexity. Those who approve of it do so in post-prandial statements, amidst the fug of cigar smoke-industrialists lamenting the narrow education of new entrants to industry. Those who deride it do so because they identify the term with a superior culture to which they are not admitted, something to do with making the right noises during the interval at Glyndebourne. The perplexed command most sympathy for their attitude. They are in genuine doubt what the term means.

Most people can identify a liberal attitude and recognise a liberally educated man when they see one. It is difficult to find two people who agree what is the best education to produce this desirable end-product. And there the debate lies. There are many contestants in the field. Historically the strongest, though the one heard least, is the claim of Greats at Oxford. This degree produced the most complete man. But the voice is drowned in the general clamour of economists, sociologists and historians pressing their claims.

A liberal education has always been the concern of teachers, but only recently has the term ‘liberal studies’ come into prominence. Much of its impetus stems from a Ministry of Education circular issued in the midfifties and directed at technical colleges. The 1956 White Paper on technical education heralded an enormous advance in full-time education for technologists. Before the war, they had won their technical laurels via the hard grind of evening classes.