Freshmen at my college arrive quite well prepared in basic skills and concepts.  They have sufficiently strong abilities in vocabulary, mathematics, and reading comprehension to earn impressive SAT scores, and they have mastered their classroom material well enough to conquer the Advanced Placement and subject tests.  Still, even among those high achievers, two common weaknesses must be overcome before learning can take place.

 

The first is that many young people have grown accustomed to ingesting and repeating information – the Bill of Rights, the periodic table, trigonometric identities, or any of a host of other important pieces of knowledge – without comprehending the underlying reasons and causes for their study.  Relying on teachers and textbooks as unquestionable authorities, these students are frequently able to enunciate a position but unable to defend it.  Opinion passes for knowledge, memorization of data for understanding.

 

The second shortcoming is in written communication.  Too often, even college-bound high school graduates lack a grasp of the rules of grammar and the nuances of language and usage.  Whether this is because they were taught that unbridled self-expression is more important than coherence, or whether they spent too much time on fill-in-the-bubble tests and too little on actual composition, they lack the ability to write intelligibly.

 

How can we address these deficiencies, and instill in our children the tools, habits, and attitudes that make clear thinking and expression possible?...

 

C.S. Lewis once recommended keeping “the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds” by reading one old book for every new one.  His point was a good one.  Reading books from eras other than our own gives us a broader perspective than that we can obtain if we are only studying the work of our contemporaries.  It challenges our assumptions, expands our vocabulary, and compels us to grapple with the unfamiliar.

 

 

...Great books, by their very nature, demand thoughtful analysis.  When students break down, examine, and account for the arguments these works contain, they develop the ability to construct, articulate, and defend positions of their own.  Moreover, since clarity of expression depends in large measure on clarity of thought, providing young people with a solid grounding in great books, properly taught, would help them cultivate the habits of both good thinking and lucid composition.

 

...Far from limiting career options, this kind of education opens up countless opportunities to our graduates.  The liberally educated person is intellectually nimble enough to prosper in almost any professional environment.  Even in our age of hyperspecialization, few traits are in higher demand than such versatility.

 

But the benefits of liberal education far exceed its workplace applications.  As Aristotle observed, if we can order our knowledge, see the relations among truths, and know truths about the highest things, we will have wisdom.  By focusing on truth and the “highest things,” liberal education nurtures wisdom, which is why it is invaluable to the future of America’s schools.