A HISTORY OF

LIBERAL
EDUCATION
BENJAMIN VALLEJO JR PHD
COLLEGE OF SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF THE
PHILIPPINES

WHY DO YOU WANT TO GET EDUCATED?

1. To get a job
2. To develop virtue and
excellence
in Greek arete

ATENEO MUST HAVE GOT ONE RIGHT!

THE INTELLECTUAL ENVIRONMENT

OF THE WEST

DEMOCRACY

THE GREEK IDEAL

A broad education is a
requirement for the
obligations of liberty
The Romans called it liberal
Education for the free man

DISAGREEMENT
Plato and students including Aristotle
education is a search for truth
Isocrates Education is for arete

Is liberal
education for
another
purpose or is it
an end in itself?

THE ROMAN IDEA OF LIBERAL ARTS

Practical
Artes liberales was a combination of
philosophy and the practical arts
Science was central to the Roman idea
but it belonged to philosophy and not a
practical art.
The humanities in contrast was THE
PRACTICAL ART!

ISLAMS GOLDEN AGE OF SCIENCE (750

1258 CE)

THREE MUSLIM SCIENTISTS OF THE

GOLDEN AGE OF ISLAM

Jabir Ibn Hayyad

Geber the
Alchemist 721815

Ibn Musa Al
Khwarizmi (780850)
MathematicianPhysicist

Abu Bakr
Muhammad ibn
Zakkariya al
Rhazi (865-925 )
Physician

THE EUROPEAN MEDIEVAL AGES

Notre Dame de Chartres, France. The most beautiful

of Gothic cathedrals

SYLVESTER II, THE

MATHEMATICAL POPE
(943-1003)

Al Karaouin of Fez
in Morocco
The oldest Islamic
University

REINTRODUCTION OF GREEK AND

ROMAN SCIENCE TO EUROPE

Abacus

How to use the

Astrolabe

Armillary sphere

GERBERT INTRODUCES ARABIC

NUMERALS TO EUROPE

GERBERTS ABACUS

THE UNIVERSITY
AND ACADEMIC
FREEDOM

Not paying attention

Bored to death!
THE MEDIEVAL CLASSROOM Sleeping in class

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE

UNIVERSITY

A professor seated in his chair lectures

medieval students while a master holds
the college mace

THE EDUCATION OF CATHOLIC

PRIESTS

WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY?

Universitas magistrorum et scholarium

a community of teachers and scholars

ACADEMIC FREEDOM

WHAT IS ACADEMIC FREEDOM?

Academic freedom of professors
1.

The freedom to determine what to teach,

2.

The freedom to determine whom to teach

3.

The freedom to do research and to disseminate results

Academic freedom of students

4.

The freedom to choose which course of study to pursue

5.

The right to be fairly assessed

6.

The freedom of expression in accordance with law

What is illegal
7.

Universities and/or the government sanctioning professors or students due

to their support for certain ideas contrary to their beliefs, politics or ideology.

ALBERT THE GREAT (1193-1280)

Doctor
Universali
s

THOMAS AQUINAS (1225-1274)

Doctor
Angelicus

MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD

RICHARD OF WALLINGFORD (12921349)

Monk, abbot,
priest and
mathematician

RICHARD OF WALLINGFORDS CLOCK

REPLICAS

A reconstruction at a
science
Museum in England

At St Albans Cathedral
where the original once
stood

THE OLDEST UNIVERSITIES

1.

Bologna, Italy (1088)

2.

Paris, France (1150)

3.

Oxford, England (1167)

4.

Palencia, Spain* (1208)

5.

Cambridge, England
(1209)
Bologna, the oldest medieval
university
*became the University of
Valladolid, Spain

SCIENCE BECOMES AUTONOOUS:

RENAISSANCE AND REFORMATION

Leonardo da Vincis Vitruvian ManMartin Luther posts the 95 Theses

SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION AND THE

SECULARIZATION OF LIBERAL EDUCATION

AMERICAN LIBERAL EDUCATION

The first US universities were

Protestant
God and the Greeks
Theology and the Classics
Later on there was philosophy
And then the natural sciences

Harvard - Puritan

Yale - Congregational

Columbia- Anglican

YALES IDEA
not to teach that
is peculiar to any
of the professions
but lay the
foundation
common to them
all

HARVARDS IDEA: CHARLES ELIOT

1853

I want to give him

a practical
education; one that
will prepare him
better than I was
prepared to follow
my business or any
other calling

MEANWHILE ACROSS THE POND

WAS JOHN HENRY CARDINAL
NEWMAN
Convert to
Catholicism from
Anglicanism
Wrote an
important essay
The Idea of a
University

CARDINAL NEWMANS IDEA

All branches of knowledge are connected together,
because the subject-matter of knowledge is
intimately united in itself
This process of training, by which the intellect,
instead of being formed or sacrificed to some
particular or accidental purpose, some specific
trade or profession, or study or science, is
disciplined for its own sake, for the perception of
its own proper object, and for its own highest
culture, is called Liberal Education

NEWMANS IDEA

Society itself requires

some other
contribution from each
individual, besides the
particular duties of his
profession.

SCIENCE AND LIBERAL EDUCATION

Science has been separated from the rest of
liberal education
But the original idea is that Science (is a way of
training the mind) is at the heart of liberal
education
Science gives rigor to the other disciplines
Science left to the scientists alone Thats a
great disservice to knowledge

WHY DO WE NEED TO RECOVER THE

HUMANISTIC WHOLE?

LOSING THE HUMANISTIC WHOLE IS

ONE OF THE BIGGEST THREATS TO
LIBERTY!
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION