True, and tragic. A liberal arts degree once meant that one was educated to be an informed citizen: history, literature, economics, composition, rather than being trained in some technical discipline.
My high school English teacher used to say that a technical education taught you how to make a living; a liberal education taught you how to live. That was true in her day, and still somewhat true when I was an undergraduate. But in the last 60 years, the liberal arts have gone to hell in a handbasket.
s”My high school English teacher used to say that a technical education taught you how to make a living; a liberal education taught you how to live.”
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I agree with that, in fact I tend to agree with some who have said that purely technical subjects such as computer science are really job training and should not even be called education. My only formal post secondary schooling was a 38 week Navy electronics school which was very intensive. I would certainly call it job training rather than education. It was my public school exposure to history, geography, civics, literature, English, etc. that gave me an idea of what the world is about and how governments work. Unfortunately much of that is no longer taught. I was expected to be able to sit down and write out a description of how a bill went through congress and explain what riders and amendments were and how a veto worked and how it could be overridden etc. By the time I finished high school I probably knew more about the workings of the United States government than most of the people running for congress know now. I am certain I had a better understanding of the TRUE meaning of the constitution than many of those who currently wear robes unless they are just pretending they don’t understand it.
I even learned how to calculate the area in acres of a piece of land, something that most people now have no clue where to begin. I am astounded now to see how many cannot even say how many feet are in a mile! By the time I was 17 I knew that figure as well as I knew my own name, I couldn’t forget it if I tried. Some may say that is not important now but they are the same people who buy a house and lot and say they have two acres of land when I can see at a glance that it is less than half that. My father had an eighth grade education and he used to be amused at people who had no idea what an acre is. He could glance at a field and tell you the area within plus or minus five percent.