What Are the Liberal Arts?

THIS IS THE QUESTION raised by John Herman Randall Jr., in the most recent number of the American Scholar the Phi Beta Kappa's admirable quarterly. By "liberal" arts one commonly means non-technological arts. Some go so far as to say that a liberal art is "one which by no possibility helps you to earn a living." The term is probably broader than that and may be applied to any art which helps to liberate the mind and fit us to be free citizens in a free world. Usually the devotee of liberal education stresses the "humanities," especially the classic literatures; and quite rightly, too. But it may be well to appreciate that when the study of Latin and Greek literature degenerates, as it too often does, into a technical study of conjugations, inflections and grammatical minutiae, it can become a most illiberal art, very little calculated to set free the mind. Conversely, a so-called "science" may be so inspiringly taught as to be as liberal as any art can be. Professor Ran- dall appears to come to the conclusion that liberal arts depend not so much on their subject as on the way they are taught.

It is evidently our destiny to become a nation of competent technicians, but there is no reason why we should not also be a nation of free minds. One harks back to the admonition of the Bible: "Get wisdom; and with all thy getting, get understanding." Understanding and vision are the things that the liberal arts have to serve, and in that sense perhaps any art is liberal—another of the "humanities" when properly presented and used.