The Conservative Arts
Recently, as I read Tom Bonner's excellent biography of Abraham Flexner, one passage really struck a chord. Flexner was a man who, among other things, revolutionized medical education in the United States. He had firm opinions about what colleges ought to do, and Bonner quotes him as lamenting the fact that there was no core to what undergraduates were learning at colleges and universities across the land.
That lament came nearly 100 years ago. And if Flexner had cause to lament about the curriculum then, he would have even more cause to do so now. In my opinion, too many colleges and universities have forgotten the importance of a conservative core in the liberal arts.
I realize one interpretation of that statement is to wonder if I'm advocating a return to the trivium of the Middle Ages-grammar, logic, rhetoric-
or to the more “advanced” quadrivium of arithmetic, astronomy, geometry, and music. Not at all. Obviously, our knowledge has expanded tremendously, and undergraduates today can dig into subjects that students in my day, much less six decades earlier, could not even contemplate. Witness, for instance, what young people do with computers today-and I am not talking about simply playing computer games.
No, what I am talking about is the sad fact that while high schools are sending to colleges students who are less prepared than past years with a firm grasp of certain basic concepts, some institutions are doing away with all requirements. We run the risk, accordingly, of producing college graduates who simply do not have an understanding of certain basic tenets.
Of course, graduates of a liberal arts college such as Union should have a general and broadly-based foundation for living in a changing world. They should take with them an adherence to such fundamental principles as freedom of inquiry and freedom of speech, and an understanding of the historical roots that gave birth to those principles. Graduates should have a habit of mind eager to know what the truth is and a persistence in attempting to find it.
Furthermore, a liberal arts college also ought to give its students some understanding of the social order and of the contributions of arts and science to the progress of society. It ought to impart a knowledge of the fundamentals and economics of government. It should also expose its students to a range of information which, in my opinion, gives them a firm grasp of Western Civilization, among other things.
We do this at Union with our General Education program which, while avoiding a precise listing
of individual course requirements, does require our students to reach beyond their majors. All of our regular degree students must complete courses in four areas-history, literature, and civilization; social or behavioral science; mathematics and
natural science; and other languages, other cultures, and other disciplines. They must also complete certain Writing Across the Curriculum requirements.
It is, I think, an education that does much to impart in its students an appreciation of the total achievement of the human race. It is, in a sense, a conservative arts education.
Certainly, there are those who say our program is too conservative-too focused on Western Civilization, for example. Yet, as well meaning as proponents of change from our Western-oriented program are, I would hope that they come to understand that the best solution is to demand more of students by asking them to develop an understanding of other peoples and culture through area studies, and to do so after-after-having a better understanding of what the roots
of our civilization are. Important as Africana and East Asian and Latin American studies are,
they should be viewed as a complement to, not a substitute for, a Western Civilization core.
Abraham Flexner was not happy with what he saw nearly 100 years ago. I would like to think
that he would be cheered by Union's approach.