What happened to it? For centuries, people in Europe and America were taught the classical liberal arts education of the trivium (grammar, logic and rhetoric) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy). This would, of course, be bolstered by other studies such as geology, philosophy, theology or what have you but for centuries it seemed to work and produced our great thinkers and leaders.
So what happened? Why has it fallen by the wayside, seemingly becoming hijacked by/associated with the idea of lazy/useless young people and crap like gender studies and the like? At the same time there's an increasing emphasis on going to school to find a job or career as opposed to going to become an educated, virtuous, enlightened man. What caused that change and is there any way to get back to it?
A liberal arts education today has little value, since the world labor supply exceeds the world supply of capital. 50,000,000 more liberal arts-educated people would not expand the economy as much as 50,000,000 more people educated in diverse subject matter.
Also recall that education was the purview of the wealthy before public schools became widespread. Being wealthy precludes the need for functional education in welding or structural engineering, for example.
Also consider that even in primary school, we know far more about the natural world than our ancestors, so more and more of the curriculum is taken up by ideas like "evolution" and "ecology" and socially useful subjects like drug prevention or civics.
>>1179612
So I guess that brings up the question of why even have an education in the first place? Just give kids a basic grade school education then start them in vocational schools as early as possible. There's no real value placed on knowledge anymore because it seems that the options are "GOTTA WORK GONNA BE A STEMLORD" or "fuck you gonna major in gender studies with a focus on undocumented Amazonian tribes". It just seems that education as a whole has become far more compartmentalized with everything getting its own niche and less broad with the idea of creating a well-rounded individual.
>>1180955
Well take it from the name artes liberales, can be interpreted as "arts" for the free men.
As Cicero said, you are little different than a slave if you have to get up in the morning and toil until sunset in order to eat.
Hence liberal arts should be reserved for the rich. It was reserved for the rich in early 20st, century and beyond. Thank FDR's GI bill that eventually made everyone thinking they are entitled for a college education.
If you have to work in order to eat, you shouldn't study liberal arts, humanities etc.
>>1180971
>beyond*
before.
>>1180971
I don't think it's something that ever 100% was (or should be) reserved for the realm of the rich though. It seemed to be more for the driven. Garfield grew up poor to a single mother in bumfuck Ohio working on riverboats and decided "fuck that" and educated himself enough to get into school and took off from there.
I would say that a classic liberal arts education focusing on the trivium and quadrivium with some extra (useful) shit mixed in like a knowledge of the law or history should be a requirement for public service though. Maybe not at the local or county level but at the state or especially national level? You better be able to speak and you better know your Cicero and whatnot. Colleges should really just drop the bullshit degrees, focus on classical education and if you want STEM or some other shit make your Tech schools (or other vocational schools) their domain. Maybe it's just a romanticized notion of the classic education I have though just from the bits I've read. It's funny because in early America, to be a man of any renown you HAD to have that sort of an education. Now it's completely looked down on.
