Quotations About Liberal Education

Mortimer J. Adler and Robert Maynard Hutchins were twin engines when it came to popularizing, promulgating, and proselytizing [about] liberal education, liberal arts, and a broadening of the American mind. Rolling over in their graves at present, these two “men of letters” were prominent, accomplished, and erudite individuals who wanted the best for the populace. Seemingly half-Ancient Greek, half Carolingian, half-pre-war American, these blue-bloods are now reminiscent of a by-gone era. Happily, they were prolific and outspoken, so we have plenty of books and quotations about liberal education from these gentlemen (they were as genteel and classical as two can be). They remind me of Mr. Keating, the inimitable professor from the movie Dead Poet’s Society. Perhaps less enthusiastic, but equally passionate about true learning – not just for some profession or to prevail on some standardized test. I present you with a little biographical sketch, a few representative quotes, and links to The Wisdom Archive, where you may search for free and learn more about what quotations about liberal education are in the collection. Put on your thinking cap and get out your pipe!

It would seem to be a common opinion in all ages that education should seek to develop the characteristic excellences of which men are capable and that its ultimate ends are human happiness and the welfare of society. ~ Robert M. Hutchins, Mortimer J. Adler, William Gorman, et. al.

Reform-minded educator Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899-1977) aroused controversy over his views on liberal education in America. Critical of overspecialization, he fought for a balance between college curriculum and Western intellectual tradition at the University of Chicago in the 1930s and 1940s. Until his retirement in 1974, three years before his death in 1977, Hutchins was chairman of the Board of Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. He was born in Brooklyn, New York, Jan. 17, 1899, but grew up in Oberlin, Ohio, where his father was professor of theology at Oberlin College. Hutchins himself entered Oberlin at the age of 16, only to have his academic career interrupted by World War I. His interesting story continues here. (the foregoing text courtesy of YourDictionary.com) My hat comes off to him for writing such a book as The Great Conversation: The Substance of a Liberal Education. About it, one reviewer wrote (on Goodreads): “This was the most concise, passionate, and persuasive plea to value and treasure great, old books I’ve ever read. The author addressed everything from how to read, to why to read, to the practical application of his multitudinous principles. Education is also redefined, adding incredible insight into the current norms of education. This will challenge your values for life in general, education in particular, and the role great books play in a holistic liberal arts education.”

It is not only the nature of the subject, but also the end which education serves, that determines whether its character is liberal. Even a liberal art becomes, in Aristotle’s opinion, ‘menial and servile…if done for the sake of others.’ …In other words, to be liberal, education must serve the use of leisure in the pursuit of excellence. It must treat man as an end, not as a means to be used by other men or by the state. ~ Robert M. Hutchins, Mortimer J. Adler, William Gorman, et. al.

Equally interesting was Mortimer J. Adler – the man who probably invented sewing leather elbow patches on a tweed jacket.  He is also responsible for many of the quotations about liberal education that populate The Wisdom Archive. I just finished reading a very handy and nicely done (if old-sounding) book The Great Ideas from the Great Books of Western Civilization. It is based on a couple years’ worth of public television interviews he did with Lloyd Luckman on these very topics. It was from the 1950s, based in San Francisco, where Adler headed the Institute for Philosophical Research. Both were high-minded feats of public philosophy. Here is an interesting, short interview with semi-intellectual William J. Buckley. Here is the authoritative source for all things Adlerian: the Center for the Study of the Great Ideas. I wish I could report that it was not sclerotic, but that is the time in which we live: Trump gets 10,000 times the news coverage that Adler, Hutchins, or liberal education get.

One opinion from which there is hardly a dissenting voice in the great books is that education should aim to make men good as men and as citizens. …William James stresses the need for ‘a perfectly-rounded development.’ ~ Robert M. Hutchins, Mortimer J. Adler, William Gorman, et. al.

Indeed, these intellectual powerhouses worked together on one of the most fascinating efforts (successes) in intellectual history I know of: Encyclopedia Brittanica’s Great Ideas: Great Books of the Western World. It is literally 54 volumes. It takes up like 5 feet of my bookshelf. It is absolutely rife with history, wisdom, intellectual heritage, brilliant insight, and synthesis. It is a collaboration between these two gentlemen, William Gorman, and probably thirty other men and women of letters. It’s truly remarkable. If you an intellectual and want to grace your bookshelf with a gem, look this up on eBay and see if you can find it for less than $200. It was allegedly a financial loss by Encyclopedia Brittanica, it took so much time, energy, and money to complete.

More quotations about liberal education by Robert Maynard Hutchins HERE

Further quotations about liberal education by Mortimer J. Adler HERE

The Synopticon is a 4-inch tome (part of the series) that is the cream of the crop: it scans all the books comprising the Great Books of the Western World series and culls from them themes, examples of liberal education, insights, and examples. Basically, the editors will choose a topic – say, Dialectic – and summarize it for four or five pages, at which point they will then cite every reference to dialectic that is present in the entire Great Ideas book series. It’s like a huge index. Essentially, if you want a standard-issue, Western-focused, conventional, academic look at what an idea represents, this is your book series. About The Synopticon, they write:

The great books are pre-eminently those which have given the western tradition its life and light. The unity of this set of books does not consist merely in the fact that each member of it is a great book worth reading. A deeper unity exists in the relation of all the books to one tradition, a unity shown by the continuity of the discussion of common themes and problems.

Adler believed there were 102 great ideas throughout history (Western, at least – starting from the pre-Socratic Greeks on through to an idea such as Progressivism. Among them are Government, Logic, Education, Change, Beauty, Fate, Liberty, etc. About the nature of this discreet number of themes present in intellectual history (especially Western intellectual history), Adler said: “One of the great ideas is GOVERNMENT. In outlining the topics that present the interior structure of that idea, we could have placed topics dealing with all the major forms of GOVERNMENT, such as TYRANNY AND DESPOTISM, MONARCHY, OLIGARCHY, ARISTOCRACY, and DEMOCRACY. But that would have made the chapter on government extraordinarily long and unwieldy; so we chose instead to develop separate chapters on the different forms of government mentioned above.”

The 102 great ideas that come up over and over again in the literary, intellectual, and philosophical history of Western civilization (and in large part, the entire history of thought regardless of time or place):

There is a congruence and relationship between the values of the wise, which are: Fulfillment – Meaning – Optimism – Truth – Dedication – Responsibility – Will – Vision – Humor – Knowledge – Wisdom – Education – Strength – Courage – Creativity – Ingenuity – Development – Progressivism – Integration – Justice – Kindness – Magnanimity – Altruism – Lightheartedness – Acceptance of the Absurd – Passion – Willingness to Risk – Self-Awareness

Now, a sampling of some quotations about liberal education from some great minds: 

Liberal education was aristocratic in the sense that it was the education of those who enjoyed leisure and political power. If it was the right education for those who had leisure and political power, then it is the right education for everybody today. ~ Robert M. Hutchins

….a good book can teach you about the world and about yourself. You learn more than how to read better; you also learn more about life. You become wiser. Not just more knowledgeable – books that provide nothing but information can produce that result. But wiser, in the sense that you are more deeply aware of the great and enduring truths of human life. ~ Mortimer J. Adler

Nobody can decide for himself whether he is going to be a human being. The only question open to him is whether he will be an ignorant undeveloped one or one who has sought to reach the highest point he is capable of attaining. ~ Robert M. Hutchins

The great authors were great readers, and one way to understand them is to read the books they read. ~ Mortimer J. Adler

Until lately the West has regarded it as self-evident that the road to education lay through great books. No man was educated unless he was acquainted with the masterpieces of his tradition. There never was much doubt in anybody’s mind about which the masterpieces were. They were the books that had endured and that the common voice of mankind called the finest creations, in writing, of the Western tradition. ~ Robert M. Hutchins

The person who says he knows what he thinks but cannot express it usually does not know what he thinks. ~ Mortimer J. Adler

The facts are indispensable; they are not sufficient. To solve a problem it is necessary to think. It is necessary to think even to decide what facts to collect. Even the experimental scientist cannot avoid being a liberal artist, and the best of them, as the great books show are men of imagination and of theory as well as patient observers of particular facts. … critics have themselves frequently misunderstood the scientific method and have confused it with the aimless accumulation of facts. ~ Robert M. Hutchins

Is it too much to expect from the schools that they train their students not only to interpret but to criticize; that is, to discriminate what is sound from error and falsehood, to suspend judgment if they are not convinced, or to judge with reason if they agree or disagree? ~ Mortimer J. Adler

Because of experimental science, we know a very large number of things about the natural world of which our predecessors were ignorant. In the great books, we can observe the birth of science, applaud the development of the experimental technique, and celebrate the triumphs it has won. But we can also note the limitations of the method and mourn the errors that its misapplication has caused. We can distinguish the outlines of those great persistent problems that the method … may never solve and find the clues to their solutions offered by other methods and other disciplines. ~ Robert M. Hutchins

More quotations about liberal education by Robert Maynard Hutchins HERE

Further quotations about liberal education by Mortimer J. Adler HERE

Here is a slightly pedantic but informative book on the subject. In it you will, as I did, find many quotations about liberal education – and a full-throated support of it by a modern intellectual. Also try this one.

A neat video-based look at Western Civilization can be found here, and I recommend it.