All There is to Know

My daughter is a nervous wreck. She's a senior in high school and she just completed her college applications. It will be two or three months until she hears back. She's a bright girl, a gifted writer, a talented violinist and a serious student, but she'll be up against tough competition for admission to the kinds of schools she's targeting. None of them accepts even half of the students who apply, and many accept only one in five, or even one in ten. They are the cream of America's liberal arts colleges and universities.

What's interesting to me is why a liberal arts education continues to be so popular in our era of micro-specialization. No one seems to be hiring classics majors, anthropologists or art historians, yet freshman humanities courses emphasizing classical literature are still required at many liberal arts schools, and subjects like art history and anthropology are both popular majors. There may be diminishing financial rewards for "generalists," but our most prestigious institutions of higher learning continue to graduate them by the tens of thousands every spring. Why?

As a product of a liberal arts education, I'll suggest an answer. I think it's because intellectually curious human beings want to feel like they have a basic understanding of the world they live in, and their place in it. They go to liberal arts colleges because they're seeking encyclopedic knowledge. (Useful piece of trivia: the word encyclopedia comes from the Greek for "instruction in the circle of knowledge," which about sums up the agenda at most liberal arts schools).

OK, that's fine as far as it goes. But how do you make a living? A generation or so ago, just having a college diploma -- no matter the major -- almost guaranteed you a decent, white-collar job. No more. Now you need specific training for most jobs, especially those involving science and technology. So what good is that BA in English in our modern, high-tech world?

Well, for one thing, a liberal arts education is basic training for anyone who intends to do battle in the world of ideas. It helps to know some history if you intend to pursue a career in public service (like the history of North and South Korea, Governor Palin), or to have a basic understanding of world affairs and some facility with a foreign language if you intend to pursue a career in international business. But more than any practical application, a solid liberal arts education provides a foundation for life-long learning.

The sad fact is that I have probably forgotten at least half of the "facts" I learned in college (sorry, Wesleyan). But I think I'm much more knowledgeable today than I was when I graduated because I've pursued so many of the interests I first acquired there. The truth is, even if you never leave the library, you won't learn all you need to know in just four years. What a good liberal arts education does -- or should do -- is whet your appetite for continued learning.

I have a book by Alexander Coleman on my bookshelf called "All There is to Know." It's a selection of excerpts from the Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, published in 1910. Hans Koning wrote in the New Yorker that Britannica's Eleventh was the last version of that encyclopedia to contain what its authors considered to be the sum of all human knowledge. The Great War and the decline of traditional empires put an end to the hubris that characterized the Age of Reason. But still, the idea that just a century ago you could buy a complete education in just 29 finely-bound volumes is something to think about.

I don't know what Britannica's Eleventh cost in 1910, but I'm sure it was a lot less than four years at Brown, Hamilton, Wesleyan or Trinity costs today. And for all that cash, you still don't get all there is to know.