The simple fact is, no one, unless they belong to that rather peculiar, rare group of people, who like to learn for learning’s sake, will spend considerable amounts of money, only to get a job, that will barely pay the rent, let alone pay off their student loans.

Of course, I’m kidding about people being “peculiar” for wanting to learn for learning’s sake, after all, I consider myself part of this group, but I do think that, for purely pragmatic, need to pay the rent, utilities, car payment, and all the other, um, incidentals of life, this group, if it’s not rare already, will soon be.

What to do? Certainly, Craig Payne’s point about professors getting students excited, is a good one, but it presupposes that they’re in the classroom, already. If they don’t see the point of even enrolling in a Liberal Arts class, getting them excited, over it, is a moot point.

One possible alternative, is to require ALL students, to learn Greek, and Latin, art history, the history of the world from prehistoric times, to the present, to take philosophy from the presocratics, to our contemporary times, to understand religion, to understand Drama, from the ancient Greeks, such as Aeschylus, the Romans, such as Plautus and Terence, to read and understand Shakespeare, Henri Ibsen, Anton Chekhov, George Bernard Shaw, the rich literature from Gilgamesh, Dante, to the present, regardless of their majors.

Of course, this quixotic suggestion will never materialize.

Also, if one wishes to purchase, and read on one’s own, Aquinas’s great SUMMA THEOLOGIAE,one can buy it from IGNATIUS PRESS: http://www.ignatius.com/

Also, if one wants all of Aristotle’s extant works, translated by the Aristotilean scholar Jonathon Barnes, among other great works, consider EIGHTH DAY BOOKShttp://eighthdaybooks.com/

And, while I’m at it, THE GREAT COURSES, provides excellent courses, on a plethora of subjects: http://www.thegreatcourses.com/greatcourses.aspx

the Liberal Arts are immensely precious, and anyone not just introduced to them, but also comprehensively immersed in them, possesses a state not unlike poverty, in the economic realm.

To not have any understanding of our great monotheistic traditions, how they influenced the emergence of empirical science, to have never read any of Plato, Aristotle, the golden age of greece, one could go on, and on, is overwelmingly sad.

I live in Utah. We have some great universities, here, University of Utah, and Brigham Young University, Utah State University. I think that they do take the Liberal Arts seriously.

Thomas Aquinas College, in California, is unique, as far as I know, in not having textbooks, but requiring students to read the great works, of the thinkers of our great past, and present. I must confess to envying anyone fortunate enough to have graduated from this amazing, wonderful school.

Nothing at all wrong with vocational training centers; they perform a necessary function. But when people can get actual college diplomas in vocational subjects, the college diploma tends to mean less and less even as (paradoxically) it becomes more and more the entry ticket into a well-paid job. So then we end up with absurdities like a class of auto mechanics taking a required poetry class in order to help qualify for a “college diploma” in auto mechanics instead of a “training certificate.”

All sorts of other problems come along with this; for instance, colleges begin adopting the “customer service” model of education. Colleges now have to please the expectations of entering students–and the students expect high grades, minimal work, and ultra-cooperative professors, or else they pack up their federal money and move to a more accommodating college.

Sorry to sound so bleak, but this is the way it is right now. Getting students excited over the traditional liberal arts now depends more than ever on individual professors and their ability to connect with students. Otherwise, students now see liberal arts subjects as the hurdles they are forced to jump in order to get to their “more important” vocational training.

Some of these self-worshipping professors have their own devout groupies and they will and do look you in the eye.

P.S. Good article.