Toward Liberal Education [antikvár]

The idea for this book began several years ago when we were thinking and reading and arguing with our colleagues about liberal education in America. Our constant purpose has been to make an anthology that would help college students understand what liberal education can mean to them. As it seemed to us, the reading provided in most freshman courses went a good way toward realizing this purpose. But the effort was often partial and sometimes fitful. The principal differences between Toward Liberal Education and earlier collections of readings are those of development rather than of radical change. First, this collection points steadily in the direction indicated by its title. Without deviating into models at one time or mere entertainment at another, it seeks systematically to explore the skills and disciplines of our humanistic culture. Second, it makes this exploration by the use of writing chosen for its intrinsic worth. It does not talk down to its readers. In this volume, Toward Liberal Education, the first three parts are con- cerned with the skills of a liberal education: learning, reading and writing, •and thinking. The four parts that follow these represent the great areas of liberal learning: the arts, science, society, and philosophy and religion. The second volume, Introduction to Literaturey turns to that discipline which is particularly cherished by teachers of English: literature of the imagination. The development of all these parts aims at presenting the material to the student with force and meaning. In arranging the parts in their present order, we thus feel that we have provided a sound framework for a course which uses the anthology. Yet we recognize that each school and each teacher may properly wish to rearrange the order of our materials for special needs. As in earlier editions, we have provided teachers with a wide range of material with the expectation that few will want to assign everything, but with confidence that such abundance of readings provides a latitude of choice which gives individuality and richness to the course. We have chosen writing that bears the stamp of permanent value. This standard has not meant that we stayed in the past. But it has meant the exclusion of superficial journalizing and a disregard for the timeliness of yesterday's newspaper. College students, we believe, not only are capable of hard, solid reading, but are happier when they are expected to do it. Such read-