Why We Should Study the Liberal Arts and Humanities

In the Greco-Roman world, which provided the foundation of modern thought, the man who was free was the man who studied the artes liberales, literally the ‘honorable knowledges’ or, liberal arts. In the middle ages, the formulated curriculum of schooling was based on two parts, the trivium (the study of grammar, Latin, rhetoric and logic) and the quadrivium (the study of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music), which are the parents of modern liberal arts. For centuries, the study of liberal arts along with the humanities has been considered the mark of education and a basis to the thought of the studied individual. In today’s academic world, however, the scholars, professors, and administrators that formulate curriculums and develop learning processes for students seem to have taken an apprehensive step away from these studies. The liberal arts are also being assaulted by themselves, as faculty change the meaning away from the origins of the trivium and quadrivium. In accordance with humanities, they are often discouraged as the careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) are constantly bolstered. In a world that is being entirely reoriented by the advancements in computers, robots, and the like, this encouragement to study the production of such advancements would seem to make sense. But left behind in thinking this is the remembrance that the human mind itself is not to be programmed, but rather prepared and guided to adapt and innovate, holding a base in its own capability, cultivated by studies of the liberal arts.

As previously alluded to, part of the faltering of liberal arts studies is due to a promotion by the government, which orchestrates all public schooling, towards STEM. President Obama said as such: “One of the things that I’ve been focused on as president is how we create an all hands on deck approach to science, technology, engineering, and math. We need to make this a priority to train an army of new teachers in these subject areas and make sure that all of us as a country are lifting up these subjects for the respect they deserve.” His administration, according to the White House website, is allocating over 700 million dollars towards “Preparing 100,000 new and effective STEM teachers over the next decade [,] Showcasing and bolstering federal investment in STEM [, and] Broadening participation to inspire a more diverse STEM talent pool”. Many people seem to come to conclusions on their own, even without the government’s encouragement of STEM. With some of today’s highest rewarding fields in technological advancements, why would someone major in something pertaining to anything else? Often times, the cost of university can scare away potential humanities or liberal arts majors, because of fear of ability to get a job. Enrollments in the humanities, which are the children of the liberal arts, have decreased by over fifty percent since the year 1967, two years after the release of the first personal computer. Between 2007 and 2008 alone, engineering majors increased by 57.1 percent, and STEM on the whole saw a 48 percent increase in majors. As these majors and graduates steadily grow in numbers, humanities majors steadily decrease.

This is not meant to condemn STEM. In reality, STEM are indeed the most practical studies for the modern era. However, these modernly pertinent subjects are much more susceptible to sterility without a basis of liberal arts study. Apple CEO Steve Jobs once said, when discussing the importance of non-technological factors to his tech empire, "It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough…It’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields the results that make our hearts sing." With these words Jobs culminates the essence of human study. The perfection of modern technology is not an equation alone but an equation applied by way of a formulated human mind. And what formulates the human mind more so than the “honorable knowledges”? Steve Jobs, who lived believing in the importance of the liberal arts and humanities, is able to more perfectly manifest his technology in accordance with these beliefs. Elizabeth Segran, a columnist for fastcompany.com so intuitively points out that “It’s a horrible irony that the very moment the world has become more complex, we’re encouraging our young people to be highly specialized in one task.” That is, instead of stepping out to manage and maintain the complex world, full of complex businesses and technology, the graduated students are plugging themselves into the machine, becoming an applied and replaceable part which can be applied nowhere else but its current position. There seems to be minimal adaptability as a result of the avoidance of humanities and liberal arts. It is an epidemic of the human mind to only know what to think as opposed to how to think.

A solely technically trained mind may have the tendency to believe that each problem has a lone answer to be achieved in a formulaic way. However, a technical mind with a background in humanities or liberal arts knows how to think out a problem in accordance with the formula used to solve it. This small factor presents the simplicity of managing the machine as opposed to being a part of it. This continues to show the reason for the prominence of studying liberal arts throughout the history of education. Rev. James Maher, president of Niagara University says that “teaching liberal arts has been the central focus of higher education for centuries, and indeed has formed the underlying basis of advancement in science, technology, engineering, and math.

Another assault on the studying of the liberal arts regards the issue of the post-college jobs and salary. The significance of an art history, for example, was recently called into question by President Obama. He said “I promise you, folks can make a lot more, potentially, with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree.” The average salary for a trade school graduate is 42,000 dollars a year. The average salary, taken from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, between art museum curators, archivists, and art history professors is 54,000 dollars. This does not even consider the men and women with art history degrees who chose other careers or graduate school and succeeded there based on their ability to think. The median pay for those who have a bachelor’s degree in philosophy is 82,000 dollars a year. As said by Bouree Lam, a writer for the Atlantic, “philosophy majors might not come out of college with the skill-set that business majors have, they have creative problem solving abilities that sets them apart.” The same goes for most liberal arts majors. The unemployment rate for graduates with a liberal arts major is just above seven percent, while for STEM it is just above six. In effect, there is no difference.

STEM may indeed be the necessary future of studying. The world evolves, and with it its studies. But one cannot, in moving forward, reject all human thought and its formation. One cannot simply discard the studies of Socrates, Plato, and Vergil. STEM with no base in the liberal arts is a mastery of formulas and their applications, rather than a mastery in the understanding of formulas that new ones may be created and progression occur. The liberal arts have since the inception of education been the base of studies, and remained so through incomprehensible progression. And so, thus they must remain if that same rate of progression is to be maintained. Ideal modern study is neither a rejection of new things nor a relinquishing of the classical. It is a marriage of new ideas and age old thought that moves forward the human race.