The seven liberal arts - Picture from the Hortus deliciarum of Herrad von Landsberg (12th century)

Liberal arts are the skills derived from the Classical education curriculum.

[edit] History

[edit] Definition

The term liberal arts denotes a curriculum that imparts general knowledge and develops the student’s rational thought and intellectual capabilities^[vague], unlike the professional, vocational, technical curricula emphasizing specialization. The contemporary liberal arts comprise studying literature, languages, philosophy, history, mathematics, and science.^[1] In classical antiquity, the liberal arts denoted the education proper to a free man (Latin: liber, “free”), unlike the education proper to a slave. In the 5th Century AD, Martianus Capella academically defined the seven Liberal Arts as: grammar, dialectic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music. In the medieval Western university, the seven liberal arts were:

• the Trivium

1. grammar
2. rhetoric
3. logic

• the Quadrivium

4. geometry
5. arithmetic
6. music
7. astronomy

[edit] Visual arts

The liberal arts include the visual arts. Renaissance supporters of the visual arts — architecture, painting, sculpture, classed as mechanical and manual arts — argued their inclusion to the liberal arts; among said advocates were Leon Battista Alberti, Leonardo da Vinci, and Giorgio Vasari. In Italy, and among Renaissance humanists, the academic matter was decided around 1500,^[2] yet it required another century in Spain and England.

[edit] Liberal arts colleges in the United States

In the United States, Liberal arts colleges are schools emphasising undergraduate study in the liberal arts. Traditionally earned over four years of full-time study, the student earned either a Bachelor of Arts degree or a Bachelor of Science degree; on completing undergraduate study, students might progress to either a graduate school or a professional school (public administration, business, law, medicine, theology). The teaching is Socratic, to small classes, and at a greater teacher-to-student ratio than at universities;^{[citation needed]} professors teaching classes are allowed to concentrate more on their teaching responsibilities than primary research professors or graduate student teaching assistants, in contrast to the instruction common in universities.^{[citation needed]} Modern liberal arts colleges accommodate the non-traditional student, which allows for - among other things - part-time study. Despite the European origin of the liberal arts college,^[3] the term liberal arts college usually denotes liberal arts colleges in the United States.

[edit] See also

• The Mechanical Arts
• Bachelor of Liberal Studies
• Bachelor of Liberal Arts
• Bachelor of General Studies
• Bachelor of Arts
• Doctor of Liberal Studies
• Great Books Program
• Great Books Programs in Canada
• Liberal arts college
• Master of Liberal Studies

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Blaich, Charles, Anne Bost, Ed Chan, and Richard Lynch. Defining Liberal Arts Education. Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts, 2004.
• Blanshard, Brand. The Uses of a Liberal Education: And Other Talks to Students. (Open Court, 1973. ISBN 0-8126-9429-5)
• Friedlander, Jack. Measuring the Benefits of Liberal Arts Education in Washington's Community Colleges. Los Angeles: Center for the Study of Community Colleges, 1982a. (ED 217 918)
• Joseph, Sister Miriam. The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric. Paul Dry Books Inc, 2002.
• Pfnister, Allen O. "The Role of the Liberal Arts College." The Journal of Higher Education. Vol. 55, No. 2 (March/April 1984): 145-170.
• Reeves, Floyd W. "The Liberal-Arts College." The Journal of Higher Education. Vol. 1, No. 7 (1930): 373-380.
• Seidel, George. "Saving the Small College." The Journal of Higher Education. Vol. 39, No. 6 (1968): 339-342.
• Winterer, Caroline.The Culture of Classicism: Ancient Greece and Rome in American Intellectual Life, 1780-1910. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.
• Wriston, Henry M. The Nature of a Liberal College. Lawrence University Press, 1937.
• T. Kaori Kitao, William R. Kenan, Jr."The Usefulness Of Uselessness" [1] Keynote Address, The 1999 Institute for the Academic Advancement of Youth's Odyssey at Swarthmore College, 27 March 1999

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Liberal arts

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Seven liberal arts

• The Annapolis Group/College News
• The Classical Liberal Arts Academy
• Philosophy of Liberal Education
• Liberal Arts at the Community College
• A Descriptive Analysis of the Community College Liberal Arts Curriculum
• The Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts
• Academic Commons
• CatholiCity: Catholic Encyclopedia