The Liberal Arts as Vocational Education
IN THIS postwar period, I am impressed with two significant developments in higher education that meet head on and have yet to be satisfactorily reconciled. I refer to the current recrudescence of emphasis upon the values of general or liberal education on the one hand; and on the other, the increasing tendency of college students, notably veterans, to pursue courses of apparent vocational meaning. I believe both of these forces are good, that each can be justified; I believe further that they can be harmonized in the interest both of the students and of the colleges of liberal arts. One of the prerequisites to learning is the desire of the student to learn, which presupposes sustained motivation throughout the learning period. It may also be said that learning depends in part upon the desire of the teacher to teach. When these desires to learn and to teach stem at least to some extent from the same motives, maximum benefits accrue to the student. This I consider to be elementary, but extremely pertinent to this discussion. Unless students and teachers approach learning from substantially the same points of reference and pursue it to similar ends, confusion, disappointment, mediocrity, or even bitterness may well be the result to the student or the teacher. I have stated that a renewed emphasis of teaching today is to impart general or liberal education to students. At the same time, the student is now in large part, if not primarily, concerned with acquiring vocational education, at least to the extent that he may see a definite relationship between his college courses and the career for which he is preparing himself to earn a living. If a happy issue is to be achieved for the student, there must be, between him and his college or his teachers, a complete understanding of what each is seeking to accomplish plus the will to move together toward a common objective. This seems almost too obvious to mention, but because such rapport is frequently not obtained, I would stress the point. The student must realize what is meant by general or liberal education, its purpose and values; and the institution must know and understand that the student is seeking not only an education for "life," but a way of earning his livelihood, which means