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本帖最后由 geonet 于 2022-5-31 08:42 编辑
所有的教育问题的答案都在教育之外
https://www.sohu.com/a/204734237_387107
百科
博雅教育 （素质教育）
博雅教育（英文：Liberal Arts Education）又可译为通识教育、文科教育、人文教育、通才教育、素质教育等。“博雅”的拉丁文（Artes liberales）原意是“适合自由人”，在古希腊所谓的自由人指的是社会及政治上的精英。古希腊倡导博雅教育(Liberal Education)，旨在培养具有广博知识和优雅气质的人，让学生摆脱庸俗、唤醒卓异。其所成就的，不是没有灵魂的专门家，而是成为一个有文化的人。
在现代社会中，博雅教育被认为是一种基于社会中的人的通才素质教育。它不同于专业教育、专才教育。在东方，这种教育的传统可以追溯到先秦时代的六艺教育和汉朝以后通常的儒家教育；六艺教育注重综合知识和技能，而儒家教育偏重人格和人文素质。博雅教育所涉足的范畴随着社会而变迁，到了近代，人文和科学都成为了博雅教育的重要组成部分，以致博雅教育又被称为文理教育。
目录
1 简介
2 缺点
3 发展情况
▪ 台湾
▪ 香港
▪ 欧洲
▪ 美国
简介
无论是古罗马人的七艺还是中国儒家的六艺，都体现了一种使人性臻于完善的教育理想。其中古罗马的七艺是指文法、修辞学、辩证法、音乐、算术、几何学、天文学，儒家的六艺是指礼、乐、射、御、书、数。博雅教育的目的不是给学生一种职业训练或专业训练，而是通过几种基本知识和技能，培养一种身心全面发展的理想的人格，或者说发展一种丰富的健康的人性。
英国思想家约翰·密尔对博雅教育的总结最为精辟：“每件事都知道一点，有一件事知道的多一些。”
哈佛大学杜维明教授考察了中国大陆、美国、香港和台湾的博雅教育后是这样总结的，博雅教育在中国的普遍称为素质教育，美国称为Liberal Arts Education, 香港称为博雅教育，台湾通称为通识教育。虽然对博雅教育的叫法不同，但是各方面都一致认为在传授专业知识的同时，大学应该注重通识教育，提供人文训练，培养人文素质。
缺点
博雅教育不主张专业知识的学习，采用的是捆绑式教育，一个学生要应付十多门的课程，教育出来的学生貌似什么都懂，实际上是什么都不精，而且出来工作后在学校学的东西一般都应用不上，加上学得又不精，就造成了知识容易遗忘现象，遗忘后学了的知识等于没有学，造成了教育的浪费，中央电视台有个游戏节目《幸运52》就是用小学的知识去考出来工作后的成年人，好多人都答不出小学的题目，就可以说明问题。
在美国品质最好的大学及规模不大的学院通常采用博雅教育。对于极优秀的学生，博雅教育为未来的社会领袖提供比较全面的知识，而且由于学生的学习能力强，广读群书没有问题，哈佛、斯坦福这些精英大学都采用博雅教育的办学精神。
发展情况
台湾
台湾系统的博雅教育被称为“通识教育”，开始于台湾大学。台湾教育家虞兆中认为，现代大学和传统儒家教育观一脉相承，学生人格养成应在学校教育中居于重要地位，于是出任台大校长时建立通才教育。随后，台湾各大学相继推行。在台湾，博雅教育是大学教育的基础组成部分。例如，台大通识教育课程分为文学与艺术、历史思维、世界文明、道德与哲学思考、公民意识与社会分析、量化分析与数学素养、物质科学、生命科学八大领域。
香港
在香港，以博雅教育为宗旨的唯一一所大学是岭南大学。前任校长陈坤耀曾解释博雅教育的宗旨是要教导人“学识广博，生活高雅”。2008年香港教育统筹局于高中课程引入博雅教育。
欧洲
在欧洲，博雅教育的原来意义是中等研习，只是涉足普遍知识及智识技术，着重于知识的承传，而不是专门或者专业技术。博雅教育在欧洲教育历史中的七大范畴被分为“三道”（初等级）和“四道”（高等级）两类。“三道”包括语法、修辞学及辩证法。“四道”包括算术、几何、天文及音乐。这成了欧洲中世纪大学核心课程。虽然曾经只注重古典教育，但博雅教育在欧洲启蒙时代之后被宣传为解放思想及破除成见，随着科学及人文的地位提升，两者在近代都纳入博雅教育的范畴。
美国
在美国，四年制的大学极着重博雅教育，所有学士课程皆要求学生于首两年受博雅教育之思考训练，而在学士第三年才修读主修课程。另外亦有专注于博雅教育的教学机构，被称为“文理学院”，通常为四年制。其毕业生要在其他的学院如研究生院才能得到专业的培训，例如：商学、法学、医学、神学等等。
一般而言，当代美国的博雅文学学士（BA in Liberal Arts）包括下列学科的教育：经济学、政治学、国际关系学、统计学、哲学、城市研究、传媒学、教育学、历史学、语言学、文学、外语、心理学、性别研究、文化研究、族群及区域研究、民俗学、社会学、考古学、人类学、地理学、古典学、犯罪学、管理学等。
美国境外的学院都受到了这些美国高等学院启发，包括德国的欧洲博雅学院。这类型的教育未曾在英国出现，连博雅教育一词都很少谈及。反而澳洲墨尔本维多利亚大学提供两年制TAFE文凭课程（博雅文凭课程）。
A LIBERAL EDUCATION 通识教育
www.tjxz.cc 2019年1月20
A LIBERAL EDUCATION 通识教育 By Thomas Henry Huxley 托马斯·亨利·赫胥黎
A LIBERAL EDUCATION, by Thomas Henry Huxley, as reprinted in Roger Sherman Loomis's Freshman Readings, Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1925, pp. 301-305.
Thomas Henry Huxley （1825-1895）, English biologist who lectured widely and wrote extensively.
What is education? Above all things, what is our ideal of a thoroughly liberal education? —of that education which, if we could begin life again, we would give ourselves—of the education which, if we could mold the fates to our own will, we would give our children? Well, I know not what may be your conceptions upon this matter but I will tell you mine, and I hope I shall find that our views are not very discrepant. 何谓教育？特别是在我们心中，真正的通识教育理想是什么？如若一切能够重来，我们会让自己接受这样的教育吗？如若命运能够掌握在自己手中，我们会让自己的孩子接受这样的教育吗？我不了解你们对此有何看法，但是我想吐露自己的想法，并希望我们的观点不要有太大分歧。
Suppose it were perfectly certain that the life and fortune of every one of us would, one day or other, depend upon his winning or losing a game at chess. Don't you think we should all consider it to be a primary duty to learn at least the names and the moves of the pieces; to have a notion of a gambit, and a keen eye for all the means of giving and getting out of check? Do you not think that we should look with a disapprobation amounting to scorn upon the father who allowed his son, or the state which allowed its members, to grow up without knowing a pawn from a knight? 假使真的存在这么一种情况，即我们每个人的生命和财产有一天要由自己在象棋比赛中的输赢决定，那么，你们不认为我们的首要任务是对象棋进行一定的学习吗？比如，至少要学习每个棋子的名称和走法、掌握开局棋法、谙熟各种“将军”及“被将军”的策略等。另外，如果一个父亲或一个国家放任他的儿子或人民，在长大或成熟后竟不分卒马，那么，你们不认为我们应当对这样的父亲和国家嗤之以鼻吗？
Yet, it is a plain and elementary truth that the life, the fortune, and the happiness of every one of us, and, more or less, of those who are connected with us, do depend upon our knowing something of the rules of a game infinitely more difficult and complicated than chess. It is a game which has been played for untold ages, every man and woman of us being one of the two players, in a game of his or her own. The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance. To the man who plays well, the highest stakes are paid, with that sort of overflowing generosity with which the strong shows delight in strength. And one who plays ill is checkmated—without haste, but without remorse. 然而，一个基本事实显而易见，即我们及与我们相关的每个人的生命、财产和幸福，都取决于我们对某个游戏规则的了解程度，这些规则比象棋规则更难、更复杂。这场游戏持续了多久我们无从知晓，但我们每个男男女女都是这场游戏的参与者，各自进行着对弈。这场游戏中，棋盘就是整个世界，棋子则是宇宙现象，游戏规则便是我们所说的自然法则。游戏中我们虽然看不见对方，但我们都知道，对方是秉着公平、公正以及耐心来对弈的。但是，在付出代价之后，我们才知道对方从不放过我们的丝毫过错，对我们的疏漏也不做点滴宽容。游戏中，强者会被慷慨地授予最高奖励，从而使强者愉悦万分，而弱者只有慢慢地被将死，无人同情。
My metaphor will remind some of you of the famous picture in which Retzsch has depicted Satan playing at chess with man for his soul. Substitute for the mocking fiend in that picture a calm, strong angel who is playing for love, as we say, and would rather lose than win—and I should accept it as an image of human life. 我所做的这番比喻，会让你们想起雷茨施的那幅名画，画中将人生描述为人类与撒旦的一场象棋博弈。将这幅画中阴险的恶魔替换成镇定自若、坚强无比的天使，他只为爱而战，宁愿输的是自己——我认为这正是对人类生活的真实描绘。
Well, what I mean by education is learning the rules of this mighty game. In other words, education is the instruction of the intellect in the laws of nature, under which name I include not merely things and their forces, but men and their ways; and the fashioning of the affections and of the will into an earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with those laws. For me, education means neither more nor less than this. Anything which professes to call itself education must be tried by this standard, and if it fails to stand the test, I will not call it education, whatever may be the force of authority or of numbers upon the other side. 我所说的教育就是学会这场大型游戏的规则。换句话说，我认为教育就是对自然法则智慧的展现，这种展现不仅仅指各种事物及其蕴含的力量，而且也包括人类和他们的各个方面，以及热切希望和这些自然法则和谐相处的情感与意志的塑造。因此，在我看来，这就是所谓的教育。任何自命为“教育”之物都必须符合这一标准。否则，无论面临多大的权威和势力，我都不会称其为教育。
It is important to remember that, in strictness, there is no such thing as an uneducated man. Take an extreme case. Suppose that an adult man, in the full vigor of his faculties, could be suddenly born in the world, as Adam is said to have been, and then left to do as he best might. How long would he be left uneducated? Not five minutes. Nature would begin to teach him, through the eye, the ear, the touch, the properties of objects. Pain and pleasure would be at his elbow telling him to do this and avoid that; and by slow degrees the man would receive an education which, if narrow, would be thorough, real, and adequate to his circumstances, though there would be no extras and very few accomplishments. 必须记住一点，严格来说没有哪个人是没有受过教育的。举一个极端的例子吧。假设一个成人如同亚当一样在他各种官能最佳时突然降生到这个世界，然后尽其所能去做事。那么，他“未接受教育”的状态会持续多久呢？不到五分钟。因为大自然会随时通过他的眼睛、耳朵、触觉来告诉他周围事物的特征，他所感知到的疼痛和舒适会告诉他什么该做，什么不该做。渐渐地，这个人就受到了教育。尽管这种教育范围比较狭窄，且缺乏与人互动及成就感，但对适应周边环境来说，这种教育比较真实、彻底和充分。
And if to this solitary man entered a second Adam, or, better still, an Eve, a new and greater world, that of social and moral phenomena, would be revealed. Joys and woes, compared with which all others might seem but faint shadows, would spring from the new relations. Happiness and sorrow would take the place of the coarse monitors, pleasure and pain; but conduct would still be shaped by the observation of the natural consequences of actions; or, in other words, by the laws of the nature of man. 而且，对于这个孤独而生的亚当来说，如果他遇到了另一个“亚当”，或者如果更幸运的话，遇见了夏娃，那么，一个更大更新、具有社会性质且包罗道德现象的世界就会出现。从这种新的人际关系中引发的欢乐和悲伤都会使世上所有其他事物黯然失色。幸福和悲伤会取代快感和痛感这种粗浅的表达。但是，对行为举止的塑造还要靠观察他人行为的自然结果，或者靠人的自然本性。
To every one of us the world was once as fresh and new as to Adam. And then, long before we were susceptible of any other mode of instruction, nature took us in hand, and every minute of waking life brought its educational influence, shaping our actions into rough accordance with nature's laws, so that we might not be ended untimely by too gross disobedience. Nor should I speak of this process of education as past for anyone, be he as old as he may. For every man the world is as fresh as it was at the first day, and as full of untold novelties for him who has the eyes to see them. And nature is still continuing her patient education of us in that great university, the universe, of which we are all members—nature having no Test-Acts. 世界对于我们每个人来说都曾是新鲜和陌生的，就像当初对于亚当一样。并且，早在我们受到其他任何教育影响之前，大自然就支配着我们，对我们的生活无时无刻不进行教育并施加影响，使我们的行为大致遵循自然法则，从而避免我们可能因为过分地逆反自然而被其淘汰。即使一个人年至松鹤、寿比南山，我也不认为这种教育方式对他来说是过时的。对于每个人而言，世界都如最初时一样无比新颖。在那些用眼睛观察世界的人看来，那里充满了奇珍异物，奥妙难言。大自然就好比一所伟大的大学，在这里我们每个人都是学员，大自然总是对我们进行耐心的教导。不过，在大自然这所大学里并没有测试或考查制度。
Those who take honors in nature's university, who learn the laws which govern men and things and obey them, are the really great and successful men in this world. The great mass of mankind are the “Poll,” who pick up just enough to get through without much discredit. Those who won't learn at all are plucked; and then you can't come up again. Nature's pluck means extermination. 在那里，能够获得荣誉并学会和服从支配人与事物法则的那些人，会成为这个世界上真正伟大而成功的人。相比之下，大部分人只是鹦鹉学舌，他们所学知识只是保证他们能够通过考试。而那些不学无术的人则会被淘汰，这样就再也无法挽回。被大自然所淘汰就意味着灭亡。
Thus the question of compulsory education is settled so far as nature is concerned. Her bill on that question was framed and passed long ago. But, like all compulsory legislation, that of nature is harsh and wasteful in its operation. Ignorance is visited as sharply as wilful disobedience—incapacity meets with the same punishment as crime. Nature's discipline is not even a word and a blow, and the blow first; but the blow without the word. It is left to you to find out why your ears were boxed. 因此，从大自然角度而言，强制义务教育并不是个难题。关于这个问题的议案早已制定完成并获得通过。但是像其他强制性立法一样，自然的立法是残酷的，一旦违反则需要付出巨大代价。无知就像故意逆反一样要受到严厉的惩罚，无能则如同犯罪一般要付出相同的代价。大自然的惩罚方式甚至不是先予以打击，再以理相劝，而是直接予以无言的打击。你只能自己去找出被打的原因。
The object of what we commonly call education—that education in which man intervenes and which I shall distinguish as artificial education—is to make good these defects in nature's methods; to prepare the child to receive nature's education, neither incapably nor ignorantly, nor with wilful disobedience; and to understand the preliminary symptoms of her displeasure, without waiting for the box on the ear. In short, all artificial education ought to be an anticipation of natural education. And a liberal education is an artificial education—which has not only prepared a man to escape the great evils of disobedience to natural laws, but has trained him to appreciate and to seize upon the rewards which nature scatters with as free a hand as her penalties. 我们通常所称的教育（因为这种教育有人为介入，我在此将其称为“人为教育”以示区分），其目的在于弥补自然教育在方法上的缺陷，同时为孩子接受大自然的教育做好准备，使他们不至于无知、无能或逆反，也帮助他们了解自然不悦时的各种迹象，不至于毫无准备地接受未来的惩罚。总而言之，所有人为教育应该是对自然教育的预期。通识教育就是一种人为教育。这种教育方式不仅教导人们避免逆反自然规律这样的罪恶行为，还教导人们利用并感恩于自然的赏赐，因为大自然用她的自由之手散播赏赐，就如同散播各种惩罚一样。
That man, I think, has had a liberal education who has been so trained in youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold, logic engine, with all its parts of equal strength, and in smooth working order; ready, like a steam engine, to be turned to any kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the mind; whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of nature and of the laws of her operations; one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to come to heel by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience; who has learned to love all beauty, whether of nature or of art, to hate all vileness, and to respect others as himself. 我认为，一个接受过通识教育的人应该是这样的：他年轻时受到的训练可以使其身体服从自己的意志，就像一台机器一样轻松而愉悦地从事一切工作；他的心智好比一台敏锐、冷静而有逻辑性的引擎，每个部分能力相当，有条不紊地运行着；他又如一台蒸汽机，待于效力各种工作，纺织思想之纱，铸就心智之锚；他的大脑中充满着知识，既有关于大自然的重要真理和知识，也有自然界运行的基本规律；他并不是一个不正常的苦行人，他的生活中总是充满生机和热情，但他的激情永远受制于强大的意志力和敏感的良知；他学会去热爱一切美好的事物，不论是自然之美还是艺术之美；他憎恨所有的丑恶，并做到尊人如待己。
Such an one and no other, I conceive, has had a liberal education; for he is, as completely as a man can be, in harmony with nature. He will make the best of her, and she of him. They will get on together rarely; she as his ever beneficent mother; he as her mouthpiece, her conscious self, her minister and interpreter. 我认为，只有这样的人，才有资格称为接受过通识教育，因为他已经和自然互为相融，互利互用，和谐与共。他们将会相处得很好，自然界永远是他的慈母，而他也会成为慈母的喉舌，化身为她的意识，变为她的代理人和传声筒。
（罗选民 译）
What Is Liberal Education?
Liberal Education is a term used for multi-disciplinary approach to education. Liberal Education emphasizes a learning system of education which provides students the choices to take courses which are varied and responds to the discovery and explorations the student needs to make. Students can experience a broad spectrum of courses and they have the possibility of meandering into many streams of knowledge to discover which their calling is and which stream they respond to. Their curriculum is not open ended.
通识教育是一个多学科教育方法的术语。通识教育强调的是一种教育学习体系，它为学生提供多样化的课程选择，并对学生需要进行的发现和探索作出反应。学生可以体验广泛的课程，他们有可能进入许多知识流，以发现他们的使命是什么，他们响应的是什么。他们的课程不是无限期的。
There is a structure and the student experiences some courses across the streams of existing knowledge to be able to make very well informed choices in their specializations. It is an interdisciplinary platform of education that propagates different models and paradigms from various learning disciplines. This platform develops students with abilities to connect and integrate knowledge helping them to apply it in current and future real world scenarios.
这是一种结构，学生可以在现有知识流中体验一些课程，以便能够在专业领域做出非常明智的选择。它是一个跨学科的教育平台，传播不同学习学科的不同模式和范例。该平台培养学生连接和整合知识的能力，帮助他们将其应用于当前和未来的现实世界场景。
Liberal Education strives to deliver an academic experience that fosters intellectual curiosity, a critical thought process, self-reflection, leadership and teamwork skills, a sense of commitment and professionalism and a heightened sensitivity to one’s socio-cultural environment. It lays emphasis on the creation of a learning environment where the student takes the responsibility of learning and the role of the teacher is to facilitate the learning process.
通识教育致力于提供学术经验，培养求知欲、批判性思维过程、自我反省、领导能力和团队合作技能、承诺感和专业精神以及对社会文化环境的高度敏感性。它强调创造一个学习环境，让学生承担学习的责任，而教师的角色是促进学习过程。
In essence, Liberal Education inculcates the following:
从本质上讲，通识教育灌输了以下内容：。。。。。
What Is Liberal Education?
By Leo Strauss
Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor
Department of Political Science
The University of Chicago
An Address Delivered
at the Tenth Annual Graduation Exercises
of the
Basic Program of Liberal Education for Adults
June 6, 1959
什么是通识教育？
利奥·施特劳斯
罗伯特·梅纳德·哈钦斯杰出服务教授
芝加哥大学政治学系第十年度毕业典礼演讲
成人通识教育基本方案的实施
1959年6月6日
http://www.ditext.com/strauss/liberal.html
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Leo Strauss was born in Germany in 1899. Since coming to the United States in 1938 he has been professor of political science and philosophy at the New School for Social Research and professor of political science at the University of Chicago. In 1954-55 he was visiting professor of philosophy and political science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Among the books Professor Strauss has written are The Political Philosophy of Hobbes, Natural Right and History, and Thoughts on Machiavelli.
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列奥·施特劳斯于1899出生于德国，自1938来到美国后，曾在芝加哥大学社会研究新学院和政治学教授担任政治学和哲学教授。1954-55年，他在耶路撒冷希伯来大学访问哲学和政治学教授。施特劳斯教授所写的书包括霍布斯的政治哲学、自然权利和历史，以及关于马基雅维利的思想。
You have acquired a liberal education. I congratulate you on your achievement. If I were entitled to do so, I would praise you for your achievement. But I would be untrue to the obligation which I have undertaken if I did not supplement my congratulations with a warning. The liberal education which you have acquired will avert the danger that the warning will be understood as a counsel of despair.
你已经接受了通识教育。我祝贺你的成就。如果我有权这样做，我会赞扬你的成就。但是，如果我不以警告来补充我的祝贺，我将不履行我所承担的义务。你所获得的通识教育将避免这种危险，即警告将被理解为绝望的忠告。
Liberal education is education in culture or toward culture. The finished product of a liberal education is a cultured human being. "Culture" (cultura) means primarily agriculture: the cultivation of the soil and its products, taking care of the soil, improving the soil in accordance with its nature. "Culture" means derivatively and today chiefly the cultivation of the mind, the taking care and improving of the native faculties of the mind in accordance with the nature of the mind. Just as the soil needs cultivators of the soil, the mind needs teachers. But teachers are not as easy to come by as farmers. The teachers themselves are pupils and must be pupils. But there cannot be an infinite regress: ultimately there must be teachers who are not in turn pupils. Those teachers who are not in turn pupils are the great minds or, in order to avoid any ambiguity in a matter of such importance, the greatest minds. Such men are extremely rare. We are not likely to meet any of them in any classroom. We are not likely to meet any of them anywhere. It is a piece of good luck if there is a single one alive in one's time. For all practical purposes, pupils, of whatever degree of proficiency, have access to the teachers who are not in turn pupils, to the greatest minds, only through the great books. Liberal education will then consist in studying with the proper care the great books which the greatest minds have left behind -- a study in which the more experienced pupils assist the less experienced pupils, including the beginners.
通识教育是文化教育或文化教育。通识教育的最终产物是一个有教养的人。”“文化”（cultura）主要指农业：种植土壤及其产品，保护土壤，根据其性质改良土壤“文化”是指衍生的，今天主要是指心灵的培养，根据心灵的性质照顾和提高心灵的固有能力。正如土壤需要耕耘者一样，心灵也需要教师。但是教师不像农民那么容易找到。教师本身就是学生，必须是学生。但不可能有无限的倒退：最终必须有不是学生的教师。那些不是学生的老师是伟大的头脑，或者为了避免在如此重要的问题上产生歧义，是最伟大的头脑。这样的人极为罕见。我们不太可能在任何教室里见到他们。我们不太可能在任何地方见到他们。如果有一个人在世，那就是一种幸运。就所有实际目的而言，无论学生的熟练程度如何，他们都只能通过好书接触到那些不是学生的老师，接触到最伟大的思想。然后，通识教育将包括以适当的谨慎学习那些最伟大的人留下的伟大的书籍——一种由经验丰富的学生帮助经验较少的学生，包括初学者的学习。
This is not an easy task, as would appear if we were to consider the formula which I have just mentioned. That formula requires a long commentary. Many lives have been spent and may still be spent in writing such commentaries. For instance, what is meant by the remark that the great books should be studied "with the proper care"? At present I mention only one difficulty which is obvious to everyone among you: the greatest minds do not all tell us the same things regarding the most important themes; the community of the greatest minds is rent by discord and even by various kinds of discord. Whatever further consequences this may entail, it certainly entails the consequence that liberal education cannot be simply indoctrination. I mention yet another difficulty. "Liberal education is education in culture." In what culture? Our answer is: culture in the sense of the Western tradition. 这不是一件容易的事，如果我们考虑一下我刚才提到的公式。这一公式需要长篇大论。许多人已经花了，甚至可能仍然花在写这样的评论上。例如，说应该“谨慎地”研究伟大的书籍是什么意思？目前，我只提到一个困难，这对你们当中的每个人来说都是显而易见的：对于最重要的主题，最伟大的头脑并不都告诉我们相同的事情；最伟大的思想群体被纷争甚至各种纷争撕裂。无论这可能带来什么进一步的后果，它肯定会带来这样的后果：自由教育不能仅仅是灌输。我还提到另一个困难。”通识教育是文化教育。“在什么文化中？”？我们的答案是：西方传统意义上的文化。Yet Western culture is only one among many cultures. By limiting ourselves to Western culture, do we not condemn liberal education to a kind of parochialism, and is not parochialism incompatible with the liberalism, the generosity, the open-mindedness, of liberal education? Our notion of liberal education does not seem to fit an age which is aware of the fact that there is not the culture of the human mind but a variety of cultures. Obviously, "culture" if susceptible of being used in the plural is not quite the same thing as "culture" which is a singulare tantum, which can be used only in the singular. "Culture" is now no longer, as people say, an absolute but has become relative. It is not easy to say what culture susceptible of being used in the plural means. As a consequence of this obscurity people have suggested, explicitly or implicitly, that "culture" is any pattern of conduct common to any human group. Hence we do not hesitate to speak of the culture of suburbia or of the cultures of juvenile gangs both non-delinquent and delinquent. In other words, every human being outside of lunatic asylums is a cultured human being, for he participates in a culture. At the frontiers of research there arises the question as to whether there are not cultures also of inmates of lunatic asylums. If we contrast the present day usage of "culture" with the original meaning, it is as if someone would say that the cultivation of a garden may consist of the garden being littered with empty tin cans and whiskey bottles and used papers of various descriptions thrown around the garden at random. Having arrived at this point, we realize that we have lost our way somehow. Let us then make a fresh start by raising the question: what can liberal education mean here and now?
然而，西方文化只是众多文化中的一种。我们把自己局限于西方文化，难道我们不谴责自由教育是一种狭隘主义吗？狭隘主义与自由主义、慷慨、开放的自由教育不相容吗？我们对通识教育的概念似乎不适合这样一个时代：这个时代意识到的事实是，没有人类思维的文化，而是多种文化。显然，“文化”如果可能被用在复数形式中，与“文化”不是完全相同的东西，后者是一个单数形式，只能用单数形式“文化”现在不再像人们说的那样是绝对的，而是相对的。很难说什么文化是复数。由于这种默默无闻，人们明示或暗示，“文化”是任何人类群体共同的行为模式。因此，我们毫不犹豫地谈论郊区文化或少年帮派文化，无论是非犯罪的还是犯罪的。换句话说，精神病院外的每个人都是有文化的人，因为他参与了一种文化。在研究的前沿出现了一个问题，即是否也存在精神病收容所囚犯的文化。如果我们将“文化”的现代用法与原意进行对比，就好像有人会说，一个花园的种植可能包括在花园里乱扔空罐头和威士忌瓶，以及在花园周围随意扔各种各样的用纸。到了这一点，我们意识到不知何故我们迷路了。那么，让我们重新开始，提出这样一个问题：自由教育在此时此地意味着什么？
Liberal education is literate education of a certain kind: some sort of education in letters or through letters. There is no need to make a case for literacy; every voter knows that modern democracy stands or falls by literacy. In order to understand this need we must reflect on modern democracy. What is modern democracy? It was once said that democracy is the regime that stands or falls by virtue: a democracy is a regime in which all or most adults are men of virtue, and since virtue seems to require wisdom, a regime in which all or most adults are virtuous and wise, or the society in which all or most adults have developed their reason to a high degree, or the rational society. Democracy in a word is meant to be an aristocracy which has broadened into a universal aristocracy. Prior to the emergence of modern democracy some doubts were felt whether democracy thus understood is possible. As one of the two greatest minds among the theorists of democracy put it, "If there were a people consisting of gods, it would rule itself democratically.通识教育是某种形式的识字教育：某种形式的书信教育。没有必要为扫盲辩护；每个选民都知道，现代民主的成败取决于识字率。为了理解这一需要，我们必须反思现代民主。什么是现代民主？曾经有人说，民主是一个靠美德而存在或衰落的政权：民主是一个所有或大多数成年人都是有美德的人的政权，而且由于美德似乎需要智慧，一个所有或大多数成年人都是有美德和智慧的政权，或者一个所有或大多数成年人都高度发展了理性的社会，或者理性社会。一句话，民主意味着一种贵族，它已经扩展为一种普遍的贵族。在现代民主出现之前，有人怀疑这样理解的民主是否可能。正如民主理论家中两位最伟大的思想家之一所说，“如果有一个由神组成的民族，它将以民主方式统治自己。 A government of such perfection is not suitable for human beings." This still and small voice has by now become a high-powered loudspeaker. There exists a whole science -- the science which I among thousands profess to teach, political science -- which so to speak has no other theme than the contrast between the original conception of democracy, or what one may call the ideal of democracy, and democracy as it is. According to an extreme view which is the predominant view in the profession, the ideal of democracy was a sheer delusion and the only thing which matters is the behavior of democracies and the behavior of men in democracies. Modem democracy, so far from being universal aristocracy, would be mass rule were it not for the fact that the mass cannot rule but is ruled by elites, i.e., groupings of men who for whatever reason are on top or have a fair chance to arrive at the top; one of the most important virtues required for the smooth working of democracy, as far as the mass is concerned, is said to be electoral apathy, i.e., lack of public spirit; not indeed the salt of the earth but the salt of modern democracy are those citizens who read nothing except the sports page and the comic section. Democracy is then not indeed mass rule but mass culture. A mass culture is a culture which can be appropriated by the meanest capacities without any intellectual and moral effort whatsoever and at a very low monetary price. But even a mass culture and precisely a mass culture requires a constant supply of what are called new ideas, which are the products of what are called creative minds: even singing commercials lose their appeal if they are not varied from time to time. 一个如此完美的政府不适合人类。”这个安静而微弱的声音现在已经变成了一个大功率的扬声器。存在着一门完整的科学——我在数千人中自称教授的科学，政治科学——可以说，这门科学除了民主的原始概念，或者人们可以称之为民主的理想与民主本身的对比之外，没有其他主题。根据一种极端的观点，这是该行业的主流观点，民主的理想纯粹是一种错觉，唯一重要的是民主国家的行为和民主国家中人们的行为。现代民主，远远不是普遍的贵族，如果不是因为大众不能统治而是由精英统治，也就是说，无论出于何种原因处于顶端或有公平机会到达顶端的男性群体，将是大众统治；就大众而言，民主顺利运行所需的最重要的美德之一据说是选举冷漠，即缺乏公共精神；事实上，不是地球之盐，而是现代民主之盐，是那些除了体育版和漫画版什么都不读的公民。因此，民主实际上不是大众统治，而是大众文化。大众文化是一种文化，它可以以最卑微的能力占有，而无需任何智力和道德上的努力，而且价格非常低廉。但是，即使是大众文化，确切地说是大众文化，也需要不断提供所谓的新思想，这些新思想是所谓创造性思维的产物：即使是唱歌的商业广告，如果不不时改变，也会失去吸引力。But democracy, even if it is only regarded as the hard shell which protects the soft mass culture, requires in the long run qualities of an entirely different kind: qualities of dedication, of concentration, of breadth and of depth. Thus we understand most easily what liberal education means here and now. Liberal education is the counter-poison to mass culture, to the corroding effects of mass culture, to its inherent tendency to produce nothing but "specialists without spirit or vision and voluptuaries without heart." Liberal education is the ladder by which we try to ascend from mass democracy to democracy as originally meant. Liberal education is the necessary endeavor to found an aristocracy within democratic mass society. Liberal education reminds those members of a mass democracy who have ears to hear, of human greatness.
但民主，即使它只是被视为保护软大众文化的硬壳，从长远来看，它需要一种完全不同的品质：奉献、专注、广度和深度。因此，我们现在最容易理解什么是自由教育。通识教育是对大众文化的反毒药，是对大众文化的腐蚀作用的反毒药，是对其固有的倾向的反毒药，它只会产生“没有精神或视觉的专家，没有心灵的享乐”。通识教育是我们试图从大众民主上升到最初意义上的民主的阶梯。通识教育是在民主大众社会中建立贵族阶层的必要努力。通识教育提醒那些有耳可听的大众民主成员，提醒他们人类的伟大。
Someone might say that this notion of liberal education is merely political, that it dogmatically assumes the goodness of modem democracy. Can we not turn our backs on modem society? Can we not return to nature, to the life of preliterate tribes? Are we not crushed, nauseated, degraded by the mass of printed material, the graveyards of so many beautiful and majestic forests? It is not sufficient to say that this is mere romanticism, that we today cannot return to nature: may not coming generations, after a man-wrought cataclysm, be compelled to live in illiterate tribes? Will our thoughts concerning thermonuclear wars not be affected by such prospects? 有人可能会说，这种自由教育的概念仅仅是政治性的，它武断地假设了现代民主的好处。我们不能抛弃现代社会吗？难道我们不能回归自然，回归原始部落的生活吗？我们不是被大量的印刷品压碎、恶心、堕落，被这么多美丽壮丽的森林所埋葬吗？仅仅说这是浪漫主义是不够的，我们今天不能回归自然：在一场人类造成的灾难之后，后代不可能被迫生活在文盲部落吗？我们关于热核战争的思想不会受到这种前景的影响吗？Certain it is that the horrors of mass culture (which include guided tours to integer nature) render intelligible the longing for a return to nature. An illiterate society at its best is a society ruled by age-old ancestral custom which it traces to original founders, gods or sons of gods or pupils of gods; since there are no letters in such a society, the late heirs cannot be in direct contact with the original founders; they cannot know whether the fathers or grandfathers have not deviated from what the original founders meant, or have not defaced the divine message by merely human additions or subtractions; hence an illiterate society cannot consistently act on its principle that the best is the oldest. Only letters which have come down from the founders can make it possible for the founders to speak directly to the latest heirs. It is then self-contradictory to wish to return to illiteracy. We are compelled to live with books. But life is too short to live with any but the greatest books. In this respect as well as in some others, we do well to take as our model that one among the greatest minds who because of his common sense is the mediator between us and the greatest minds. 可以肯定的是，大众文化的恐怖（包括参观大自然的导游）使人们对回归大自然的渴望变得清晰易懂。一个文盲社会最好是一个由古老的祖先习俗统治的社会，这种习俗可以追溯到最初的创始人、神或神的儿子或神的学生；由于已故创始人不能与原始社会中的继承人直接接触；他们不知道父亲或祖父是否偏离了最初创始人的意思，或者仅仅通过人类的加减来破坏神圣信息；因此，一个文盲社会不可能始终如一地按照最好的是最古老的原则行事。只有创始人的来信才能让创始人直接与最新的继承人交谈。因此，希望恢复文盲是自相矛盾的。我们被迫与书共处。但是生命太短暂了，除了最伟大的书之外，再也活不下去了。在这方面，以及在其他一些方面，我们很好地将最伟大的头脑中的一个作为我们的榜样，因为他的常识，他是我们和最伟大的头脑之间的调解人。Socrates never wrote a book but be read books. Let me quote a statement of Socrates which says almost everything that has to be said on our subject, with the noble simplicity and quiet greatness of the ancients. "Just as others are pleased by a good horse or dog or bird, I myself am pleased to an even higher degree by good friends. . . . And the treasures of the wise men of old which they left behind by writing them in books, I unfold and go through them together with my friends, and if we see something good, we pick it out and regard it as a great gain if we thus become useful to one another." The man who reports this utterance, adds the remark: "When I heard this, it seemed to me both that Socrates was blessed and that be was leading those listening to him toward perfect gentlemanship." This report is defective since it does not tell us anything as to what Socrates did regarding those passages in the books of the wise men of old of which he did not know whether they were good. From another report we learn that Euripides once gave Socrates the writing of Heraclitus and then asked him for his opinion about that writing. Socrates said: "What I have understood is great and noble; I believe this is also true of what I have not understood; but one surely needs for understanding that writing some special sort of a diver."
苏格拉底从来没有写过一本书，只有读过一本书。请允许我引用苏格拉底的一句话，他以古人那种高贵的朴素和宁静的伟大，几乎说出了关于我们这个主题的所有话。”正如其他人喜欢好马、好狗、好鸟一样，我自己也更喜欢好朋友。我和我的朋友们一起翻阅，如果我们看到一些好的东西，我们就把它挑出来，并把它看作是一个巨大的收获，如果我们能这样互相帮助的话。”报道这番话的人补充道：“当我听到这句话时，在我看来，苏格拉底是有福的，而庇正引导那些聆听他的人走向完美的绅士风度。”这份报告是有缺陷的，因为它没有告诉我们苏格拉底对古代智者书籍中那些他不知道它们是否好的段落所做的事。从另一篇报道中我们了解到，欧里庇得斯曾经给苏格拉底写过赫拉克利特的作品，然后问他对这篇作品的看法。苏格拉底说：“我所理解的是伟大而高尚的；我相信这也是我不理解的事实；但我们肯定需要理解，写作是一种特殊的潜水员。”
Education to perfect gentlemanship, to human excellence, liberal education consists in reminding oneself of human excellence, of human greatness. In what way, by what means does liberal education remind us of human greatness? We cannot think highly enough of what liberal education is meant to be. We have beard Plato's suggestion that education in the highest sense is philosophy. Philosophy is quest for wisdom or quest for knowledge regarding the most important, the highest, or the most comprehensive things; such knowledge, he suggested, is virtue and is happiness. But wisdom is inaccessible to man and hence virtue and happiness will always be imperfect. In spite of this, the philosopher, who, as such, is not simply wise, is declared to be the only true king; be is declared to possess all the excellences of which man's mind is capable, to the highest degree. From this we must draw the conclusion that we cannot be philosophers -- that we cannot acquire the highest form of education. We must not be deceived by the fact that we meet many people who say that they are philosophers.教育是为了完善绅士风度，为了人类的卓越，自由教育在于提醒自己人类的卓越，人类的伟大。通识教育以何种方式、何种方式提醒我们人类的伟大？我们不能对什么是自由教育给予足够的重视。我们听过柏拉图的建议，最高意义上的教育是哲学。哲学是对最重要、最高或最全面事物的智慧或知识的追求；他认为，这种知识是美德，也是幸福。但是人类无法获得智慧，因此美德和幸福永远是不完美的。尽管如此，哲学家，作为一个不仅仅是聪明的人，被宣布为唯一真正的国王；被宣布拥有人类心灵所能达到的最高程度的所有优点。由此我们必须得出结论，我们不能成为哲学家——我们不能获得最高形式的教育。我们决不能被这样一个事实所欺骗：我们遇到许多人说他们是哲学家。 For those people employ a loose expression which is perhaps necessitated by administrative convenience. Often they mean merely that they are members of philosophy departments. And it is as absurd to expect members of philosophy departments to be philosophers as it is to expect members of art departments to be artists. We cannot be philosophers but we can love philosophy; we can try to philosophize. This philosophizing consists at any rate primarily and in a way chiefly in listening to the conversation between the great philosophers or, more generally and more cautiously, between the greatest minds, and therefore in studying the great books. The greatest minds to whom we ought to listen are by no means exclusively the greatest minds of the West. It is merely an unfortunate necessity which prevents us from listening to the greatest minds of India and of China: we do not understand their languages, and we cannot learn all languages. To repeat, liberal education consists in listening to the conversation among the greatest minds. But here we are confronted with the overwhelming difficulty that this conversation does not take place without our help -- that in fact we must bring about that conversation. The greatest minds utter monologues. We must transform their monologues into a dialogue, their "side by side" into a "together." The greatest minds utter monologues even when they write dialogues. 对于这些人来说，他们使用了一种松散的表达方式，这可能是出于行政上的便利。通常他们只是指他们是哲学系的成员。期望哲学系的成员成为哲学家和期望艺术系的成员成为艺术家一样荒谬。我们不能成为哲学家，但我们可以热爱哲学；我们可以尝试哲学化。这种哲理化至少主要在某种程度上主要在于倾听伟大哲学家之间的对话，或者更普遍、更谨慎地倾听最伟大的思想之间的对话，从而研究伟大的著作。我们应该倾听的最伟大的人决不仅仅是西方最伟大的人。这仅仅是一种不幸的需要，它阻止我们倾听印度和中国最伟大的思想：我们不懂他们的语言，我们无法学习所有的语言。再说一遍，通识教育就是倾听最伟大的思想之间的对话。但在这里，我们面临着巨大的困难，这场对话没有我们的帮助是无法进行的——事实上，我们必须促成这场对话。最伟大的人发表独白。我们必须把他们的独白变成对话，把他们的“并排”变成“一起”。最伟大的人即使在写对话的时候也会说出独白。When we look at the Platonic dialogues, we observe that there is never a dialogue among minds of the highest order: all Platonic dialogues are dialogues between a superior man and men inferior to him. Plato apparently felt that one could not write a dialogue between two men of the highest order. We must then do something which the greatest minds were unable to do. Let us face this difficulty -- a difficulty so great that it seems to condemn liberal education as an absurdity. Since the greatest minds contradict one another regarding the most important matters, they compel us to judge of their monologues; we cannot take on trust what any one of them says. On the other hand we cannot but notice that we are not competent to be judges. This state of things is concealed from us by a number of facile delusions. We somehow believe that our point of view is superior, higher than those of the greatest minds -- either because our point of view is that of our time, and our time, being later than the time of the greatest minds, can be presumed to be superior to their times; or else because we believe that each of the greatest minds was right from his point of view but not, as be claims, simply right: we know that there cannot be the simply true substantive view but only a simply true formal view; that formal view consists in the insight that every comprehensive view is relative to a specific perspective, or that all comprehensive views are mutually exclusive and none can be simply true. 当我们观察柏拉图式的对话时，在所有人的心灵中，没有一种最高的对话是柏拉图式的对话。柏拉图显然觉得，一个人无法写出两个最高级别的人之间的对话。然后我们必须做一些最伟大的人无法做到的事情。让我们面对这个困难——这个困难如此之大，以至于它似乎谴责自由教育是荒谬的。因为最伟大的人在最重要的事情上互相矛盾，他们迫使我们去评判他们的独白；我们不能相信他们中的任何一个人所说的话。另一方面，我们不得不注意到，我们没有能力成为法官。这种状况被一些容易产生的错觉所掩盖。我们不知何故相信，我们的观点是优越的，高于那些最伟大的人——或者因为我们的观点是我们这个时代的观点，而我们的时代，比最伟大的人的时代晚，可以被认为比他们的时代优越；或者是因为我们相信每一位最伟大的思想家从他的观点来看都是正确的，但并不像人们所说的那样，完全正确：我们知道，不可能有简单真实的实体观点，而只有简单真实的形式观点；这种形式化的观点包含这样一种观点，即每一种综合观点都是相对于一个特定的视角的，或者所有综合观点都是相互排斥的，没有一种观点是完全正确的。The facile delusions which conceal from us our true situation all amount to this, that we are, or can be, wiser than the wisest men of the past. We are thus induced to play the part not of attentive and docile listeners but of impresarios or lion-tamers. Yet we must face our awesome situation, created by the necessity that we try to be more than attentive and docile listeners, namely, judges, and yet we are not competent to be judges. As it seems to me, the cause of this situation is that we have lost all simply authoritative traditions in which we could trust, the nomos which gave us authoritative guidance, because our immediate teachers and teachers' teachers believed in the possibility of a simply rational society. Each of us here is compelled to find his bearings by his own powers however defective they may be.
那些对我们隐瞒真实情况的肤浅的错觉都是这样的，即我们现在比过去最聪明的人更聪明，或者可以比过去最聪明的人更聪明。因此，我们被诱导去扮演经理或驯狮师的角色，而不是专注和温顺的听众。然而，我们必须面对我们可怕的处境，这是因为我们必须努力成为一个更加专注和温顺的听众，即法官，但我们没有能力成为法官。在我看来，造成这种情况的原因是我们已经失去了所有我们可以信任的简单权威的传统，给我们权威性指导的nomos，因为我们的直接教师和教师的教师相信一个简单理性社会的可能性。我们这里的每个人都被迫用自己的力量去寻找自己的方向，不管这些力量有多么缺陷。
We have no comfort other than that inherent in this activity. Philosophy, we have learned, must be on its guard against the wish to be edifying -- philosophy can only be intrinsically edifying. We cannot exert our understanding without from time to time understanding something of importance; and this act of understanding may be accompanied by the awareness of our understanding, by the understanding of understanding, by noesis noeseos, and this is so high, so pure, so noble an experience that Aristotle could ascribe it to his God. This experience is entirely independent of whether what we understand primarily is pleasing or displeasing, fair or ugly. It leads us to realize that all evils are in a sense necessary if there is to be understanding. It enables us to accept all evils which befall us and which may well break our hearts in the spirit of good citizens of the city of God. By becoming aware of the dignity of the mind, we realize the true ground of the dignity of man and therewith the goodness of the world, whether we understand it as created or as uncreated, which is the home of man because it is the home of the human mind.
除了这项活动所固有的舒适之外，我们没有别的舒适。我们已经了解到，哲学必须警惕被教化的愿望——哲学只能在本质上被教化。如果不不时地了解一些重要的事情，我们就不能发挥我们的理解力；这种理解的行为可能伴随着我们对理解的意识，理解的意识，noesis noeseos，这是一种如此崇高、如此纯洁、如此高尚的体验，亚里士多德可以把它归于他的上帝。这种体验完全独立于我们最初理解的是愉快还是不愉快、公平还是丑陋。它使我们认识到，如果要理解，一切邪恶在某种意义上都是必要的。它使我们能够接受降临在我们身上的一切邪恶，这些邪恶很可能会在上帝之城的善良公民的精神中伤透我们的心。通过意识到心灵的尊严，我们认识到人的尊严的真正基础，从而认识到世界的美好，无论我们理解它是被创造的还是未被创造的，它是人类的家园，因为它是人类心灵的家园。
Liberal education, which consists in the constant intercourse with the greatest minds, is a training in the highest form of modesty, not to say of humility. It is at the same time a training in boldness: it demands from us the complete break with the noise, the rush, the thoughtlessness, the cheapness of the Vanity Fair of the intellectuals as well as of their enemies. It demands from us the boldness implied in the resolve to regard the accepted views as mere opinions, or to regard the average opinions as extreme opinions which are at least as likely to be wrong as the most strange or the least popular opinions. Liberal education is liberation from vulgarity. The Greeks had a beautiful word for "vulgarity"; they called it apeirokalia, lack of experience in things beautiful. Liberal education supplies us with experience in things beautiful.
自由教育是一种最高形式的谦逊训练，更不用说谦逊了，它包括不断与最伟大的人交往。它同时也是一种勇敢的训练：它要求我们彻底摆脱知识分子及其敌人的喧嚣、匆忙、轻率和廉价的名利场。它要求我们拿出勇气，下定决心将公认的观点视为纯粹的观点，或将一般观点视为极端观点，这些观点至少与最奇怪或最不受欢迎的观点一样可能是错误的。通识教育是从庸俗中解放出来的。希腊人有一个漂亮的词来形容“粗俗”；他们称之为apeirokalia，缺乏美丽事物的经验。通识教育为我们提供美好事物的经验。
美国大学liberal education是怎么回事?你对美国教育了解多少?
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对于坚持多样化教育的欧美院校，美国大学现行的两种教育方式liberal education(通识教育) or profession education(专业教育)，他们有哪些区别?美国大学liberal education是怎么回事?
作为世界上第一个实现高等教育大众化的国家，目前美国拥有3600多所高等院校，学校类型从综合型大学和学院、文理学院、再到两年制社区大学、非传统教育等等，各种院校类型都有自己的教育方式：
1.综合型大学：是包含学科比较齐全，专业设置比较广泛，涵盖哲、文、理、工、管、法、医、农林、经济、教育、艺术等学科门类)、办学规模宏大、科研实力强劲的综合实力强大的高等学府。
2.文理学院：
又称博雅学院，是美国高校的重要种类之一。文理学院一般指奉行博雅教育，以本科教育为主，规模小而精的大学。文理学院注重全面综合教育，强调发掘学生的思维潜能，实现真正意义上的全人发展， 其课程设置以基础学科为主，涵盖艺术、人文、自然科学、社会科学等门类， 以此来区别于以职业培训或科学研究为导向的综合性大学及各种专业学校、技术高校。
liberal education教育
这种教育方式与美国文理学院教育有些类似的地方，一般来讲，liberal education是没有engineering的，像物理、化学、生物这种学科都是科学类，不是工程类的。
为了方便大家理解，我们引用网上的一段关于liberal education的论述：
历史的传承 “liberal arts”来源于拉丁文中的ars liberalis，教授说当代语言里最准确的翻译是德语的“wissenschaft”，英文中是“knowledge-craft”。可以说，liberal arts的精髓便在于生成新的知识，这也是为什么文理学院的课程设置都如此侧重基础学科。
雪城大学的语言学教授Gerald Greenberg曾在Washington Post上发表文章，进一步从语言学的角度解释了“liberal arts”。ars指的是“art，skill”(技能)，liberalis指的是“freedom”(自由)与“imprisonment”(监禁)相对，因此博雅教育(liberal arts education)从词源上来说，是为了培养有着自由思想的社会公民。
自由思想的本质便在于突破知识体系的条条框框反思我们知识所带来的真实。在中世纪，大学在本科阶段一共设有7门博雅教育科目(ars liberalis)：语法，修辞，逻辑，几何，代数，音乐和天文。完成这些基础学科的研习之后，学生可以进入研究院继续深造，学习医药、法律和神学。这七门博雅教育科目，沿袭了古希腊哲学的理性传统，能成为论证的一把利器。
换而言之，中世纪的博雅教育(文理学院)的自由体现在以下两个方面：
1. 提供一条突破传统、独创论断的路径。
2. 开启一扇剑指终极、思考人生的大门。
“跨学科的思维模式”、“知识的广博度”正是博雅教育的核心关键!把中世纪的ars liberalis代入现代语境，本科阶段的博雅教育可以让学生跳出学术领域的限制，从一个更高的纬度来体察人类的认知。
基础学科的基础性便是文理教育的魅力所在。
基础学科就像一片肥沃的土壤，无数新颖的可能性会在这片土壤之上深根发芽。广泛地涉猎便是在汲取土壤中的养分，以一种思辨的眼光看待学科之间的差异性(divergence)和趋同性(convergence)。
因此，也可以把这个过程称之为“建立隐性(implicit)的知识结构”。在这个过程中，我们不自觉地开始建立起了联系，以“跨学科”的眼光来看待问题，而这便是“突破传统、独创论断”的开始!1948年，Claude Shannon把热力学中的熵的概念引入了信息学，不就是“突破传统、独创论断”的典型范例嘛?” |
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