Liberal Arts Essay

A Definition of the Liberal Arts As the world has become more technologically, economically, and scientifically oriented, the education of future generations has changed with it and has become more focused into three fields: technology, economy, and science. With the intellectual focus being turned toward the sciences and mathematics, students and teachers have both moved away from the liberal arts, leaving them forgotten. Recently, there has been a desire to restore the liberal arts to education, and it has caused a strife with the teachers and students who desire the efficiency of the extremely popular focus subjects. Considering all of the issues of the liberal arts, this paper will define the liberal arts as a whole, look at the three main branches of the liberal arts, and address how each side of the strife views them. Liberal arts is the study of a broad range of subjects that cover all of the bases of each subject. They can, however, also be focused into a more refined curriculum that can teach each student to be able to think well and adapt to various situations. Originally, there were seven liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric, logic, geometry, arithmetic, music, and astronomy. In modern times, liberal arts changed to
The social sciences include cultural anthropology, sociology, social psychology, political science, and economics (“Social Science”). Each of the subjects of social sciences have something to do with the people of the world, directly or indirectly. The scientists have little problem with what the branch teaches but rather with how many of the subjects students must learn. The advocates believe that through learning a little of each of the social sciences it will benefit the students in their daily life as Aranye Fradenburg, an advocate of the liberal arts, says: “[It] teaches us how to live successfully—how to adapt to our circumstances” (Fradenburg