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liberal arts

 
Dictionary: liberal arts
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pl.n.
  1. Academic disciplines, such as languages, literature, history, philosophy, mathematics, and science, that provide information of general cultural concern: "The term 'liberal arts' connotes a certain elevation above utilitarian concerns. Yet liberal education is intensely useful" (George F. Will).
  2. The disciplines comprising the trivium and quadrivium.

[Middle English, translation of Medieval Latin artēs liberālēs, the trivium and quadrivium : Latin artēs, pl. of Latin ars, art-, subject of study + līberālēs, pl. of līberālis, proper to free persons.]


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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: liberal arts
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College or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing general intellectual capacities, in contrast to a professional, vocational, or technical curriculum. In Classical antiquity, the term designated the education proper to a freeman (Latin liber, "free") as opposed to a slave. In the medieval Western university, the seven liberal arts were grammar, rhetoric, and logic (the trivium) and geometry, arithmetic, music, and astronomy (the quadrivium). In modern colleges and universities, the liberal arts include the study of literature, languages, philosophy, history, mathematics, and science.

For more information on liberal arts, visit Britannica.com.

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: liberal arts
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liberal arts, term originally used to designate the arts or studies suited to freemen. It was applied in the Middle Ages to seven branches of learning, the trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric, and the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. The study of the trivium led to the Bachelor of Arts degree, and the quadrivium to the Master of Arts. During the Renaissance, the term was interpreted more broadly to mean all of those studies that impart a general, as opposed to a vocational or specialized, education. This corresponds rather closely to the interpretation used in most undergraduate colleges today, although the curriculum of the latter is more flexible than that of the Renaissance university.

Bibliography

See M. Van Doren, Liberal Education (1959); J. Barzun, The Teacher in America (1945); Harvard Committee, General Education in a Free Society (1945); T. Woody, Liberal Education for Free Men (1951); A. W. Griswold, Liberal Education and the Democratic Ideal (1959, rev. ed. 1962); C. Weinberg, Humanistic Foundations of Education (1972); B. Kimball, Orators and Philosophers (1986); writings of Robert Maynard Hutchins.

Fine Arts Dictionary: liberal arts
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The areas of learning that cultivate general intellectual ability rather than technical or professional skills. Liberal arts is often used as a synonym for humanities, because literature, languages, history, and philosophy are often considered the primary subjects of the liberal arts. The term liberal arts originally meant arts suitable for free people (libri in Latin) but not for slaves.

Wikipedia: Liberal arts
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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.

Contents

History

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:

  1. grammar
  2. rhetoric
  3. logic
  1. geometry
  2. arithmetic
  3. music
  4. astronomy

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.

Liberal arts colleges in the United States

Main article: Liberal arts college
Further information: Liberal arts colleges in the United States and Great Books Program

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.

See also

References

  1. ^ "Liberal Arts: Encyclopedia Britannica Concise". Encyclopedia Britannica. http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9370154/liberal-arts. 
  2. ^ Blunt, Anthony, Artistic Theory in Italy, 1450-1660,p. 49, 1940 (refs to 1985 edn), OUP, ISBN0198810504
  3. ^ Harriman, Philip (1935). "Antecedents of the Liberal Arts College". The Journal of Higher Education, Vol. 6, No. 2 (1935), pp. 63-71. http://www.jstor.org/view/00221546/di962074/96p0148k/0. 

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

External links

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Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/.  Read more
Fine Arts Dictionary. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.  Read more
Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Liberal arts".  Read more