Going Back to College in the Classical Tradition
Did you go to a liberal arts college and get a humanities degree?
There are at least four words in that question that no longer mean much. Better said, there are four words in the question that have been stretched so thin that they can barely wrap up a meaning.
The words, of course, are “liberal,” “arts,” “college,” and “humanities.” I have already explored the current thinness of “liberal” and “arts” in a previous article here. This week, I would like to take up “college.”
Let me revise my question to simply this: Did you go to college?
When we think of “college,” we generally think of eight semesters of study at 15 hours per semester. We can note that credit hours in college mean the amount of hours you are in class per week, per semester. Generally a semester-long college course meets three hours per week. The math is easy: the normal semester load is 15 hours per week per semester, which is generally five college courses. Therefore, generally, you need to take five courses per semester for eight semesters to graduate. This turns out to be 40 courses and 120 credit hours for the average college degree.
Note as well that college students are only in class about 15 hours per week–a lot less than in high school. Does this make college easier? It is not supposed to. I remember being told that for every hour I spend in class I should expect to spend two hours studying or reading outside of class. The math, again, is easy. Each week, a college student should spend 15 hours in class and 30 hours outside of class studying for a total of about 45 hours per week–a college student’s full-time job.
We also should recall that when we come to college we should fairly soon choose a “major.” I majored in history with cognate studies (essentially a minor) in classical language study. Of course there were some “general education” requirements in English, philosophy, social science, natural science, and mathematics. And there were a few electives. Such is the college curriculum system, generally speaking, that we all know. When we hear the word “college” and think about the academics of college, these are the kinds of notions that rise in our heads.
When we hear the word “college” and think about social experience, a very different set of notions will likely come to mind. We can note that 18-year olds living in dorms (often co-ed dorms) and fraternity houses aren’t known for the most responsible behavior. The college “experience” is varied, but in secular settings it is often associated with various forms of folly and debauchery.
I hope that you can review your college days with a large degree of satisfaction and edification–I can, and I count that a blessing. Still, “college” generally means 120 credit hours, in a major field of study, over eight semesters, with ample time for either studying or goofing off.
This is not the old meaning of the word. It was not until the late 1800s that the idea of a college major emerged. Apparently, the first occurrence of the word “major” was in 1877 in the college catalog at Johns Hopkins University. Prior to this period, those who went to college all studied a common curriculum of the liberal arts and natural sciences. Specialization of study was simply not in view during the college years. A generalized study of the classical curriculum was considered to be what “education” was and what humans should desire and get if they were able to do so. Specialized study (whether advanced academic study or professional training) was valued–but it came after “college.”
There are a few colleges that still require a common liberal arts curriculum for all students, meaning there are no “majors” at the college. Examples include St. Johns College (which I attended as a graduate student) and New College Franklin. Some colleges offer majors but still require a robust common curriculum for all students. Most colleges today are trying to do both general education and special education at the same time over the course of four years. You might say that modern “colleges” are divided between education (the liberal arts, great books, natural sciences) and professional-vocational training (e.g., nursing, engineering, business, education majors, etc.).
The liabilities of specializing too soon should be well-known but they aren’t. A recent book by David Epstein does note these liabilities. The book is Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. Epstein notes that from sports to academics, those who perform best most often had a strong generalized education before they specialized.
College comes from the Latin collegere, “to gather, collect, assemble, bring together.” Collegere is formed by combining the preposition cum (with) and ligare (to tie, bind, bind together). We get the word “ligament” from ligare.
So you can see that those who come together at college should be “bound together” for the purpose of study, edification, and fellowship. Those who gather should be colleagues. The origin of the word suggests that professors and students should be engaged in collegial study that transcends mere economic advancement.
Do colleges today still retain some of these old meanings which can be traced in the evolution of the word “college?” Note the evolution in The Oxford English Dictionary of the word below from 1380 to 1845.
c1380 J. Wyclif Wks. (1880) 366 Criste and his colage [i.e. the Apostles].
c1425 Wyntoun Cron. vi. xii. 55 As in-til oys þe Pape had ay Wyth þe collage throw þe Towne To gang in til processyowne.
a1464 J. Capgrave Abbreuiacion of Cron. (Cambr. Gg.4.12) (1983) 233 Þer were þe cardinales of both collegis, both of Gregori and Benedict.
1497 J. Alcock Mons Perfeccionis (de Worde) A iij a Cryst Jhesu..called his appostles unto hym and made them his bretheren of his College.
1597 R. Hooker Of Lawes Eccl. Politie v. lxxx. 250 All such citties had their ecclesiasticall Colledges consisting of Deacons and of Presbyters.
a1616 W. Shakespeare Henry VI, Pt. 2 (1623) i. iii. 64 I would the Colledge of the Cardinalls Would chuse him Pope, and carry him to Rome.
1641 J. Jackson True Evangelical Temper iii. 186 Christ did it, in the Mission first of his Twelve, and after of his Seventy, both of which sacred Colledges he sent forth by two, and two.
1654 J. Trapp Comm. Ezra viii. 17 Where it may seem that there was a Colledge of Levites, and Iddo was their President.
1739 tr. C. Rollin Anc. Hist. (ed. 2) V. 18 He was adopted into the college of augurs.
1741 C. Middleton Hist. Life Cicero (1742) II. vi. 12 The affair was to be determined by the college of Priests.
1845 J. Lingard Hist. & Antiq. Anglo-Saxon Church (ed. 3) I. iii. 114 The prince of the apostolic college.
John Wycliff (writing in 1380) thought it proper to call Christ and his disciples a “college.” Did your college experience resemble anything like a teacher and his or her closely-bound fellows or disciples? If so, I count you lucky.
It used to be common that students would go off to college not only for the college itself but for the privilege of studying with a particular teacher or scholar. Would you have considered going to any college where C. S. Lewis might have taught? Do you like the writings of say Carl Trueman? Well he used to teach at Westminster Seminary but now you can find him at Grove City College. If you want to go and “read with” Dr. Trueman, you will have to go to Grove City.
And before the age of elective majors, it was common to think of study as reading, and reading with a professor. Today at Oxford, students still “read” philosophy, literature, or mathematics rather than “major in” them.
What’s more, a “college” was small and personal. Even today, if you can get into Oxford, you will be “tutored” by a professor generally in a ratio of one professor to two students. Humans are always best educated in a collegial relationship with a more mature student (that we might call a professor or tutor) who continues to love learning and who can lead younger students along a path of study, virtue, and wisdom. Augustine, writing in the late 300s, notes that sympathy, love, and fellowship are chief marks of a good teacher.1 C. S. Lewis in his speech to freshman coming to Oxford to study English notes that the college does not need the students–because the college is financially independent and because the professors at the college would do what they always do with or without students: give lectures, read, discuss, debate, publish papers. But his speech makes plain that Lewis wants the students there to be a part of their fellowship, their college.
Lewis urges these new students:
The proper question for a freshman is not “What will do me the most good?” but “What do I most want to know?” For nothing that we have to offer will do him good unless he can be persuaded to forget all about his self-improvement for three or four years, and to absorb himself in getting to know some part of reality, as it is in itself.”
Lewis’s speech is a re-articulation of what “college” was understood to be in the classical tradition and what it could be and should be again. It was a general education in the liberal arts at a small college that was a fellowship, a guild, a community with professors and students who shared sympathy and mutual love for each other and the true, good, and beautiful–for reality. Who wouldn’t want to go back to college if that is what “college” could be?
Hat tip here to Dr. Christopher Schlect at New St. Andrews College (which also has a common curriculum) for pointing out this passage in Augustine.