The Bruce Report

One of the majestic ironies of our times is the high value policy makers and politicians place on universities as conduits through which society becomes skilled, when the essential purpose of a liberal arts education is to vitiate the allure of economically useful knowledge, along with just about every other claim to intellectual certitude.

Still, as thousands of Canadian kids return to academe this week – each hoping there will be a job waiting at the end of the long, dark, debt-festooned tunnel – it’s a safe bet that the less fungible advantages of their advanced studies are the least of their preoccupations.

According to the most recent Education at a Glance report, prepared by the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, this country is second only to the United States in the percentage of GDP spent on postsecondary course work. A whopping 43.5 per cent of this bill falls to students and their families to bear. What’s more, these costs are rising as federal transfers to the provinces are falling.

All of which forewarns that the decades-long debate over the pubic university’s proper role is only likely to become more contentious: Should taxpayer-funded institutes of higher learning continue to luxuriate in their ivory towers; or should they come down to earth and embrace their responsibility for training new generations of productive, gainfully employable citizens in internationally competitive fields, such as finance, law, medicine, information communications, and manufacturing technology?

Extremists of all political stripes support the latter approach. They use words like “relevance” and “work-ready” to make arguments for “urgent change” in the way we prepare our young people to take their rightful places as foot soldiers, officers and generals in the social and economic wars of national progress.

We can no longer afford, they insist, the time a liberal arts education demands for contemplation, self-examination and logical inquiry. What we know now is far more important than what we think we know. (Even though we don’t really know anything in the absence of thoughtful instruments that improve our imperfect understanding of our own minds, habits, actions, and societies).

In fact, the dichotomy is false.

A firm foundation in philosophy, history, comparative literature, linguistics, art, and social science contributes directly to professional success. It enables us to question the dogmas, presumptions and pretentions we encounter in everyday life. It bolsters our ability to plan, lead and craft broadly effective policies.

Most importantly, perhaps, it enhances our capacity to empathize with others and conduct ourselves responsibly as citizens of local, provincial, national and international communities. In short, it makes us better people. And these days nothing could be more “relevant” or “work-ready” than this.

Indeed, those who have achieved great things, through practice, routinely extol what they have learned through more meditative pursuits.

Writing for the Financial Post not long ago, consultant and author Ray B. Williams reported: “Management guru Henry Mintzberg argues that business skills cannot be taught in a classroom, saying that a degree in philosophy or history would be more beneficial. William Sullivan from The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, and author of his forthcoming book, ‘Preparing for Business, Learning from Life: Liberal Arts and Undergraduate Business Education’, argues that the separation of business courses which focus on narrow technical study and the broader liberal arts approach no longer serves business students, and that an integrated program that focuses on engagement of the real world from a practical, personal and moral perspective, is needed. Thomas Friedman, in his best-selling book, ‘The World is Flat’, argues that because the world and cultures are so interconnected today, business leaders must gain more knowledge from the liberal arts.”

As the cost of higher education continues to increase in this country, our policy makers and politicians might be wise to recognize the benefits that accrue from a society of bankers, doctors, lawyers, and computer geeks who understand – apart from their own indisputably important trades and crafts – the significance of at least a little Socratic wisdom.

To wit: “If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.”

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