Why are the humanities taking a back seat in modern American education? | Opinion

Our nation’s educational system, once the envy of the world, has been ensnared in turmoil of late. Most recently, in response to a plea for high schools to stiffen graduation requirements and increase the percentage of students who earn a degree, academic standards have allegedly been severely lowered.

Meanwhile, if you’ve encountered any of America’s leading newspapers or magazines lately you also may have read the obituary for the humanities, once considered the core of a liberal education (liberal here meaning broad or generous). The humanities (literature, music, theater, philosophy, etc.) once provided the foundation for a college or even a secondary education.

Under pressure from state legislators, many educational institutions have shifted their focus to vocational training, with the result that today when we read a college’s promotional material, it often reads like “We’ve got your career right here.”

While some opinion leaders are proclaiming that the humanities have lost their value, still others maintain the opposite: A piece in the the New York Times by David Brooks has given fresh life to this controversy. In “How to Save a Sad, Lonely, Angry and Mean Society,” Brooks contends that we have become “over politicized while growing … under moralized, under spiritualized, under cultured.”

We have to wonder if Brooks’ appeal to humanities will be embraced in today’s monetized world. Generations ago, when a smaller portion of high school graduates attended college, the average undergraduate was more likely to enroll in such courses as philosophy, art history, literature, music, and theater. That is no longer the case.

While the humanities’ share of majors has dwindled, the number of students studying vocational subjects has grown. Humanists, instead of wringing their hands at the loss of majors in their various fields, might wisely direct their efforts to attracting students in other majors to round out their four years with classes that will give them an acquaintance with those soul-stirring qualities of the humanities and a better understanding of the so-called “human condition.”

Perhaps on a future business trip they will be electrified to learn that the classic “Our Town” is being brought back to Broadway, or at the holidays they may be elated to learn that a local choir is presenting “In the Bleak Midwinter,” based on a poem by Christina Rossetti, with music by Gustav Holtz. Or, if they have military experience they may want to quote some Kipling: ”Making mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap.”

Today, the English literature survey course at a large public institution may be only one semester in length and its textbook will represent a vastly different demographic. Even so, there is wisdom contained in David Brooks’ argument in support of the humanities. It is folly to think that our culture can march forward without a firm grounding in its origins. The fact that our forebears were less technologically savvy than we does not diminish their worth. If anything, their missteps offer us valuable counsel as we respond to a world being transformed at incomprehensible speed.

Kids in school today often are no longer taught to write in cursive. Although the Internet is just over 20 years old, already students entering college are losing their ability to read long-form materials and many classics are being re-written in “simple English.”

Our problem is time. In both our daily lives and in our classrooms, overwhelmed by our technologies, do we have time for things that truly matter? Two-hundred years ago a man named William Blake wrote a poem called “The Tyger.” He asks, “Did he who made the lamb make thee?” Do we know? Do we care? Do we want our children to care?

Larry Fennelly is an opinion columnist for The Telegraph and can be reached at larney_f@hotmail.com.