The purpose of education is dependent on the form of the family
and society, and the historical context and place an individual is
raised within. Our American form of society is primarily a
representative democracy founded on the principles in the Declaration
of Independence and the Constitution as amended. The current context
is one of rapid economic globalization oriented towards
knowledge-based industries aimed at increasing human longevity and
enhancing human capabilities.
This form of society recognizes the individual as being the source of
legitimate authority and responsible for both self-conduct and the
preservation of the society. Such a society is constituted of
ever-expanding spheres of local autonomy, beginning with the
individual and proceeding outward through the family and voluntary
associations, followed by city, county, regional, national and global
political jurisdictions. The importance of each sphere of local
autonomy is directly proportional to the closeness to the individual,
who holds ultimate responsibility, through their representatives, for
the consequences of the exercise of delegated authority and power.
The most important sphere of local autonomy is the individual and the
immediate family and the least important are global
jurisdictions.
Individuals within our form of society have a dignity that cannot be
taken away from them by any power on earth because of their unique
moral capacity; they are their own masters, they choose their own
ends and do not have their ends chosen for them. Individuals are
recognized as created beings; they did not create themselves and
cannot give away the rights and responsibilities that come to them
from outside themselves.
Due to this inherent dignity and as the individual source of
political authority, learning self-control is vital to educational
success. Students develop self-control through learning to obey
authority that they accept as legitimate. If students never learn to
obey others, they can hardly learn to obey their own internal
restraints; they will have recurring trouble resisting harmful vices
or issuing orders while leaving people’s dignity intact. They
will, therefore, have difficulty achieving happiness or justice.
Parents and teachers are obeyed because they possess superior
knowledge that students both need and desire, exhibiting a natural
hierarchy.
Desiring to excel at acquiring knowledge develops the kind of
character necessary for the preservation of our form of society.
Developing character and achieving happiness is the terminology of
secular education; within religious education, this is called the
formation of the soul, both types of education are prevalent in our
society. To develop character means to refine our coarse emotional
states and base desires into civilized and tasteful emotional states
and higher desires. It also means to seek the truth, in community
with others, sharing common meanings within a clear and practical
language, doing good oneself and promoting good in the larger spheres
of local autonomy.
Early examples of democratic local autonomy were the Ancient Greeks
and Renaissance Europeans. The classical liberal arts curriculum of
grammar, rhetoric, logic and arithmetic was developed because these
building blocks met the needs of this form of society. These building
blocks remain sound for our representative democracy and our
knowledge-based global economy because they provide necessary
learning within the fundamental realms of meaning, truth and purpose.
Grammar is necessary for all the social sciences broadly addressing
meaning. Arithmetic and logic are necessary for all the natural
sciences broadly addressing truth. Rhetoric is necessary for all the
arts and humanities broadly addressing purpose.
Once these basics have been mastered, the student has the conceptual
tools necessary to go deeper into any single fundamental realm or
into interdisciplinary areas between realms. Teachers guide students
into studies of works proven to have permanent worth, as Matthew
Arnold put it, “the best that has been thought and said.” A
student might choose to learn more between the realms of meaning and
purpose, such as law or anthropology, or between the realms of
purpose and truth, such as medicine or engineering, or between the
realms of truth and meaning, such as economics or business (see
Figure 1 - World-of-Education
Map).
The most general learning, relying equally on the tripod of the basic
curriculum within all three realms, is in the areas of history,
philosophy, politics and religious thought. This is the knowledge all
individuals within representative democracies should attempt to
achieve, at least to the degree that informed decisions are possible.
Representatives themselves require this most generalized knowledge
during periods of rapid technological, indeed, revolutionary changes
of unknown scope and duration.
The purpose of education is the preservation and enhancement of
knowledge and the development of character within our given form of
society which will best prepare the individual for the conditions of
extreme novelty the near future is bringing.
Reilly Jones
© 2003-2008
