Certainly, philosophy, theology, and literature were weakened by the apparently embarrassing comparison to strict science. But the humanities were already in bad shape. The romantic emphasis on personal uniqueness had undermined the belief that universal ideas are conveyed in great texts. Perennial themes about nature and human nature looked like the furniture of grandmaâ??s attic, but the endless stream of facts surrounding each age and author appeared fresh and promising. The nineteenth century, we were repeatedly told, was the era of the factory worker and the assembly line. And since the generalist has no place in any fact-accruing business, the university must emulate the pin factory.
And so the disciplines multiplied, the specialties emerged, and the once-cohesive worldview of the humanities faded, carrying away with it the deep questions college was supposed to teach.
Not everywhere, of course. Realizing the need to educate students in â??the art of living,â?? â??the spirit of learning,â?? â??the best that has been thought and said,â?? many of the older universities retained or reinstated a remnant of their old curricula as core requirements and humanities sequences. Shortly after the Second World War, both Harvard and Yale established programs with the goal, they said, of intellectually defending the values of civilizationâ??liberty, democracy, human dignityâ??for which so many had just given their lives. Where religious convictions and a Christian worldview had once ordered the universityâ??s mission, secular humanism now stepped in.
Amanda Shaw Life, the University, and Everything reviewing Antony T. Kronman Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life
