The title of my talk today is The Meaning of Liberal Education. Now, the word ‘meaning’ can itself have various ‘meanings’. I shall concentrate on the meaning of the name, and then proceed to discuss the nature of the thing. I will move on to consider the nature of freedom as applied to the education we want for our children.

The adjective ‘liberal’ is from the Latin ‘liber‘, which means ‘free’. Thus, in its original understanding, it signifies some connection with freedom, just as the word ‘legal’ signifies what pertains to the law. In particular, education will be liberal when it is suitable to a free man, and conducive to his freedom. But what is the nature or essential character of such an education?

Following the classical tradition, we suppose that we know what a thing is when we have grasped its proper principles and causes. Aristotle, in Bk. II, Ch. 3 of the Physics, says “men do not think they know a thing till they have grasped the ‘why’ of it (which is to grasp its primary cause).” He then proceeds to show that there are four general kinds of cause, corresponding to four different ways of answering the question Why? These four kinds are the matter, the form, the agent and the end. Let us consider these causes as they are applied to liberal, or classical, education.

The matter, or the material cause, is that which becomes that of which it is the cause. Thus, the wood is the matter of the table, and the seed is the matter of the plant, since the wood becomes a table and the seed becomes a plant. Sometimes (and most properly) we name the matter from that which both becomes and is what comes to be, as in our example of the wood of a table. But sometimes we name it from its previous conditions, as in the case of the seed of a plant. For when the plant has come to be, there is no longer a seed. But even here there is something that persists – the underlying materials that constituted the seed. Finally, we sometimes name the matter from the formation it has received through the process of coming to be, as (for example) the living body, which is the material part of the animal that has come to be. But even in this case there is something that underlies both the formed body and whatever existed beforehand.

From this it is clear that what characterizes the material principle as such is ability–not the ability to do something, but the ability to be something. Something is a principle of this sort insofar as it is able to be something that it is not. The wood is the matter of a table insofar as it can be a table. The seed is not yet a plant, but it can be a plant.

Is there this kind of causality in education? It might seem not, since education involves the formation of the mind, and the mind is not a power of the body (i.e. of the material part of a human being). Yet there is nonetheless something analogous to matter in this case. A student is defined as one who is able to know what he
does not yet know. (One cannot learn what he cannot know.) Just as the track coach says, “We have good material this year,“ in reference to the potential of his runners, so to the student is potential with respect to learning. So, education in general, and liberal education in particular, suppose a certain power or potential
in the learner, and I shall speak about this more later.

Even the earliest philosophers realized that there can be no becoming without a material principle. Nothing can come to be unless something pre-existing become it. But it is also evident that such a principle, though necessary, is not sufficient.

Matter will not become what it is able to be without the causality of other kinds of principles. The potential does not become actual simply in virtue of being potential. Rather, it becomes actual only by being formed in some way, and this supposes two other kinds of principles, differing in kind from the matter and from each other. These are the form that the matter receives and the agent that impresses the form. The clay receives a shape from the sculptor, and thereby becomes a statue, and the man regains his health from the activity of the doctor. This is universal in all becoming, in living things as well as in non-living things, in the soul as well as in the body. One might then define the form as the intrinsic cause of the potential being actual, or as that whereby a thing is what it is.

In the case of education, the formal principle is evident. The becoming in this case is learning, and to learn is to come to know. Thus, the form that completes the process is knowledge, and we rightly describe learning as ‘formation’. Accordingly, the formal cause that defines liberal education will be the kind (or kinds) of knowledge with which it is concerned.

Not all kinds of knowledge will be the concern of liberal education, however. Carpentry, for example, though a worthy art, will not pertain to liberal education. Not even medicine, in some way the noblest of the arts, will be included. The reasons for this will be clearer later, when we turn to the fourth kind of cause –the end (“that for the sake of which”). For the present, we will specify those sciences or disciplines that must be included in liberal education. The seven liberal arts: gram-
mar, rhetoric, logic, (the Trivium) and arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy (the Quadrivium) are the beginnings (in the order of learning). These are followed by the study of nature and of the soul, leading up to metaphysics, which among the human sciences, is wisdom. But the end or perfection of all such knowledge is Sacred Doctrine, which is the study of God based on what He has revealed about Himself. These are all formal in liberal education; they form the mind of the student.

Next to be considered is the agent cause. Aristotle describes this cause as “that from which the movement begins.” It is from the agent that the matter has the form. For example, it is from the sculptor that the clay has the shape that makes it a statue, and from the fire that the water becomes hot. Frequently, such a cause operates through an instrument or instruments, such as the hammer and saw of the carpenter, and the words of a commander. Likewise, there will also be a principal cause and an assisting cause. For example, in the healing of the patient, nature, which is an intrinsic principle, is the principle cause, and the doctor is an assisting cause. He may set the bones, but nature knits them.

In learning, the principal agent cause is within the learner himself; it is the active natural light of his own understanding. Thus, though one may pay a student’s debts, one cannot do his learning for him. The teacher is an assisting cause, for although he does not cause the natural light – only God, Who is the author of nature, can do that—he can assist it. This he does by proposing particular considerations and sensible examples that help the student grasp difficult universal truths, and (especially) by ordering the material in the right way, so that the student can move from one point to another, logically. (This is well illustrated in Plato’s dialogue, Meno, where Socrates instructs a slave boy in geometry simply by asking him one question after another. He comes to understand the matter because of the order in which the questions are asked. What Socrates gives is the order.)

Sensible and imaginable objects also participate in agent causality, since only through what has been experienced can the natural light perfect the understanding. Even the circumstances in which learning occurs, such as a well-run home school, or well-organized texts, can help the student to learn well. However, the word, spoken or written, is the preeminent instrument in learning.

The final cause to be considered is the final cause, the good for the sake of which the agent acts. It is the cause of causes, for it causes the agent to be an agent, just as the agent is the cause of the matter and form being causes. Thus we do not truly understand a thing until we know its end. However, we should note that the same thing may be both form and end. For example, the form of the house is that whereby it is a house, but it is also the end of the house builder. There is a further end, to be sure, the life to be lived in the house, but this is not the end of the house builder as such.

In liberal education, the principal end is also the form, for it is largely concerned with knowledge that is desirable for its own sake. This is one reason why it is rightly named ‘liberal’. The free (as opposed to the servile) is for its own sake. The free man is not concerned with a good that can be realized only in other men or in other things. Such a concern would be servile. Thus, the course of study that characterizes liberal education will be largely theoretical, where knowledge itself is the end.

However, liberal education will also concern itself with the sort of practical knowledge that is suitable to a free man. This will not be a knowledge of making, for making is not for the sake of the maker, but for the sake of the thing made. Rather, it will be a knowledge of the good life and how to achieve it, both by oneself and in those wholes of which one is naturally a part, as in the household and in civil society. Thus, the study of ethics and politics form a necessary, though secondary, part of liberal education.

This is an account of the nature of liberal education, in terms of the four kinds of causes, along with a brief explanation of why it is named ‘liberal’. I have also noted, in a summary way, the order involved in such as education. This order is twofold: the order of excellence, in which Sacred Doctrine is first, and the order of learning, in which the liberal arts are first. For Sacred Doctrine is concerned with what is most worth knowing, in the best possible way (in this mortal life), while the liberal arts are, as Hugh of St. Victor says, “as it were, certain paths, leading the lively mind to the secrets of philosophy.”

Now, though many of us here are working with students who are not ready to go beyond the liberal arts formally, all of these disciplines should have been prepared for by the right kind of experiences.

All learning is cyclical. We learn first on an introductory level and then we come back to the same objects at a deeper level. We have the children study natural things, as a preliminary to a general, scientific consideration they will undertake later, with Aristotle’s Physics, and with other, particular considerations that require more complete formation. If they have never thought about causality, or wondered when it is that one has a mixture of two things, and when one has a new thing altogether, they will have an hard time understanding the questions raised in the Physics. Natural objects are created by God, and reflect Him. They are perfective of the mind, for they “disclose to intellectual perception the artistic spirit that designed them “ and “give immense pleasure to all who can trace links of causation, and are inclined to philosophy” (to quote Aristotle). Nature is the work of an intelligence superior to ours, and that is why we become more perfect just in understanding it.

We have our students study animal behavior, as a beginning to the study of the soul. We also introduce our children to great literature. Through these works the student gains a sort of experience. The great works of literature appeal to the imagination and move the affections rightly. They present or imply profoundly important views of human life and reality as a whole. Similarly, the great works of history provide vicarious moral experience, a conception of human society, and an awareness of the greatest issues mankind faces. All of this prepares the student well to read the more difficult things, such as Plato’s Dialogues, and then the Ethics of Aristotle, at the right time. We introduce our children to the arguments our Founding Fathers had regarding the nature of the republic, and the particular “incarnation” of the form of mixed government that was appropriate to us, in this new land. This is the beginning of the study of the Politics.

All of these educational disciplines are ordered to understanding the first causes, the highest and noblest objects of the natural order. The science that concerns itself with the first causes and principles of things is named ‘metaphysics’ that is, “after the physics”, from its place in the order of learning. This knowledge is human wisdom. In his Metaphysics (for example), Aristotle concludes from the nature of motion, and from its necessity and perpetuity, that there is an eternal first mover,
altogether unmoved, whose essence is understanding, understanding itself. Pretty amazing for someone to come to without revelation.

All of this is ordered to Sacred Theology. Theology is the principal satisfaction of the human desire for knowledge, and the principle perfection of the human mind. It is the science that studies God in the light of what He has revealed about Himself. It is the end to which all of the rest of the liberal disciplines are ordered.

This is important to know, as we can then see that the goal of this education is identical with the goal of all men, that is, to know and love God. Liberal education is education simply speaking, for it is the education that perfects a man as he is according to his nature.

Our final end is God Himself, whom we will possess in glory, in the beatific vision, where we will know as we are known, instead of “through a glass darkly” as we now do. We will see Him face to face, and love Him as fully as we are capable of doing. Then we will have true wisdom, for we will see as God sees. Classical education, then, prepares us for heaven, and brings us as close to that as is possible here. It has the same end identically as the end of all men, the knowledge of the very highest object of truth, God Himself. This is the final cause of liberal education.

Now, I would like to explore a bit the agent cause of liberal education. We already said that the agent is primarily the man who learns, and the one who teaches is also an agent. They are most properly said to be the agent causes of education. But there are also conditions that make such an education possible and they are disposing causes, often necessary for liberal education. Freedom is such a cause, at least in some ways, and we have already discussed it briefly, though more as an effect of liberal education than as a cause. Now, let us see more fully what freedom has to do with liberal education. But because ‘freedom’ is said in many ways, we must distinguish.

In the most fundamental sense, freedom is a property of our intellect and will, as distinguished from the instincts and impulses of brute animals. It is the power we have to will or not to will particular goods, and determine the course of our lives.

The animals, on the other hand, in their lives, execute a program they do not understand, and are naturally determined in the particulars of their actions. Clearly human freedom, in this sense is presupposed to liberal education.

In another sense, freedom is the absence of coercion or restraint from without With such freedom it seems that our choices are truly ours. Thus, we say that we live in a free country, and we support that by pointing out that we are able to educate our children as we choose. In our case, this means we are able to give them a liberal education. Now, most people will say this shows we live in a free country because we have choices among types of education. They see freedom as consisting of having options. It is freedom from restriction or restraint.

This creates a dilemma. Are we then more free before choosing? Before I choose to have my children liberally educated, I have more choices before me than I do after I choose. Once I have chosen and committed myself to that choice, I have closed off some of my options. So in the exercise of my freedom I have become less free. This seems strange but inescapable: if freedom consists of having options so that when I have more options I am more free, once I actually chose I have fewer options, and am thus less free. This is a strange conclusion, isn’t it? That the exercise of freedom results in less freedom?

One might object that I still have the potential to change my mind and opt for one of those other methods of education, and that is why I am still said to be free. In that view I am more limited after making a choice but am still free, as I can change my mind.

There are other perplexities with this position, however. If freedom depends on having a plethora of options, am I more free when I am ignorant than once I know? Before I have figured something out, while I am still wondering about it, there are many conclusions I might reach. Am I more free then, before I know what the truth is? Once I know what the truth is I don’t have those various options for answers to my questions. There is only one answer. If I work out that 246 + 254 = 500 and there is no other possibility, am I now in bonds, while I was free until I knew that answer?

Or would one say, I am still free, because, though I know the truth, I could choose to ignore it? For example, I know that it is better to not eat this chocolate, but I chose to eat it anyway. Is that what makes me free? That I can choose badly? It seems very strange to say that freedom comes from being able to choose badly. In that case I am more free when I have no moral formation whatever, or even when I am vicious, than when I am virtuous.

The greatest difficulty with this position, however, seems to me to be this: in heaven I will not be able to choose badly. I will not be able to sin (thanks be to God). Does that mean that I am more free before I get to heaven? In heaven am I in bondage to the truth? And then, of course, what about God? Is He free? He can’t choose badly. He can’t sin. He knows all things. Is God free? If freedom consists in freedom from restraint and restriction, and if choice, knowledge and virtue are restrictions of freedom, then God is not free.

As believers we have a great help in the faith. Presented with this dilemma we can turn to scripture. John 8: 31-32 says, “If you make my words your home you will indeed be my disciples, you will learn the truth and the truth will make you free.” II Cor. 3:15-18 says, “...where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”

Clearly our dilemma comes from a wrong conception of freedom. If the truth is freeing, but it limits the options by removing falsehood from those options, then freedom can’t consist in having every possible options. Choice has to be involved in freedom, as men are free in a way the lower animals are not, precisely because they can exercise free will. But the exercise of our will can’t be defined by having every conceivable option, whatever it may be. Freedom is not freedom from restraint, but rather freedom to act.

Now, when is one most free to act? When I first read the Gorgias by Plato, I was struck by the argument that when one is a vicious man, that is, a man of bad character, one is led by the passions. Such a person is not in control of his life; he does not determine his actions in the light of the goals he wishes to achieve. “I do whatever I feel like doing” is really the cry of someone who does not rule or direct his life, but rather follows his passions. He is subject to the inclinations of his passions, and is thus a slave. He is not acting as free man, capable of directing his own life or the life of others. Free men live by the rule of reason informed by grace. They are not subject to their passions; rather they control the passions, so that their feelings become a help to the virtuous life, rather than a hindrance.

One sees this in literary form in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. Jane Austen shows the difference between a life lived in accord with right reason, and one that is not. Elinor and Marianne are two young women, both disappointed in love, both seemingly duped by their would-be suitors.

Elinor, though her heart is broken, lives a life ordered to others. She pays attention to the comfort of those she lives with, occupies herself with useful and pleasant tasks, and makes a choice to be happy or at least to live a normal life that makes those around her happy. She succeeds in her goal. Her emotions, though real, are controlled by her reason. Elinor makes the choice to subordinate her disappointment to her other roles in life.

Marianne, on the other hand, lives for emotion. She revels in her feelings, both happy and sad. When she is sad everyone is going to suffer with her. She doesn’t consider the feelings of others; she just concentrates on her own feelings and reacts to them. The result is that she makes everyone around her miserable, and she herself is miserable.

Marianne comes to see the mistake she has made. So do we as we read the story. It is clear that the freer and happier person in the story is Elinor. She actually chooses how she wishes to act and is in control of her life. Marianne is a slave to her emotion.

We see this understanding reflected in ordinary language. When someone is out of control, when he is unreasonably angry, or sad, we say he is beside himself, or we suggest that he pull himself together. We recognize that the person who is in the grip of passion is not fully himself, for he is not directing himself as he would if he were. It is only when we are ruled by reason, so that our passions are subordinated to the reason or directed by the reason (which is not at all the same as suppressed by the reason) that we can say we are free men.

We have here, then, another sort of freedom, which is a perfection of our natural freedom, and gives it a certain necessary determination. Such freedom does not come to be simply through the absence of external restraint. In fact, it requires a great deal of internal restraint! It is rather the result of liberal education, and of the moral virtues which are required by such an education, and which dispose one to it. This is very helpful in understanding the relationship between freedom and liberal education. The word ‘liberal’, of course, means free. One becomes a free man, able to direct his own life and the life of the community by means of this education. One needs to see, though, that this freedom is the result of leaving behind them ignorance, falsehood and vice and growing into knowledge, truth and virtue. Freedom is essentially “the formation of the inward man by the true principles of thought and action.”

Thus , a man becomes free when he desires the true good so much that he cannot do evil. This notion of freedom does have some sense of ‘freedom from’. There is no constraint, physical or otherwise, in the free man. Rather there is a positive movement in that man’s soul that moves him away from the constraints of darkness and lifts him to God. This is the virtuous man. He desires to do the right thing so much that the option of anything else becomes abhorrent. There is no constraint upon him, but rather he has achieved true and absolute freedom. “To seek freedom, rightly understood, is to seek virtue.” (TAC Founding Document: A Proposal for
the Fulfillment of a Catholic Liberal Education)

Now, virtue is both intellectual and moral, and both are required for freedom. A man must have a formed intelligence and controlled will. Knowledge by itself is not enough for virtue. But it is necessary for virtue.

Ever since man left the garden we have been struggling with the effects of original sin. The virtuous man is the man who has recovered that original justice that was damaged in the Fall. Original justice is the term by which we designate the right ordering of the creature to the Creator. When we lost that ordination, the internal order among the parts of our nature was also damaged. Before the Fall, each part of the person had what it was supposed to have in terms of control. There was a proper subordination among the parts of our nature. The concupiscible and irascible appetites, namely the appetites in us that are moved to desire, love, hope, fear and anger, and the will, whereby we choose, were subordinated to the intellect. When the intellect presented something as a good, the will and appetites would move to it, and when the intellect presented something as bad, the will and appetites would move away from it. As a result of the Fall, we have lost that order. Now we have to work to regain it; we have to work to achieve the moral virtues. A good education helps in this endeavor as it forms the intellect that will, in the rightly ordered man, present the good as good, so that the will and the appetites will have the right objects toward which to move.

Further, a good education requires the moral virtues, as one must be willing to work hard and apply himself in order to learn. The bottom line here is that while the freedom that is the absence of external coercion is, in some way, a cause or condition for liberal education, as one must live under a rule that allows such an education, it is far more properly said that liberal education is the cause of freedom. For the freedom that it causes is the ability, confirmed by habit, of directing oneself well to the true end of human life. The liberally educated man is the free man, precisely in virtue of his education, both moral and intellectual.

This is a matter of grave concern to us, for, unless some men have the education of a free man, unless some men have liberal education, an education that results, by intention, in a man whose reason is in control of his appetites, we will lose our freedom even in the sense of freedom from restraint. What we do as we educate our children in the tradition of liberal education is vitally important to our society as a whole, as well as to our individual children.

The meaning of liberal education, then, is the education of a free man, and a free man is a virtuous man. That is our goal, for ourselves and for our children.