The Crisis Of Liberal Education Analysis

In The Crisis of Liberal Education, author Allan Bloom explains his disdain for the liberal education system in America, states areas of the system that are lacking, and presents his ideas regarding how liberal education should change. He credits the flaws he finds in the system to two events in particular. Bloom states that the launching of the artificial earth satellite, Sputnik, by the Russians in 1957 and campus revolts (which I assume to include the Free Speech Movement of 1964) drastically changed academics in America. Bloom believes that these events contributed to the decline of liberal education.

After feeling outdone and surpassed in terms of scientific capability by the Soviet Union after the launch of Sputnik in 1957, the

He states that educational institutions demand a high level of skill, but they do so because of reasons that contradict liberal education itself. The United States commends those who achieve academic greatness but do so so not to be outdone, instead of for the benefit of its students. Bloom delves into the outlooks and conventions of the students themselves. He describes them as persons who are carefree, willing, and gullible. They live comfortably and do not appreciate all that it takes to attain and maintain a comfortable living style. Students are eager to drop everything if a seemingly better opportunity (probably where more money will be made) arises. The success of the economy during the time that this essay was written gave the students that Bloom refers to confidence that they will easily be able to find a job. These students are only influenced by their peers and the media, not by church, their parents, or

These professors are often researchers but not inventors. They build on the findings of others, fail to think critically, and never think to ask their own questions.4 The main problem that Bloom has with what liberal education has evolved into is that the many classes students are required to take are not beneficial to them at all. Students are forced to take classes that they may gain knowledge from, or they may not. Even if they do gain the knowledge, it may not be retained, or it may be a dormant skill that the student rarely uses. When students are forced to take so many classes and retain so much information that does not play into or is not related to in any way to each other, how are they to be expected to remember it all? I would take a miracle, especially over the course of four years. “We are faced with the choice between a careful knowledge of one [field] or a superficial acquaintance with many.”5 As previously stated, knowledge is taught to students, but if they are not taught how to use it, it is useless to