Works and Prayers of a Fils Prodigue

A response to Missina on the Z:

She writes: What exactly IS your point? That without education, you can’t do good honest work? Or without education you won’t have friendship, charity, and union with God? And what is your definition of education anyway? Does it always have to be in a formal, expensive, classroom setting?

What I’m saying is that if you are LOOKING for the financial gain and are going to spend $120 000 for four years to get it, it doesn’t really make much sense, especially considering most people who come out of college with philosophy degrees and english degrees don’t really land the “doctor” or “lawyer” type jobs that would pay well.

Missina, I think you’ve missed my point entirely. My point was not what people do without education (although it’s arguable that anyone can do any honest, good work WITHOUT some education, even if the most informal; e.g. a front desk clerk has to have some education in personal relations and communication, even if she never studied it in school). The point is that if education allows us to make money, this allowance is only accidental and desultory. The real point of education is to enable one to serve God and man via some particular vocation. I’d also argue that education develops us as persons, and that all people ought to have a classical and vocational education available to them (where possible, and especially without the intervention of the state, and with a great intervention by the Church).

Point is, education develops the person in order to grow his talents, serve his neighbor, and love his God. Not make him wealthy, or give him more than he needs. To specifically define education in its entirety is impossible, but I think we can say that true education transforms the intellect, the spirit, and the body. Although the intellect seems to flourish in a classical setting, there is no doubt many educated people who never spent a second in a college classroom (which says a lot for their intelligence and not too much for the “places of learning” we call colleges). To start, nihil in intellectu nisi prius in sensu — nothing is in the mind unless first in the senses. We need bodily education, i.e. work and athletics, experiences of the natural world, etc. We need intellectual education, i.e. the “thousand good books” and the hundreds of great books, philosophy, logic, latin and greek, music, science, etc.. We need spiritual education, i.e. all the facets of theology — scriptures, morality, patristics, ecclesialogy, and so forth — as well as a deep, silent, solitudinous prayer life firmly grounded in the sacraments. I think this education is necessary for every human being, at all times, in all places. Although each is given his own talents unique to him, this type of education enables man to grow to his fullest, to stretch his sinewy tendrils high to heaven, out to man, and deep into the earth. Mail clerks, philosophers, truck drivers, doctors — all professions need this education, because all human persons deserve to savor the great depths of knowledge available to us.

I hope this helps. (sorry to wax, here)