Bertrand Russell, "The Place of Science in Liberal Education."

In “The Place of Science in Liberal Education,” Bertrand Russell compares the standing of science and the liberal arts in education in England in 1903. He challenges the view that liberal education is more valuable than science education which is seen as being merely practical. Defining education as, “the formation, by means of instruction, of certain mental habits and a certain outlook on life and the world,” Russell argues that science creates habits and outlooks of thought as valuable as those created by liberal education. Today the tables have turned. Science and technology, STEM, are far valued about liberal education. However, not for the habits and outlooks of thought, but for their practicality as measured monetarily. Sorry, Bertrand. Not only do we find it difficult to learn, we seem to be moving backwards.

An Aside on Bertrand Russell's The Problems of Philosophy

In the opening pages of The Problems of Philosophy, when Bertrand Russell outlines the basic philosophical problem of appearance and reality, he writes that artists “have to learn the habit of seeing things as they appear.”* His point has to do with perspective, that we see every object from a personal viewpoint or perspective. I have to wonder whether even in 1912, when The Problems of Philosophy was first published, if artists were still trying to see things as they appear. The impressionist movement, with Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, was already in full swing, perhaps even by 1912 already cresting its wave, and being muscled out by Post-Impressionism, though I suspect this is a category only bandied about by art experts. The point, simple enough, by 1912, the forefront of art had already lost interest, not only in appearance, but reality, since they were painting impressions, or interpretations, or experiences, a move that was mirrored across the Atlantic in pragmatism, which its most vocal proponent, William James, was wont to call a method, and which Russell vehemently denied could call itself a philosophy.  

* My copy of The Problems of Philosophy is a reprint, without pagination, or indeed margins wide enough for me to make notes in. Not being able to write notes in the margins drives me crazy.