John Von Heyking responds to complaints of Canadian employers that too many students are studying the liberal arts rather than vocational skills.

As pressing as these concerns are to us now, the debate between the liberal arts and the "worker bees" has been around since the days of Socrates. The exemplar of the liberal arts, Socrates, was viewed by the Athenians as a parasitic lay-about that is, when he was not undermining the allegiance of Athenian youths to the laws of Athens. He embodied the liberal arts by not getting paid for his work not because he was lazy, but because knowledge is first and foremost for its own sake, not for its utility. To reverse these is to forget that the liberal arts enable one to be free (liber).

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