In an 1891 essay penned as a student at Harvard, future civil rights leader W. E. B. Du Bois asked a provocative question: “Does education pay?”
Anticipating the rivalry with Booker T. Washington that would define much of his early career, Du Bois writes true education is more than just practical job training. Genuine education, Du Bois argues, aims at the higher ends of human life, the “Truth, Beauty, and Virtue” of the tradition that includes Aristotle, Socrates, Michelangelo, Goethe, Shakespeare, Beethoven, and Christ—a few of the denizens of the realm that Du Bois calls “the kingdom of culture.” One enters this kingdom through an education grounded in the liberal arts—the great works of literature, history, philosophy, and science that have explored the nature and meaning of human life.
Today, a liberal arts education continues to have both detractors and defenders. One hotspot for the conflict between the two is the increasing national interest in returning to classical education.
While this movement has been on the rise in charter schools, homeschooling, and private schools for several decades, it has grown even more prevalent during the last few years as the recent pandemic drew attention to the problems in America’s public schools. Just as in the days of W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, much of the conflict over classical education is focused on questions of access, particularly for people of color and children from underserved communities.