Saturday, January 23, 2016

Permanent and Progressive

As I have already said, a liberal Education ought to include both Permanent Studies which connect men with the culture of past generations, and Progressive Studies which make them feel their community with the present generation, its businesses, interests and prospects. The Permanent Studies must necessarily precede, in order to form a foundation for the Progressive; for the present Progress has grown out of the past activity of men's minds; and cannot be intelligible, except to the student of past literature and established opinions. But the Progressive Studies must be added to the Permanent; for without this step, the meaning and tendencies of the past activity of men cannot be seen, nor our own business understood. And though Progressive Studies may form the business of life, as well as of the specially educational period of it, they may with advantage be begun in that period, before each man's course of study is, as in after life it generally is, disturbed and perplexed by the constant necessity of action.

William Whewell, Of a Liberal Education in General, p. 63.