Liberal arts service academies

I’m rather surprised to find myself recommending an article in the Weekly Standard, but much of what John Noonan writes here is quite sensible. (Via Robert Farley at TAPPED.) The curriculum of the service academies is called the Thayer System, and it was developed after the War of 1812. It emphasizes math and engineering and, while you can get social sciences and humanities degrees, they’re de-emphasized. Noonan argues, rightly I think, that officers today need to understand people as much more than they understand artillery trajectories and engines. In previous wars, the government has recruited academics and intellectuals to do this kind of work (see Robin Wink‘s Cloak and Gown for some fine examples), and perhaps as George Packer argues, we’re moving back towards that. But surely it makes sense to have that sort of knowledge and analytical ability in-house.

It seems to me that Noonan’s arguments can be made more broadly than just training military officers. It’s been well documented (although I’m too lazy to go and find a link) that the liberal arts are on the decline in American college and universities, as more and more undergraduates major in explicitly pre-professional degrees. Yet it’s hard to imagine a profession in which the analytical and practical skills taught in liberal arts educations aren’t going to be worth more in the long term than whatever they teach in undergrad business majors.

(It perhaps goes without saying that I find some of what Noonan writes–in particular, his paean to the British Empire–to be utter nonsense. But I don’t think it detracts from his larger curricular points.)

-jacob