Entry
Entries A-Z
Subject index
Liberal Arts Colleges
The term liberal arts derives from the Latin artes liberals, which referred to the subjects of study appropriate to free human beings. In ancient Greece, the original liberal arts were grammar, rhetoric, and logic. To this trivium, medieval scholars added the quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. With residences and teaching units, English colleges in the late 16th century guided the pattern for American colonial colleges. The 4-year, freestanding residential college with a liberal arts curriculum and baccalaureate degree dominated higher learning in the United States for 200 years. As colleges with liberal arts curriculums developed for undergraduate study in the United States, they typically allowed students to major in one discipline while also taking courses in an expansive range of academic subjects.
Historically, the ...
- Loading...