At City Journal, Victor Davis Hanson has written a wonderfully concise history of the rise and decline of classical, liberal education in the West, and I highly recommend it for educators, parents, and those who have felt a little slighted by their own educations, from kindergarten through graduate school. Please note that this essay is not about the war between science and the humanities, so all your mechanical engineers out there, please refrain from taunting the helpless English majors out there.

In classical education, everybody gets educated in the history and traditions of Western arts and letters – and then they go on to learn a profession: in mechanical engineering, research science, law, business, teaching. Anyway, Hanson’s summa of the situation is delightful, and he explains the rise of conservative Christian colleges, the splintering of the liberal arts, and how students young and old are still hungry for classical education and are having to seek it somewhere besides the usual liberal arts colleges.