What is university for? Is it there to enrich our lives – to round us out as human beings – or is it there, primarily, to get us better jobs? The consensus on this seems to swing rather wildly depending on precisely which group of potential students we happen to be talking about.
News that a traditional humanities subject is on the decline, for example, tends to prompt us towards the first sort of answer. University is not merely about acquiring skills for work, we say, it is about setting you up for a fuller sort of life. The humanities are spiritually and morally improving – three years spent reading and thinking are valuable in themselves.
