At Class Day luncheon, Anderson reveals rewards of a 'useless' liberal education

BY JIA-RUI CHONG

R. Lanier Anderson didn't mince any words at his keynote speech at Saturday's Class Day luncheon for seniors and their families. Pondering the nature of a liberal education, the assistant professor, an expert in modern Western philosophy, came up with a definition that parents, graduating students and their creditors probably didn't want to hear.

"Liberal study is the pure, autonomous search for truth, without regard to practical application. Not to put too fine a point on it, then, liberal education is 'free' in the specific sense of being useless," he said.

The function and purpose of a liberal education is a very personal issue, Anderson told the crowd filling the lawn at Ford Plaza. In fact, it was the subject of the last real fight he had with his younger brother.

Anderson's brother had just earned a degree in cultural anthropology and was frustrated that his professors had not adequately prepared him for a job outside of the university. The brother was disappointed that Anderson seemed no more practical.

"He vilified me as an unrealistic, ivory-tower, head-in-the-clouds, all-around-useless leech on society, hopelessly unprepared to discharge my one, concrete social function -- namely, preparing my students to be useful in life," Anderson said.

The argument with his brother led him to consider the turn-of-the-last-century debate between W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington over the proper kind of education for the newly emancipated African Americans after the Civil War. Anderson quoted Du Bois' words in his book The Souls of Black Folk: "The true college will ever have but one goal -- not to earn meat, but to know the end and aim of that life which meat nourishes."

Du Bois' point, Anderson explained, was that education should not be about learning a trade but about learning how to live and cultivating the intelligence and sensitivity to deal with life's challenges.

As such, it holds the promise of true freedom, which in turn makes life more meaningful and rewarding. "What was for sale at the university was never bread nor breadwinning, but only freedom and the possibility of happiness," Anderson said.

For Stanford students, this boils down to the practical application of critical thinking, he added. "What you got from liberal study, then, was a chance -- the chance to redeem the accidents of your life, by turning them into lessons -- lessons that add to our human understanding of the ends and aims of the life that meat sustains," Anderson said.

That liberal education is by definition "useless" in preparing for certain professions does not mean that it cannot be used in life, he concluded. "I bid you, Class of 2002, go forth and use your new freedom."

Anderson was chosen by the Class of 2002 to deliver the main address on Saturday. The event also featured remarks by Howard E. Wolf, president of the Stanford Alumni Association; Roger A. Clay, Jr., chair of the association's board of directors; President John Hennessy on the receipt of the Senior Gift; and Serge Kassardjian, one of the class presidents.