The Seven Liberal Arts

The seven liberal arts, as defined in the sixth century by Cassiodorus (not to be confused with CassieDorius).

Grammar,
Rhetoric,
Logic (dialectic),
Arithmetic,
Geometry,
Astronomy,
Music.


This miniature from a manuscript of Cassiodorus' writings ostensibly shows Ezra "revising" the Law, but is also probably a portrait of Cassiodorus.

The first three of these branches were called the trivium, since they blended so easily together into skills of orators and men of state. Seven is kind of a mystical number - people like to put things into sevens (seven days in a week, the seven virtues, seven deadly sins, the seven sacraments, seven sages of ancient Greece, seven minute abs . . . )

These branches of knowledge were called "liberal" because they refer to the learning possessed by free men ("liberis"). Slaves, who necessarily focused on economic skills, learned "illiberal arts."

Vitruvius 1.12: "But perhaps it will seem incredible to inexperienced persons that human nature can master and hold in recollection so large a number of subjects. When, however, it is perceived that all studies are related to one another and have points of contact, they will easily believe it can happen. For a general education is put together like one body from its limbs." (based on Granger's translation in the Loeb Classical Library)

Although "liberal arts" carries a somewhat different meaning today, the basic distinction between "trade" and "gentlemanly" knowledge remains. Much of higher education is shifting towards the money degrees - business, information technology, etc. Money, after all, makes the world go around. But, as the Vitruvius quotation above notes, a true education should stress connections and relationships among and between branches of knowledge. All of it should be geared towards "philosophia" - a love of wisdom.

If you're going to school or college "just to get a job" or make bunches of money, good luck. It's your call. But yours is a slave education.