To examine liberal arts education in Japan is not an easy task, because its concept and idea had already undergone many fundamental transformations over centuries by the time it was introduced in the late 19th century. The differences between the liberal arts education of ancient Greece and Rome, on the one hand, and the ones practiced now in North American colleges and universities and also new institutions in Asia and Europe, on the other hand, are so great that they do not show much more than a family resemblance. The liberal arts education since the time of ancient Greece has been transformed every time it was reintroduced in successive periods, for instance, in ancient Rome, the European Middle Ages, the European Renaissance, the 19th century in Prussia, the 20th century in the United States, and in the new millennium in Asia and Europe, reflecting cultural, ideological and social demands of each region. This chapter examines the development of liberal arts education, its roles, and its successes in Japan.

Introduction

Liberal arts education is in any case a term that is prone to invite confusion, namely because it refers to two separate concepts. It could simply mean the curriculum such as the Seven Liberal Arts of the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) and the quadrivium (geometry, arithmetic, music, and astronomy) of the medieval European university, or the curriculum made of humanities, social science, and natural science subjects practiced in modern universities. “Liberal education” is, however, concerned with attitudes towards teaching and learning. John Henry Newman states the objective of liberal education is to give young people “the force, the steadiness, the comprehensiveness and the versatility of intellect, the command over our own powers, the instinctive just estimate of things as they pass before us.” A hundred years after this statement the Association of American Colleges (AAC) comprising some 550 higher education institutions issued a report entitled “The Nature and Purpose of Liberal Education,” which defines liberal education as a system to inculcate individual freedom, personal fulfillment, intellectual discipline, and social responsibility as well as the “skills and abilities … to use intelligently and with a sense of workmanship some of the principal tools and techniques of the arts and sciences.”