Our English Syllabus

In this essay by C.S. Lewis he ties in beautifully his views on learning and education with the Universities that were around him at the time. Throughout the essay he talks about the difference between education and vocational training. One of the quotes I really like is when Lewis says, "You see at once that education is essentially for freemen and vocational training for slaves." I found this quote to be interesting because I have never really thought about the difference between these two before. Here Lewis stresses the draw of education and why he thinks it is important to have a great understanding of different subjects instead of just specializing in one field of education. I agree with this and this is why I think Calvin is a great place to not only get a great Christian Education, but also just an education in general. We have so many more core classes that we need to take here than at other schools, and while we may grumble about some of them if we aren't interested in a certain required subject, we should be thankful that we have the opportunity to learn a little bit from a very wide range of fields. Lewis believed that in order to understand one subject, then you must have a good understanding of the subjects around and related to that one. Because it is such a difficult task to understand the different fields that are related to the one we are trying to learn, we may never have a good grasp of the field we are interested in, or atleast that's what Lewis tried to explain.

Even satisfying these core classes here at Calvin isn't that great of a chore because we still have a variety of classes we can choose from to fulfill a certain area of required courses, and I think that this is also good because then we still feel as if we have a choice in what we want to be educated on and we don't feel stuck in a certain unwanted class.

I also like Lewis's quote at the end of the essay when he says, "Do not tell me that you would sooner have a nice composite menu of dishes from half the world drawn up for you. You are too old for that. It is time you learned to wrestle with nature for yourself." I like this quote because Lewis tells us, students in particular, that we should start to figure things out for ourselves, things are no longer handed to us. "We are too old for that", we are in college now and we no longer need a teacher to hold our hand and show us exactly how to learn or what to learn, we need to figure that out for ourselves.

This essay was great because I was able to put in in perspective as a student in college trying to focus on my major while I have to deal with a variety of core that I must complete. I now realize that I should be glad that I have the opportunity to learn things that otherwise wouldn't matter to me. Here at Calvin I can broaden my scope of learning, and while I do have to focus on my major, I also can learn a bit more about other subjects to be a well rounded individual.