Chemistry: One of the liberal arts

A. Truman Schwartz Macalester College St. Paul, MN 55105

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Chemistry: One of the Liberal Arts

Of late, the modifier "liheral arts" has been attached to "chemistry" with increasing frequency. Publishers advertise liheral arts chemistry texts for the liheral arts chemistry courses listed in college and university catalogues. As it is commonly used, the phrase appears to be condesceuding a t best and disoaraeine . .. - a t worst. Freauentlv, "liberal arts" is used as a synonym for "watered-down," "non-rigorous" or "soft-headed." There is an air of the impractical about it. By contrast, real chemistry is presumahlytough and technical, free from the fuzzy-mindedness of the liberal arts. Mv comnlaint is not with the aoolication of the term "lih-

and liberating arts? It is my contention that the discipline helones in that comoanv. . . and that the comuanv . . is an honor:rhIr one. T n 1 1 kt I I I I i aI m i he f hardy, given the amount of professorial pettifoggery which the topic has generated-especially at institutions which style themselves as heing exemplars of the tradition. But with curricular revisions underway a t Harvard and elsewhere, liheral education has once more become a subject for broader discussion and debate. Therefore, it might he worthwhile to consider briefly the historical antecedents of the liheral arts and the place of science (and chemistry in particular) within that context. IJl;lta.'i 4cnilc1ny i- an npprnprintv plarr hrgin, since i t IS c,,mmonly r w n ns the t~rt*t