Tseng on the goals of general education

Below I was thinking about Tseng Yueh-nung's view of rhetoric education as expressed in his "Simple Explanation of General Education." I need to say more about that article. It gets cited in the History of Tunghai University, 1955-1980 (Tunghai Daxue xiaoshi 東海大學校史) as representative of the philosophy of education that Tseng brought to Tunghai. The History says that Tseng' s essay compares Western and Chinese thought and develops an explanation of the "true meaning" of general education.

About halfway through Tseng's article, he gets to the point. (OK, that's just testiness on my part.) On page 5, he observes that one of the keys to general education is to train students to "observe by themselves, collect information on their own, rely on themselves to make distinctions, study by themselves, draw to their own conclusions, and form their own judgments." (宏通教育中，每一重點，必使學生：自行觀察，自集資料，自力鑑別，自加研究，自作結論，自下批評。)

Tseng divides into five groups the kinds of training needed to meet the goals of teaching students to seek knowledge for themselves. These kinds of training (specific areas of study are mentioned in parentheses) will help students work toward the following goals:

1. reasoning can be correct and rigorous (logic)

2. expression can be clear and fluent (language, math, and other media for expression, such as lines and colors are used for expression in the arts)

3. research can be high-quality, careful, and objective (natural sciences, social sciences, and methodologies, such as history, philosophy, and literary methods)

4. appraisal can be wise and impartial (humanities and sciences, including the evaluation of cultural products)

5. the result of study can be harmoniously blended and thoroughly grasped, taking a complete and "synoptic view" (history, philosophy, theology)

Tseng goes on to say that the first two items relate to courses that equip students with tools (為工具性學科), and from the perspective of general education do not exist for their own sake, but rather for the sake of the other courses or areas of study (不為其本身而存在，乃為其他各科而設...). This is the "language is a tool" school of thought that governs, in Tseng's view properly governs, the way in which general education curricula are established. Invention, critical thinking, and even taste are separated from "expression."

[Updated 12/10/04, 4:03 p.m.]