First Lecture: Meaning of Education

It is intense! Mark Mancall is, by my roommate's word, "sensational". He is very knowledgeable, profound and opinionated. I totally love the the lecture! The lecture evoke us to reflect upon the meaning of higher education, touching on comparative changes in higher education in recent years and Mark's own view of a proper higher education. Mark quoted extensively from Confucius in stating the purpose of higher education. In particularly, he noted that high education is ,first and foremost, a quest for mental maturity, an education of mind, and, at core, an education of morals. He agreed whole-hearted with the six virtues of Confucius in creating a just and peaceful society (the truth of which I strongly revere), namely, 仁benevolence,君子person of virtues,德moral superiority,礼propriety,文art of peace, and one other I cannot recall.

He talks about the importance of writing and precise use of words. He demands us to examine the world around us and observe how often the words like 'democracy', 'liberty', 'freedom' are used without clarity and justification. He claims that without the precision of diction, references in language turn ambiguous and words misconstrue and blur with reality.

He emphasizes the importance and necessity of a truly complete, rigorous humanity education, in term of education the soul and mind, not in term of skills and trade. He states the instrumentalism of recent higher education is too great that the higher institutions forget their mission of passing down traditional culture heritage and cultivating of cultured citizens.

He proposes that we, the new generation of SLE kids should reflect on our own purpose of education, and emulate many virtuous aspect of the traditional higher education, such as the perceptiveness of reality taught through drawing, the intimacy with literature gained through memorization and the fine skills of close analysis of a text.

Superb lecture! Bravo! I would love if he can stay till the end of the academic year!!!