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Liberal Education Imperiled3 3 7through human action and is therefore perishable or corruptible presupposesincorruptible and unchangeable things—for instance, the natural order ofthe human soul—with a view to which we can distinguish between right andwrong actions.” 78 Liberal education, then, is a preparation for philosophy, andphilosophy is, in the rank order of things, more weighty than gentlemanship.Why is Kronman, not to say Strauss himself, concerned about liberaleducation and its demise? Strauss offers a seemingly innocuous statementafter claiming that the status of the liberal arts is waning: “Permit me tosummarize the preceding argument. In the light of the original conceptionof modern republicanism, our present predicament appears to be causedby the decay of religious education of the people and by the decay of liberaleducation.” 79 At first glance, we might conclude that Strauss believes religiouseducation and liberal education are synonymous, or tied together in someway that has since been lost. However, Strauss does not claim that religiouseducation is liberal education. Indeed, he seems to separate them. The declineof religious education, or catechism, is not necessarily the fault of colleges.This becomes evident later in the same paragraph:Still, I cannot help stating to you these questions: Is our present concernwith liberal education of adults, our present expectation fromsuch liberal education, not due to the void created by the decay ofreligious education? Is such liberal education meant to perform thefunction formerly performed by religious education? Can liberal educationperform that function? 80Religious education and liberal education are two different things with twodifferent ends. Yet Strauss seems to suggest that they may both work inthe pursuit of justice. Liberal education was originally supported by classicalpolitical philosophy, not theology, generally speaking. The oldest of thesciences is what Aristotle called political science. 81 It is synonymous withpolitical philosophy and the academy that he helped found. The problemwith modern education—Kronman in many ways rightly recognizes this—is78Ibid. Strauss makes the argument at this point that there is a tension between the philosopherand the city. The reason for that is that the philosopher is necessarily skeptical of common opinion,which finds its full force in the city. Who is the constituent part of the city? The priest. The ends ofphilosophy, then, are not the same as the ends of the city. Philosophers find it very difficult to havenoncommon conversations with members of the city, and that makes them suspect. Of course, the cityneeds philosophy in some way, but in a diluted form. See ibid., 328–31.79Ibid., 336.80Ibid.81Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey, editors’ introduction to History of Political Philosophy, 3rd ed.(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), 1.