My dictionary contrasts a liberal education with education leading to technical or professional qualifications. Presumably it (LE) includes the subjects that my father-in-law (an ignoramus if ever there was one) considers to be non-useful: eg History, Music, Latin. As for me, I believe (though I agree wholeheartedly with Chet above that most of what an educated man has learned has been learned after school) that a Liberal Education, both at school and also at the University of Life, is a Good Thing.

I have been a little surprised, as I have browsed this forum in the relatively short time that I've been here, at the large number of contributors who, although having immersed themselves in the culture of yesteryear (presumably: what else would they be doing at a Folk Music site?), seem to be carrying round such a lot of late-Twentieth-Century baggage (I, of course, have total objectivity and am not at all contaminated by the spirit of the age *BG*). Thus I am much more in tune with Peter T who holds himself in such low regard than with Kat; her idea that one cannot respect someone else without first respecting oneself strikes me as preposterous. Those with a large degree of self-respect are generally, in my eyes, indistinguishable from the self-important.

And then there's all this PC, New Age, Neo-Buddhist claptrap, too...