Bringing Together the Lives of the Hands and the Head

A new college has started that combines the liberal arts with the trades. My wife, a sociologist, wrote an article decades ago about the prospect of this. She wrote that many kinds of "work" will be eliminated by technology, but the life of the mine could flourish. Discussing the classics over lunchbox sandwiches is not a bad life. 

In our culture we have come to see intellectual life as living and working amongst books. Intellectuals become writers, teachers, academics, etc. The truth is intellectual life also lives among those who do not make a living in those professions. I remember a preacher saying his best church was in a rural area. Farmers thought about his sermons on the tractor. Later churches had white collar people who never gave such topics a thought after the Sunday sermon.

One of the most famous sociologists was Eric Hoffer. He was a self-educated longshoreman who unloaded ships. He wrote about what he observed in people and his writing became textbooks.

Perhaps the new university concept of teaching both the liberal arts and the trades could be done without expensive football programs and their economics would work.