RichardCharlesLevin, a former president of Yale University for 20 years, once said: If a student actually has some professional knowledge and skills when he graduates from Yale University, it will be the biggest failure of Yale education.
He believes that professional knowledge and skills are what students need to learn and master according to their own wishes after graduating from college, and are not the task of Yale University education. Real education should have the spirit of freedom, the responsibility of citizens, lofty aspirations, critical independent thinking, self-awareness all the time, the foundation of lifelong learning and the ability to obtain happiness; Real education is to enable people to be competent in any subject and occupation without imparting any knowledge and skills, which is also the standard to judge whether a person has received real education.
Richard levin once said in The Work of Universities that Yale is committed to cultivating leaders. In Levin's view, the core of undergraduate education is general education, which is to cultivate students' critical and independent thinking ability and lay the foundation for lifelong learning.
The English of general education is liberaleducation, that is, free education, which nourishes the soul, and its core is the spirit of freedom, civic responsibility and lofty aspirations. Through education, one can freely exert one's potential, freely choose the direction of study, set the direction for the growth of life, and make contributions to the progress of society and mankind. This is the purpose of Yale education in Levin's mind.
As JohnHenryNewman, the author of TheIdeaofaUniversity, said: "Only education can make a person have a clear and conscious understanding of his own views and judgments; Only education can make him make sense when he expounds his views, persuasive when he expresses them, and powerful when he encourages them. Education enabled him to see the true colors of the world clearly, quickly cut into the theme, solve the confusion of thoughts, see through specious sophistry and put aside irrelevant details. Real education can be convincingly qualified for any position and easily proficient in any subject. "