The Heart of Learning: Why Passion Is Essential to Education

An impassioned argument for the transformative power of a liberal arts education.

To preserve and rejuvenate the liberal arts in a myopically “practical” society, we must not only define what knowledge is imparted but also understand how it is imparted. Teachers pass their love of a discipline to students, sharing that love most fully in a setting of personal friendship. 

Drawing on her own experience as student and teacher, Elizabeth Corey shows that a true liberal education affects the whole person, not only the intellect. A good teacher models both intellectual inquiry and a way of living that is wise, beautiful, and removed from the muddle and crudeness of modern life. Infinitely richer than a system of “information delivery,” this is education in its fullest sense. 

Corey’s compelling account of the intellectual life will open new horizons for students who have no idea what they are missing and will encourage the teachers who long, in C. S. Lewis’s words, to irrigate the deserts produced by a remorselessly utilitarian education system.