Toward the Liberally Educated Executive

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Grandma couln't write. The kids took jobs.  A sister went to teachers' college. The baby My father went to BC.  Fashioned himself after Dick Powell. Read Milton and Shakespeare. He wanted to go into advertising. Was told you might have to go to New York for that - as this was Brahman   Boston. This was the mid 1930s and there was no job. Well, did some pipe fitting in the Navy Yard. Riding the subway in asbestos laced work clothes. The, promoting/selling Lucky Strikes, store to store and bar to bar up to Maine.  He gets an interview on Stillings St with Johnsons Wax. "Why should I hire a college man?" he's gruffly asked. He labors to field the rough query. Walks out and says to self "well I won't get that one.' But he gets hired. The boss was trying to see how he reacted under pressure. Now, a very long haul followed. Including 6 years in Army. But he always ready to sell the idea of a liberal education. Colleges increasingly are vocational. I don't know if that is in any way responsible for the tenor of  the national discourse...or there is any value in the Great Books for people losing their jobs and seeking new careers. The authors cited on the book list at the back of  Toward the Liberally Educated Executive include Durant, Dos Pasos, Milosz, Drucker, Mark, Maritain, Santayana, Kennan, Thucydides [in the news last week], Toynbee, Orwell.

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