INTRODUCTION

. . .a community or social group sustains itself through continuous self-renewal, and that this renewal takes place by means of the educational growth of the immature members of the group. By various agencies, unintentional and designed, a society transforms uninitiated and seemingly alien beings into robust trustees of its own resources and ideals. Education is thus a fostering, a nurturing, a cultivating, process.
John Dewey

Traditions of Education

Throughout history, different civilizations have addressed the question as to why people need to be educated and to what ends and purposes. In all societies, there are certain people who hold various positions, play certain roles , or are given legitimized authority. In most instances, the all these different religious, social and political roles mean that people have to be educated, or otherwise prepared. In almost all societies, whether individuals aspire to become shamans, teachers, doctors, religious leaders, artists, or soldiers, they all have to undergo specialized programs of education beyond the elementary educational programs of childhood preparatory to the actual acquisition of their future professions.

Historically, aspirants could study under master teachers, participate in concentrated programs as apprentices, or pursue higher education at recognized institutions. Whatever the choices, the societies to which these aspirants belonged recognized that the accomplishment of designated roles or professions meant that people had to pursue a certain course of knowledge. Different societies also recognized that certain kinds of knowledge or skills were more highly valued than others, and that the well-being of communities depended on the transmission of specialized kinds of skills from one generation to the next. In this way, most cultures thus come to have a collectivized tradition of education that frequently includes specific methods of teaching, hierarchies of teachers, systems for rewarding those who are highly accomplished, as well as complex methods for classifying the information itself.

Over time, societies and civilizations also had to come to an agreement as to what kinds of knowledge was worth preserving, transmitting or perpetuating. On the other hand, societies also had to consider what knowledge was harmful, useless or trivial. Inevitably, the choices that different cultures and societies make with regard to what may be considered worthwhile or useless is linked to each society values and wishes to privilege or preserve.

In terms of higher education and what different societies regard as the well-educated person, there are some fundamental questions that appear to cut across cultures These questions include:

what should a well-educated person know?

who should teach and who should be educated?

what sort of knowledge should be valued and, therefore, preserved and transmitted, and

how should people be taught?>

In exploring the legacies and traditions of education across cultures, we will find that while the European University Systemwe have inherited is over seven hundred years old, it is by no means the oldest system of higher education in the world. As a matter of fact, the first universities of Europe owed their creation to several strands of influence including those of Ancient Greece and the Islamic tradition.

Across the world, the five-thousand-year-old Confucian legacy gave rise to a scholastic tradition which would spread from China to Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia. As Asian nations continue to play increasingly important roles in the global economy and politics of the twenty-first century, Confucianism and particularly its humanistic educational philosophies need to be better understood.

For the most part, American education is founded upon the necessity of preparing the general populace for an active and informed participation in a democracy. In addition to the legacy of the European university, American higher education is also uniquely informed by by the philosophies of Jean Jacques Rousseau, and John Dewey.

The purpose and conduct of education have not, however, remained constant throughout history, or across cultures. As we approach the twenty-first century, the accelerated pace of technology, for instance, challenges some of the long-held assumptions about education and its purposes. Likewise, the 19th century notion of the universality of knowledge as articulated by John Cardinal Newman in his work The Idea of a University: Defined and Illustratedno longer holds much currency in the last years of the twentieth century. As Jaroslav Pelikan notes in his book The Idea of the University: A Reexamination the vast proliferation of knowledge in our century has made it impossible to pinpoint what may be deemed as universal knowledge. In this regard, identifying what knowledge is valuable, what people need to know and how to teach will become more complex and will require far greater measures of mediation between different academic disciplines, societal communities and interest groups.

At the core of every tradition, however, there has been the idea that education, and particularly, a Liberal Education, liberates, or frees, humans from various constraints. Different cultures have identified these constraints in varying ways: education has been seen by some, for instance, as the means of freeing people from the necessity of having to perform manual labor. Others have construed the liberatory impact in more spiritual or psychological terms by their assertion that education elevates the moral sensibilities of humans who would otherwise be doomed to lives no better than those of animals.