I think that it's great the the question was raised by a performing arts professor—it really goes to show why the liberal arts ideal is so important. Remember,

I think that it's great the the question was raised by a performing arts professor—it really goes to show why the liberal arts ideal is so important. Remember, the liberal arts aren't just the humanities: they are the humanities and the sciences. The mediæval liberal arts were grammar & rhetoric (both part of mastering one's own language); logic, geometry and arithmetic (mathematics, the core of science); astronomy (the major science of its day); and music (the marriage of art and science).