I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.

You have been wishing to know my views with regard to liberal studies. My answer is this: I respect no study, and deem no study good, which results in money-making.  Such studies are profit-bringing occupations, useful only in so far as they give the mind a preparation and do not engage it permanently.  One should linger upon them only so long as the mind can occupy itself with nothing greater; they are our apprenticeship, not our real work.  Hence you see why "liberal studies" are so called; it is because they are studies worthy of a free-born gentleman. But there is only one really liberal study, — that which gives a man his liberty.  It is the study of wisdom, and that is lofty, brave, and great-souled. All other studies are puny and puerile.  You surely do not believe that there is good in any of the subjects whose teachers are, as you see, men of the most ignoble and base stamp?  We ought not to be learning such things; we should have done with learning them.