ABSTRACT
In spite of their predominantly professional purpose, systems of higher education contain conceptions of what higher education is in general, beyond the instrumental requirements of the careers for which it prepares. The contents of French higher education, as has been seen, are not highly specialized. The English universities, unlike their continental counterparts, were private institutions that served distinct client groups. The two oldest and most prestigious ones, Oxford and Cambridge, educated the sons of the aristocracy and those intending to enter the clergy and the learned professions. The reason that English universities by and large eliminated general education from the curricula despite its importance to them seems to have been that, from the point of view of the academic teachers, providing a solid general education is, and has been since the late eighteenth century, an almost impossible task. The matter of student fees helps to understand the aim and contents of a liberal education.
