BY SUCCESSIVE additions of new to old usages in the course of its long history, the good phrase "a liberal education" has by now acquired, as I will try to show in this paper, three overlapping but largely diverse and in some respects conflicting meanings, which now tend, respectively, to be uppermost in different minds as vehicles of their differing special ideals for education. And because these meanings of a single phrase much used by all parties, and the special clusters of ideals they stand for, are seldom clearly distinguished and understood in their complex mutual relations, current discussions of educational aims are full of confusions which block convergence toward agreement. To make some clarifying suggestions, by sketching the history of education against the relevant background of social and intellectual history, and the origins, contents, and relations of successively developed views of what "a liberal education" means, is the aim of this paper. Stated as briefly as possible, the three meanings that I speak of are: (i) a general, broad, rounded, or reasonably complete education, in contrast with a merely vocational or otherwise narrow, specialized education; (2) a self-chosen in contrast with a prescribed or uniform education-the free elective systemwhat I shall call "liberalism in education"; and (3) "education in liberalism" -education designed to form the students into good "liberals" or loyal and properly equipped participants in and supporters of a "liberal," or free, society and civilization. But these brief statements fail to bring out the manifold of historically formed presuppositions and connotations, common elements, links or bridges, and points of conflict, in this "triad" of conceptions. The startingpoint for developing fuller understanding lies in recalling the origin and significance of the ancient use of the word "liberal" for (simply) "general" education; and the connections and contrasts between the sense which this word acquired in that application and the modern senses which derive from the modern climate of "liberal" opinions in philosophy, morals, politics, etc. Hence I must now plunge into my sketch of the history of "liberal" education and historic changes in the meaning of the word.