World trends of college education points to an ever bigger reduction of space devoted to the humanist disciplines on behalf of the increase of specialized education of a technicist character. In consideration of this, the essay bastes briefly some general traits of the growing specialized professionalization and, simultaneously , the shortening of a broader cultural shaping (Bildung). Next, it rebuilds some of the traits which constitute the three pillars of a democratic citizenship: critical thinking, universal citizenship and imaginative capacity. With such a reconstruction it hopes to make it clear why a humanist perspective, represented, for instance, by arts, letters, law and philosophy, is indispensable to democratic ways of life. At last, it defends the thesis that democracy needs the humanities.
College education; Technicist; Bildung; Critical thinking; Universal citizenship