In seeking the most effective presentation of the liberal arts in curricula such as the heavily technical and professional curricula at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, which leave little room for general education, general education course design must capture the imagination of students and motivate them for continuing self-education. Development of an effective pedagogical approach must take into account the constraints under which students operate and the hoped for outcomes of liberal arts courses. Most importantly students must have a working concept of truth and a general framework for understanding the world and assimilating new knowledge. Teaching students to deal with the concept of truth fosters both open-mindedness and intellectual integrity. Developing courses that present a framework for knowledge is challenging, but acceptance of the fundamental assumption that all processes of human thought, imagination, and communication are ultimately physiological makes possible the construction of a simple model that includes the entire realm of the human intellect. A suggested course outline on the foundations of scholarship includes the following subjects: concepts of knowing, how people learn, the role of philosophy, levels of truth, information, input and output variables, measurement and control, cause and effect, development of disciplines, role of language, disciplinary examples, interdisciplinarity, and emergence of new disciplines. (JB)