The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of DublinNewman, John Henry
Religion
The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin
Newman, John Henry
Education, Higher; Universities and colleges
This process of training, by which the intellect, instead of being formed
or sacrificed to some particular or accidental purpose, some specific
trade or profession, or study or science, is disciplined for its own sake,
for the perception of its own proper object, and for its own highest
culture, is called Liberal Education; and though there is no one in whom
it is carried as far as is conceivable, or whose intellect would be a
pattern of what intellects should be made, yet there is scarcely any one
but may gain an idea of what real training is, and at least look towards
it, and make its true scope and result, not something else, his standard
of excellence; and numbers there are who may submit themselves to it, and
secure it to themselves in good measure. And to set forth the right
standard, and to train according to it, and to help forward all students
towards it according to their various capacities, this I conceive to be
the business of a University.
2.
Now this is what some great men are very slow to allow; they insist that
Education should be confined to some particular and narrow end, and should
issue in some definite work, which can be weighed and measured. They argue
as if every thing, as well as every person, had its price; and that where
there has been a great outlay, they have a right to expect a return in
kind. This they call making Education and Instruction “useful,” and
“Utility” becomes their watchword. With a fundamental principle of this
nature, they very naturally go on to ask, what there is to show for the
expense of a University; what is the real worth in the market of the
article called “a Liberal Education,” on the supposition that it does not
teach us definitely how to advance our manufactures, or to improve our
lands, or to better our civil economy; or again, if it does not at once
make this man a lawyer, that an engineer, and that a surgeon; or at least
if it does not lead to discoveries in chemistry, astronomy, geology,
magnetism, and science of every kind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account