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
In another passage he distinctly limits utility in education to its
bearing on the future profession or trade of the pupil, that is, he scorns
the idea of any education of the intellect, simply as such. “Can there be
any thing more ridiculous,” he asks, “than that a father should waste his
own money, and his son’s time, in setting him to _learn the Roman
language_, when at the same time he _designs him for a trade_, wherein he,
having no use of Latin, fails not to forget that little which he brought
from school, and which ’tis ten to one he abhors for the ill-usage it
procured him? Could it be believed, unless we have every where amongst us
examples of it, that a child should be forced to learn the rudiments of a
language, which _he is never to use in the course of life that he is
designed to_, and neglect all the while the writing a good hand, and
casting accounts, which are of great advantage in all conditions of life,
and to most trades indispensably necessary?” Nothing of course can be more
absurd than to neglect in education those matters which are necessary for
a boy’s future calling; but the tone of Locke’s remarks evidently implies
more than this, and is condemnatory of any teaching which tends to the
general cultivation of the mind.
Now to turn to his modern disciples. The study of the Classics had been
made the basis of the Oxford education, in the reforms which I have spoken
of, and the Edinburgh Reviewers protested, after the manner of Locke, that
no good could come of a system which was not based upon the principle of
Utility.
“Classical Literature,” they said, “is the great object at Oxford. Many
minds, so employed, have produced many works and much fame in that
department; but if all liberal arts and sciences, _useful to human life_,
had been taught there, if _some_ had dedicated themselves to _chemistry_,
_some_ to _mathematics_, _some_ to _experimental philosophy_, and if
_every_ attainment had been honoured in the mixt ratio of its difficulty
and _utility_, the system of such a University would have been much more
valuable, but the splendour of its name something less.”
Utility may be made the end of education, in two respects: either as
regards the individual educated, or the community at large. In which light
do these writers regard it? in the latter. So far they differ from Locke,
for they consider the advancement of science as the supreme and real end
of a University. This is brought into view in the sentences which follow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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