The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin

by John Henry Newman

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Genres: Education, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theology, Religion, Catholic, Classics

659 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1873

About the author

Saint John Henry Cardinal Newman was an important figure in the religious history of England in the 19th century. He was known nationally by the mid-1830s.
Originally an evangelical Oxford University academic and priest in the Church of England, Newman then became drawn to the high-church tradition of Anglicanism. He became known as a leader of, and an able polemicist for, the Oxford Movement, an influential and controversial grouping of Anglicans who wished to return to the Church of England many Catholic beliefs and liturgical rituals from before the English Reformation. In this the movement had some success. However, in 1845 Newman, joined by some but not all of his followers, left the Church of England and his teaching post at Oxford University and was received into the Catholic Church. He was quickly ordained as a priest and continued as an influential religious leader, based in Birmingham. In 1879, he was created a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII in recognition of his services to the cause of the Catholic Church in England. He was instrumental in the founding of the Catholic University of Ireland, which evolved into University College Dublin, today the largest university in Ireland.

Newman was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI on 19 September 2010 during his visit to the United Kingdom. He was then canonised by Pope Francis on 13 October 2019.

Newman was also a literary figure of note: his major writings including the Tracts for the Times (1833–1841), his autobiography Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1865–66), the Grammar of Assent (1870), and the poem The Dream of Gerontius (1865),[6] which was set to music in 1900 by Edward Elgar. He wrote the popular hymns "Lead, Kindly Light" and "Praise to the Holiest in the Height" (taken from Gerontius).

Reviews

[booklady · Rating 5 out of 5]

All the while I was listening to, reading along with, and contemplating St. (soon to be Doctor!) John Henry Newman’s The Idea of a University I’ve been fighting this overwhelming sense of inadequacy. I can’t remember when I’ve encountered an author who’s challenged me so. While an excellent discipline and one to which I do not see myself equal, I shall nevertheless attempt to present a portrait of this great man and his phenomenal work, fully recognizing myself in his description of youthful males, though I am neither young nor male:

‘all boys are more or less inaccurate, because they are boys; boyishness of mind means inaccuracy. Boys cannot deliver a message, or execute an order, or relate an occurrence, without a blunder. They do not rouse up their attention and reflect; they do not like the trouble of it: they cannot look at anything steadily; and, when they attempt to write, off they go in a rigmarole of words, which does them no good, and never would, though they scribbled themes till they wrote their fingers off.’

Bearing this in mind, reader, proceed at your own risk.

What follows is an interview between myself and the illustrious author of The Idea of a University, Cardinal John Henry Newman, all quotes taken from the text. Although this method doesn’t give a complete overview of the book, it has the benefit of allowing you to hear the Cardinal’s words firsthand.

BOOKLADY: ‘Good Sir, will you please tell us, what is your ‘Idea of a University’?’

CARDINAL NEWMAN: ‘The view taken of a University in these Discourses is the following:—That it is a place of teaching universal knowledge. But, practically speaking, it cannot fulfill its object duly, such as I have described it, without the Church's assistance; or, to use the theological term, the Church is necessary for its integrity.’

BL: ‘Who have you written this book for?’

CN: ‘To Catholics of course this Volume is primarily addressed ...

BL: ‘And to what purpose?’

CN: ‘I have formed a probable conception of the sort of benefit which the Holy See has intended to confer on Catholics who speak the English tongue by recommending to the Irish Hierarchy the establishment of a University; and this I now proceed to consider. Here, then, it is natural to ask those who are interested in the question, whether any better interpretation of the recommendation of the Holy See can be given than that which I have suggested in this Volume.’

BL: ‘Do tell us some of the advantages you see accruing from a university education?’

CN: ‘Certainly a liberal education does manifest itself in a courtesy, propriety, and polish of word and action, which is beautiful in itself, and acceptable to others; but it does much more. It brings the mind into form,—for the mind is like the body. When the intellect has once been properly trained and formed to have a connected view or grasp of things, it will display its powers with more or less effect according to its particular quality and capacity in the individual. In the case of most men it makes itself felt in the good sense, sobriety of thought, reasonableness, candour, self-command, and steadiness of view, which characterize it. In some it will have developed habits of business, power of influencing others, and sagacity.’

BL: ‘How important is Theology to the overall functioning of the university?’

CN: ‘Theology is surely a branch of knowledge: how then is it possible for it to profess all branches of knowledge, and yet to exclude from the subjects of its teaching one which, to say the least, is as important and as large as any of them? Furthermore, if a University be, from the nature of the case, a place of instruction, where universal knowledge is professed, and if in a certain University, so called, the subject of Religion is excluded, one of two conclusions is inevitable,—either, little or nothing is known about the Supreme Being, or that his seat of learning calls itself what it is not.’

BL: ‘You have very strong beliefs about this Your Eminence. Would it surprise you to know that many Catholic Universities today do not even teach the Catholic religion, much less practice it?’

CN: ‘Religious doctrine is knowledge; in as full a sense as Newton's doctrine is knowledge. University Teaching without Theology is simply unphilosophical. Theology has at least as good a right to claim a place there as Astronomy.

BL: ‘Yes, indeed. If only we could get more universities which call themselves ‘Catholic’ to read your book. Moving on... How do you envision non-Catholics interfacing with or in a Catholic university?’

CN: ‘Is there any reason why we should not study the Great Newton’s Principia, or avail ourselves of the wonderful analysis which he, Protestant as he was, originated, and which French infidels have developed? We are glad, for their own sakes, that anti-Catholic writers should, in their posthumous influence, do as much real service to the human race as ever they can, and we have no wish to interfere with it.’

BL: ‘Yes, well, you could get away with writing like that back in the 1800s. Today, we have to engage in a sort of doublespeak, also known as political correctness. But never mind, moving on... As I’m particularly fond of reading and books, I couldn’t help noticing your comments on literature were often less than complimentary.’

CN: ‘First-rate excellence in literature, as in other matters, is either an accident or the outcome of a process; and in either case demands a course of years to secure. We cannot reckon on a Plato, we cannot force an Aristotle, any more than we can command a fine harvest, or create a coal field. If a literature be, as I have said, the voice of a particular nation, it requires a territory and a period, as large as that nation's extent and history, to mature in. The literature of England is no longer a mere letter, printed in books, and shut up in libraries, but it is a living voice, which has gone forth in its expressions and its sentiments into the world of men, which daily thrills upon our ears and syllables our thoughts, which speaks to us through our correspondents, and dictates when we put pen to paper.

BL: ‘How does English Literature compare to that found in other countries?’

CN: ‘We should not much mend matters if we were to exchange literatures with the French, Italians, or Germans.’

BL: ‘Really?’

CN: ‘One literature may be better than another, but bad will be the best, when weighed in the balance of truth and morality. It cannot be otherwise; human nature is in all ages and all countries the same; and its literature, therefore, will ever and everywhere be one and the same also. Man's work will savour of man; in his elements and powers excellent and admirable, but prone to disorder and excess, to error and to sin. Such too will be his literature. “It is said of the holy Sturme,” says an Oxford writer, “that, in passing a horde of unconverted Germans, as they were bathing and gambolling in the stream, he was so overpowered by the intolerable scent which arose from them that he nearly fainted away.” National Literature is, in a parallel way, the untutored movements of the reason, imagination, passions, and affections of the natural man, the leapings and the friskings, the plungings and the snortings, the sportings and the buffoonings, the clumsy play and the aimless toil, of the noble, lawless savage of God's intellectual creation. It is well that we should clearly apprehend a truth so simple and elementary as this, and not expect from the nature of man, or the literature of the world, what they never held out to us.’

BL: ‘I suppose there’s nothing new under the sun? Does this at least give moral weight to those who would advocate a steady diet of classics?’

CN: ‘The influence of a great classic upon the nation which he represents is twofold; on the one hand he advances his native language towards its perfection; but on the other hand he discourages in some measure any advance beyond his own. On the whole, the influence of a Classic acts in the way of discouraging anything new, rather than in that of exciting rivalry or provoking re-action.’

BL: ‘Worser and worser...’

CN: ‘As a nation declines in patriotism, so does its language in purity.’

BL: ‘Please forgive my little joke Your Eminence. We have certainly seen evidence of such a decline in our own country I'm sorry to say. You were very clear in your book about the importance of a classical education based on the seven Liberal Arts, arranged in two groups, the first (trivium) embracing grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, in other words, the sciences of language, of oratory, and of logic, or language studies; the second group (quadrivium) comprises arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. Can you tell us about any of your experiences with early education?’

CN: ‘The great moral I would impress upon you is this, that in learning to write Latin, as in all learning, you must not trust to books, but only make use of them; not hang like a dead weight upon your teacher, but catch some of his life; handle what is given you, not as a formula, but as a pattern to copy and as a capital to improve; throw your heart and mind into what you are about, and thus unite the separate advantages of being tutored and of being self-taught,—self-taught, yet without oddities, and tutorized, yet without conventionalities.’

BL: ‘Thank you so much for your time Cardinal. Your book has been such an inspiration to me these past weeks. I cannot begin to tell you how much I have learned! Do you have any last words for young people today, their parents and their teachers?’

CN: ‘Half the controversies which go on in the world arise from ignorance of the facts of the case; half the prejudices against Catholicity lie in the misinformation of the prejudiced parties. Candid persons are set right, and enemies silenced, by the mere statement of what it is that we believe. It will not answer the purpose for a Catholic to say, “I leave it to theologians,” “I will ask my priest;” but it will commonly give him a triumph, as easy as it is complete, if he can gratify their curiosity by giving them information. Generally what is given as information will really be an argument as well as information. I recollect some twenty-five years ago, three friends of my own, as they then were, clergymen of the Establishment, making a tour through Ireland. In the West or South they had occasion to become pedestrians for the day; and they took a boy of thirteen to be their guide. They amused themselves with putting questions to him on the subject of his religion; and one of them confessed to me on his return that that poor child put them all to silence. How? Not, of course, by any train of arguments, or refined theological disquisition, but merely by knowing and understanding the answers in his catechism.’

‘A little child shall guide them...’ Isaiah 11:6

==================================

I started this back in 2007, read 3/4 of the way through and then set it aside due to having so many other books going at the same time. In The 'One Thing' Is ­Three: How the Most Holy Trinity Explains Everything, Fr. Michael Gaitley mentions the importance of Newman's thought to Catholic theology, but it seems to me this book has an even broader appeal, having something important to say about university education in general. That plus the recent movie, God's Not Dead, about an American college student who dares to stand up for his belief in God, and the commencement speaker controversies has made me want to go back to the original. Newman defended the study of God this way:

Religious doctrine is knowledge, in as full a sense as Newton's doctrine is knowledge. University Teaching without Theology is simply unphilosophical. Theology has at least as good a right to claim a place there as Astronomy.

Updated 8/8/25 - John Henry Newman to become a Doctor of the Catholic Church!

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is perhaps the classic work on the question of "what is a university for?" The book consists of two sections. The first is a series of nine "discourses" on University Teaching given on the inauguration of the Catholic University of Ireland, of which he was its first Rector. The second part is a collection of occasional lectures gathered under the theme "University Subjects".

Newman's summary in the last of his nine lectures on University Teaching summarizes the argument he pursues in these lectures:

I have accordingly laid down first, that all branches of knowledge are, at least implicitly, the subject matter of its teaching; that these branches are not isolated and independent one of another, but form together a whole or system, that they run into each other, and complete each other, and that, in proportion to our view of them, as a whole, is the exactness and trustworthiness of the knowledge which they separately convey; that the process of imparting knowledge to the intellect in this philosophical way is its true culture; that such culture is a good in itself, that the knowledge which is both its instrument and result is called Liberal Knowledge; that such culture, together with the knowledge which effects it, may fitly be sought for its own sake; that it is, however, in addition, of great secular utility, as constituting the best and highest formation of the intellect for social and political life; and lastly, that considered in a religious aspect, it concurs with Christianity a certain way, and then diverges from it; and consequently proves in the event, sometimes its serviceable ally, sometimes, from its very resemblance to it, an insidious and dangerous foe. (pp 162-163)

There is so much one could talk about in this summary (and Newman does so at length!) that I will simply observe that he gives what is probably the classic defense of liberal education, articulates a Christian vision for the unity of knowledge, and also articulates the friend/foe relationship in which the Church has often found itself with regard to higher learning.

The second part includes lectures on Christianity and letters, English Catholic literature, Elementary studies (the groundwork he sees as necessary for the perfection of the intellect), a lecture on Infidelity, University Preaching, several lectures on Christianity and the sciences, and a lecture on the Discipline of the Mind.

Two things stood out to me in these lectures. One was Newman's wisdom as he explore what we call the intersection or integration of faith and discipline. Newman was all for letting each discipline pursue its own modes of inquiry so long as none of these presumed to intrude upon either other disciplines nor the theological enterprise of the church (and vice versa!). On the whole he believes that truth will out in the end and that we don't have to force reconciliations at the expense of theology or other academic disciplines--better to work with mystery and ambiguity. The second thing was his telling comments on how easy it is to know much about many things but in a disordered way rather than to discipline the mind through grammar, composition, the classic languages and foundational beliefs. This might be a telling criticism for our day when university students and even "educated" adults have opinions about everything but cannot write clearly or develop a logical argument.

That said, while Newman writes with a mastery of language and argument, he writes as a Victorian, with dense and compound sentences. I found that I often had to read him allow to capture a sense of the flow of his ideas. In other words, there is much rich thinking in this work but it is heavy going that requires the reader's full attention.

[Bill Tierney · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Idea of the University is one of those books that many will know about, but few will have read. The version I recently finished is 428 pages and most of it is dense. Two of Newman’s 20th century admirers were James Joyce and Edward Said. I’m not sure many authors could command the respect of such a diverse duo, but upon reflection I entirely understand why.

Newman was trying to create a university for Ireland, and even though he was a Roman Catholic, he also believed that all of science must be taught alongside theology. Theology, he argued, “was a branch of knowledge.” He made a distinction between the humanities and sciences but argued that both were essential in order to function in society. Perhaps most importantly, he passionately believed that simply training individuals for a skill was a debasement of the spirit. He argued presciently that studying the humanities should not be the reserve of the wealthy but instead enabled for everyone. He was arguing against the utilitarian ideas of John Locke and trying to move Catholicism to a more protean conception of knowledge and liberty. His faith seemed to be strong enough that he felt that different ideas, or contradictory ideas, should not be shunned or banned, but instead debated. He was confident enough in his beliefs that he was comfortable having science in his university.

In this light, the university was the locale where students were not indoctrinated but instead forced to think about competing ideas. Ultimately each individual was able to come to his or her own decision, argued Newman. He rejected the orthodoxy handed down from Rome and said that if any place in the world should be a location for thoughtful discourse it was the University.

There is, of course, much to disagree with in a philosophical tract written in the 19th century. There is no mention of women as college students and the constant reference is to ‘he.’ He writes of ‘savages’ who lack what he hopes people learn in universities. He has an ultimate, singular, version of truth.

But I suspect why Newman has attracted the support of people like Joyce and Said (and me) is that although the contexts of his writing are constrained by the 19th century, his vision of what we should be doing in the university extends forward to today. He demands the sort of learning for all youth that heretofore had been reserved for the elite. He was comfortable with ‘science’ in the academy at a time when Rome was not. He was not some idle romantic, but instead a hard-headed philosopher pointing out the utility and beauty of the investigation of all knowledge by all people.

[Davis Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an old copy of this as a gift from a beloved professor of mine, so I treasure it greatly, and took a nice long time to work through it. It's not a stretch to say this is somewhat of a bible for classical education. It was the first major book of the modern age to lay out an all-encompassing vision of the liberal arts and their purpose, and it is still one of the most comprehensive available. Newman discusses in-depth the Trivium and Quadrivium, every field of study applicable to the academy, university life, the qualities of a good teacher and a good student, the theological basis for education, Athens and Jerusalem, the meaning of virtue, etc. It is worth a long, slow marination for anyone who wants to immerse themselves in the Great Tradition. And long and slow it will probably be, for Newman writes exactly like the ideal of the refined gentlemen that he discusses: elaborately and portentously. But you really should read it with pencil in hand—even the chapters that at first glance wouldn't seem to be as essential, like "English Catholic Literature" and "University Preaching", contain much that is highly insightful for any reader. Of course, Newman is voraciously and uncompromisingly Roman Catholic, and I found his swipes at Protestantism to be rather mean, uncharitable, and borderline ignorant at times. But he was at the front of an exciting Catholic revival in a nation that had brutally suppressed that faith for centuries and whose religion was too often nominal, and it's understandable that he would be a bit reactionary. Ultimately, his insights apply (mostly) equally to any confessional tradition. I certainly don't agree with everything he says about education—suffice it to say for now that I think his distinctions between disciplines and between sacred and worldly knowledge to be a bit harsh at times—but Newman is an essential voice that must be encountered. Certainly anyone involved with a liberal arts college of any persuasion ought to be familiar with it, as there is much that seems like it is intended directly for our current confused higher educational milieu.

[Stef · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally done reading this book!

I didn't know what I would find applicable when I started reading, as I have no connection at all to any university, though I worked for two in my 20s.

Found lots to note, certainly his thoughts on what and how a university ought to teach their students, given the state of many of our universities today.

I found most helpful and interesting the sections where he addresses how we should view anti Catholic material, how we can learn much even from secular literature or those written by Protestants, and the similarities of and conflicts between theology and science, and the importance of recognizing and understanding those. As a homeschooling mom my favorite was Discipline of Mind.

-------

(2019) just noting that my Papa who passed away this year had me look for and order this book a couple of years ago. i recently rescued the book from his pile at home so now's the best time to read it.

[Bella Putt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read parts of this for school and it was really confusing, but I liked (and mostly agreed) with the parts that I understood 😅

[Shep · Rating 4 out of 5]

My opinion of this book lingers between a 3.5 star rating and a 4. Newman has some excellent things to say here about the interconnectedness of theology and all knowledge. He has some excellent things to say about the university as "uni"versity vs. multiversity. His writing is eloquent - perhaps more eloquent here than in any of his other works.

And yet the book has its downfalls, the foremost one being the ever present, haunting tension between the residual influences of Protestantism and Oxford, and the powerful influence of Newman's newfound Roman Catholic faith. The former causes him to tend to advocate free thinking and subjectivism to some degree in the university; the latter causes him to paradoxically set limits on this free thinking because of the infallible, authoritative decrees of the magisterium. There is, perhaps, a way to resolve this tension - of course even many Calvinist Protestants agree that freedom is freedom within certain boundaries - but whether Newman ever really resolves this tension is debatable. I suspect he does not - the tension lingers with him all his days, in all his writings.

This particular edition of the book includes several scholarly analytical essays in the back, which are of varying value. Overall, this book may be of interest to theologians or Christian educators.

[Samuel Sadler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Newman's vision for the university is much more a "university," a place of universal knowledge, than most of our institutions today. His emphasis on the integration of disciplines is particularly prudent: only by having some experience in every science do we avoid idolizing our particular field of study.

Newman's comments on theology's place in the university are timely for the Christian world. Unless we allow theology a significant place in our curricula, and understand its relationship with other branches of knowledge, our education will be fragmented, and the apparent "science-theology" opposition will continue.

[L. M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Besides the clarity of Newman's pedagogical vision and the beauty of his prose, I am struck by the autobiographical character of the work and the formal and structural similarities to the 'Apologia'. Just like that book, 'The Idea of a University' is a modern classic that defines its genre. Foundational, inspirational, useful.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a set of essays written in 1852 by Cardinal John Henry Newman; my edition is a secondhand copy from 1965. Suffice to say, neither Herbert Keldany, who wrote the 1965 intro, or Wilfrid Ward, who wrote the (I think?) 1905 intro, considered that any reader might not have a full and comprehensive grasp of the *checks notes* intra-varsity wrangling over theology teaching in ivory tower universities in the mid-nineteeth century. I came away with only the vaguest of understanding of what Newman was writing against: Protestantism (general)* and the denigration of theology as an, um, science (specific).

*I mean, check out this sick burn: ‘[Protestantism] considers faith a mere modification of reason, as being an acquiescence in certain probable conclusions till better are found.’

So there’s two broad branches to Newman's argument. The first is that any university that professes to teach ‘everything’ must include theology because theology is part of everything. Which, fair. And the second is that a liberal education – which he defines at length in beautiful, inspiring prose – is necessary for humanity to remain human. Both of these I agree with, although the latter more strongly than the former. It’s when Newman starts saying that theology is the bestest subject, and that the fall of man really HAPPENED, U GUYS, and that ‘revelation’ is the ultimate arbiter of what can be known about the world (... welp) that he loses me.

‘Tradition thus supplies the human race with knowledge not provable by the individual reason.’

Cue extreme side-eye.

In fairness, C.S. Lewis must have got a lot from him, because there’s premonitions of the ‘specific, demanding God’ of Miracles in here.

‘[...] such is [civilized age]’s besetting sin [...]: conscience becomes what is called a moral sense; the command of duty is a sort of taste; sin is not an offence against God, but against human nature.’

You’re just never going to convince me that theology is more valid than history. It’s a sub-branch of primitive psychology as far as I’m concerned, and the ghost of Johnny H can fight me on that.

‘Yet Gibbon argues against the darkness at the Passion, from the accident that it is not mentioned by pagan historians: as well might he argue against the existence of Christianity itself in the first century, because Seneca, Pliny, Plutarch, the Jewish Mishna, and other authorities are silent abou tit. In a parallel way Protestants argue against transubstantiation, and Arians against our Lord’s divinity, viz., because extant writings of certain fathers do not witness these doctrines to their satisfaction: as well might they say that Christianity was not spread by the Twelve Apostles, because we know so little of their labours. The evidence of history, I say, is invaluable in its place; but, if it assumes to be the sole means of gaining religious truth, it goes beyond its place.’

Sit DOWN.

Naturally, given his position, Newman's very anti-pantheism or a God who embodies ‘only’ a force of nature.

‘[...] the long and the short of the matter was this, that religion was based on custom, on law, on education, on habit, on loyalty, on feudalism, on enlightened expedience, on many, many things, but not at all on reason; reason was neither its warrant nor its instrument, and science had as little connection with it as with the fashions, or the state of the weather.’

I think his point about how people who claim they’re religious but then repudiate it at will lack integrity is valid, but also contingent; now that it’s socially acceptable to be an atheist, most people are. This wasn't a problem with the articles of faith so much as social restrictions. QED above.

‘I do not see how it is possible for a philosophical mind, first, to believe these religious facts to be true; next, to consent to put them aside; and thirdly, in spite of this, to go on to profess to be teaching all the while de omni scribili. No; if a man thinks in his heart that these religious facts are short of truth, are not true in the sense in which the fall of a stone to the earth is true, I understand his excluding religion from his university, though he professes other reasons for its exclusion. In that case the varieties of religion opinion under which he shelters his conduct are not only his apology for publicly ignoring religion, but a cause of his privately disbelieving it. He does not think that anything is known or can be known for certain about the origin of the world or the end of man.’

The way Newman argues for ‘revelation’ is that any time science contradicts religion, it will eventually be shown to be ‘not proved, not contradictory, or not contradictory to revelation’, because error is part of the process. Which is fine, as far as it goes, although you do wonder why God exhausts himself with all this faffing instead of having a One Time Only Revelation Day. What isn’t fine is the fact that Newman is about the only one who produces or follows this argument. Mostly, when science contradicted religion, religion KILLED IT. Like literally. The Church didn’t sit on its hands and wait it out, it got out the swords and the auto de fés and the excommunications. So miss me with that, John.

Oh, and this whole epistle is directed to ‘gentlemen’. Because we shall not suffer a woman to teach, LOL.

However, I did hugely appreciate how Newman separated out research from education.

‘To discover and to teach are distinct functions; they are also distinct gifts, and not commonly found united in the same person. [...] I think it must be allowed on the whole that, while teaching involves external engagements, the natural home for experiment and speculation is retirement.’

Sob. If only modern universities believed this.

The essays ‘Liberal Knowledge its Own End’ and ‘Liberal Knowledge viewed in Relation to Learning’ are where Newman really shines for me, because he focuses on the nature and value of ‘liberal’ education, quotes from other excellent sources on his team, and lets the theological sophistry slide for a few pages.

‘All that I have been now saying is summed up in a few characteristic words of the great philosopher [Aristotle]. “Of possessions,” he says, “those rather are useful which bear fruit; those liberal which tend to enjoyment. By fruitful I mean, which yield revenue; by enjoyable, where nothing accrues of consequence beyond the use.”’

‘[...] knowledge is a state or condition of mind; and since cultivation of mind is surely worth seeking for its own sake, we are thus brought once more to the conclusion, which the word liberal and the world philosophy have already suggested, that there is a knowledge which is desirable though nothing come of it, as being itself a treasure, and a sufficient remuneration of years of labour.’

YAAS QUEEN

‘[...] for if a healthy body is a good in itself, why is not a healthy intellect?’

‘I say, let us take “useful” to mean, not what is simply good, but what tends to good, or is the instrument of good; and in this sense also, gentlemen, I will show you how a liberal education is truly and fully a useful, though it be not a professional education. [...] though the useful is not always good, the good is always useful.’

Dr Copleston:

‘In the cultivation of literature is found that common link which, among the higher and middling departments of life, unites the jarring sects and subdivisions into one interest, which supplies common topics, and kindles common feelings, unmixed with those narrow prejudices with which all professions are more or less infected. [...] And thus, without directly qualifying a man for any of the employments of life, enriches and ennobles all.’

‘In his [Mr Edgeworth]’s system, the value of every attainment is to be measured by itws subserviency to a calling. [...] a man is to be usurped by his profession.’

Mr Davidson:

‘Judgement lives as it were by comparison and discrimination.’

‘Miscellaneous as the assemblage may appear, of history, eloquence, poetry, ethics, etc, blended together, they will all conspire in a union of effect.’

‘One thing is unquestionable, that the elements of general reason are not to be found fully and truly expressed in any one kind of study; and that he who would wish to know her idiom must read it in many books.’

Back to John:

‘If then a practical end must be assigned to a university course, I say it is that of training good members of society. It is the art of social life, and its end is fitness for the world.’ <3

‘He has the repose of a mind which lives in itself, while it lives in the world, and which has resources for its happiness at home when it cannot go abroad. He has a gift which serves him in public, and supports him in retirement, without which good fortune is but vulgar, and with which failure and disappointment have a charm. The art which tends to make man all this is in the object which it pursues as useful as the art of wealth or the art of health, though less susceptible of method, and less tangible, less certain, less complete in its result.’

<333

To conclude:

‘Nothing is too vast, nothing too subtle, nothing too distant, nothing too minute, nothing too discursive, nothing too exact, to engage its [the university]’s attention.’

I do love that.

Also, John made one (1) joke, so I’m gonna include it for posthumous kudos:

‘Would it become [the Pope]’s apostolical ministry, and his descent from the Fisherman, to have a zeal for the Baconian or other philosophy of man for its own sake? Is the Vicar of Christ bound by office or by vow to be the preacher of the theory of gravitation, or a martyr for electomagnetism?’

(The biggest joke, though, is how much he would have hated this review. Lol. See you in the not-afterlife, JH!)

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought provoking, and Newman has a way with words. He needed every one to make the points he has!

A few key areas I liked:

1. The goal of preaching is the spiritual good of the hearers via earnestness, but also for a specific and direct good.

2. The whole and the parts of knowledge, and how theology should be its own science.

3. Reading for learning and not reading for reading sake.

[Eric Farnsworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Only read Part 1- University Teaching

I have thoroughly enjoyed this read. Newman has defined liberal education and has argued well why Theology is necessary in that education. God, Nature and Man are the subjects of human reason, and each one takes a step
into its own philosophy. Why can't we take all subjects of learning to
gain knowledge? Newman says we can. We need to find common ground in
each of these subjects, yet take a specific interest in each one and
break them down as a science of knowledge. Ultimately we want
universities that engage in the study of the mind, and how or why we
think. We need the knowledge of these other subjects to better
understand one specific subject that is important to us. Newman says
that someone studying one subject of knowledge without the study of
other subjects next to it will not gain as much insight into his study
if he had studied other subjects of knowledge.
I'll take two of his thoughts he uses as examples in his argument that
has helped me understand liberal arts and knowledge. Liberal education
is cultivation of the intellect as its end, and is not to be sought
solely for its utility and personal usefulness. That is not
exercising, if you will, a wise disposition of knowledge. Exercising
knowledge is the continuation of using what one has learned for the
basis of understanding new things. A constant motion of learning,
digesting and using to understand philosophy better. It is not just
the idea of memorizing and being well read or advancement of science,
but it is "culture of the mind."
Theology needs to be studied in the setting of a true liberal
education. The subject of theology brings in a proper mix of learning
and understanding to a University by its diversity among other
students. Theology brings in its own understanding with
students, and this allows for a good and healthy debate on human
understanding with the other classes of knowledge such as philosophy
and science. Religion falls under all the categories or learning. George Wythe University
has provided that balance in the study of theology. I have studied the
Torah, Tao, Cunfusious, Buddhism, Quaran. It wasn't an aggressive push
toward any one agenda. I was able to find that knowledge of liberal
arts in finding a common good. Good is that virtue which knowledge
teaches us stands alone.
Newman's description of liberal arts is enjoyable because it is well
defined and simple. I'm glad I was able to cap off my years at GWU
with having liberal arts well defined in an understandable fashion.
Liberal arts is understanding knowledge. But
what is knowledge? How do we think and how do we cultivate the mind?
It is finding knowledge that stands on its own. It doesn't rely on
something else for its stability. Knowledge and education will help man
figure out life and what is important. Newman all the more has
clarified that reason. I look forward to reading and re-reading these
discourses and others of his writings.

[Jeffrey Romine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Education and instruction are not the only benefits for students who attend the university, but cultivation of the mind and temperament. Upon nurturing the intellect there follows an ability to distinguish between rule and exception, accident and design, phenomena and law, and thereby to attribute qualities to principles and causes to effects. According to Newman, knowledge and learning pay out a life time of dividends that far exceed the initial investment of time and effort.

[sch]

2023 May. Trying again with the wonderful free audio version recorded, one chapter at a time, by James T. Majewski.

2019. I read portions of this book in graduate school (2006 and 2013), but now it's time to read it in full. Update: Still didn't finish! Another time.

[Kathleen Barlow]

I read this book yearly to be consistently remind of why and for what we leaarn, teach, and educate.

[ladydusk · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a challenging read in many ways. Newman's style is precise and intentional. As a reading, there are ideas that continue to come into clarity days (and I expect weeks/months/years) after this reading that will recall me to what he said. My mind continues to chew even when the immediate reading isn't fully understanding his ideas or his arguments. His arguments are shaped by his ideas in a way that I think we have mostly lost.

His way of expressing his Roman Catholicism sometimes was off-putting to this Protestant, but I tried to look past his slings and arrows to the ultimate idea he was propounding with regard to knowledge, its acquirement, its expansion, its boundaries, and its expression as a person of faith. I knew going into the book that this would be a particular challenge to my reading.

JHN was *hard* slogging at times. Because these were originally lectures, I found at one point that reading aloud to myself at least the first portions of the lecture got me into the flow better than a simple reading. Honestly, the best thing I did was follow along in the text while listening to Andrew Nash read them for librivox.org in his beautiful British accent with good Latin and French pronunciation tossed in. He did an excellent job and his reading added to my understanding. By loading the RSS feed into my Podcast App I could control the speed and tracks well. Highly recommend.

I read this because of last year's reading of The Great Tradition where Dr Gamble includes Discourse 5 and I wanted to read more. This was part of my 2022 Schole Sisters 5x5 Reading Challenge as Spring off from TGT (Aristotle, Augustine, Hugh of St Victor, JHN, and next Sertillanges The Intellectual Life)

Definitely recommended; will be thinking many thoughts for a long time.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a collection of a series of lectures he gave, around 1850, promoting the reasons why England needed a Catholic University (following two centuries of Catholics being barred from both Oxford and Cambridge.) In it, he argues persuasively for the inclusion of the Liberal Arts in ALL of education. He speaks eloquently of the fruits of liberal arts education both for the student and for society at large.

Newman was both entirely devoted to theology and also entirely concerned for the hearts of his parishioners. The "both/and" attitude he promotes regarding academia and the spirit/emotional heart of mankind is refreshing. The book is accessible even to those who do not have extensive backgrounds in philosophical treatises, and yet deep enough to make you stop reading repeatedly to ponder what has been said.

A favorite quote from the book, on Liberal Arts Education: “It is the education which gives a man a clear conscious view of his own opinions and judgements, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them, and a force in urging them.

It teaches him to see things as they are, to go right to the point, to disentangle a skein of thought, to detect what is sophistical, and to discard what is irrelevant.

It prepares him to fill any post with credit, and to master any subject with facility. It shows him how to accommodate himself to others, how to throw himself into their state of mind, how to bring before them his own, how to influence them, how to come to an understanding with them, how to bear with them.

He is at home in any society, he has common ground with every class; he knows when to speak and when to be silent; he is able to converse, he is able to listen; he can ask a question pertinently, and gain a lesson seasonably, when he has nothing to impart himself”

[Ainsley Jeffery]

On the establishment of formal Liberal knowledge; how we come to define it. Draws some comparisons to other philosophers; Rousseau’s Emile is a more contemporary reference. Heavy emphasis on the religious basis of education and place of the church. Useful knowledge as the foundational instrument to create higher education, draws meaningful comparisons I found applicable to criticisms of university level institutions today. Lots of historical references I didn’t care deeply for and sometimes repetitive.

[Michal Čop · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pri hodnotení tejto knihy je potrebné pozrieť sa na dve veci: (1.) samotné dielo Idea Univerzity, a na to (2.) ako sa s jeho vydaním popasoval slovenský vydavateľ.

Čo sa týka samotného diela musím sa priznať, že na začiatku som mal celkom obavy keď som videl tú hrubú knihu a predstavil si, že mám čítať tak dlhý filozofický text napísaný v 19. storočí. Našťastie môžem napísať, že som bol od začiatku veľmi milo prekvapený. Dielo sa číta veľmi dobre. Newman píše vďaka jasnej štruktúre a mnohým príkladom síce celkom jednoducho a jasne, no zároveň si zachováva hĺbku a argumentačnú poctivosť. Kniha nenudí, naopak je skutočným dobrodružstvom myslenia, kde sa čitateľ teší z nápaditých a originálnych myšlienok a argumentov autora. Newmanova Idea univerzity nenecháva čitateľa v pokoji, ale núti ho nanovo prehodnocovať jeho doterajší pohľad na svet a premýšľať nad tým ako by sa dali autorove myšlienky preniesť do súčasného sveta.
Samozrejme netreba zabúdať, že sa jedná o dielo z 19. storočia, čo znamená, že niekedy je slovník trochu archaický a náročnejší na čítanie, preto niektoré pasáže pôsobia trochu nudne, alebo sa javia ako už prekonané, no treba zdôrazniť, že ich nie je veľa a kniha robí celkovo dobrý dojem.

Nechcem sa nejako rozsiahlo rozpisovať o tom o čom je dielo. To by zaberalo zbytočne veľa miesta v tomto hodnotení a myslím, že by sa to aj minulo účinku. Koniec koncov to najpodstatnejšie je napísané v popise tohto vydania. Asi stačí napísať, že dielo sa delí na dve časti- prvá je o tom, či by sa na univerzitách mala vyučovať teológia, druhá o tom čo je cieľom univerzity. A hlavné tézy sú, že univerzita má učiť aj teológiu, že univerzita má byť zameraná na študentov, že sa má snažiť o kultiváciu ich charakteru a, že to má robiť pomocou slobodného vzdelávania (liberal arts). O tom, prečo si to autor myslí sa môžete dočítať už v samotnom diele.

Druhou vecou na ktorú sa chcem pozrieť v tomto hodnotení je to ako s Ideou univerzity naložil slovenský vydavateľ. V prvom rade treba uznať, že sa im podaril celkom vkusný obal, ktorý je aj keď papierový, ale celkom pevný, a podobne má pevné aj stránky, vďaka čomu vydanie pôsobí profesionálne.

Čo sa týka prekladu myslím, že Matúšovi Sitárovi ako prekladateľovi sa podarila dobrá práca. Dielo sa číta dobre, v podstate som si pri jeho čítaní ani neuvedomoval, že sa jedná o preklad, čo je základom dobrej prekladateľskej práce.

Trochu horšie je to už s esejami, ktoré do tohto vydania zahrnul slovenský vydavateľ. Za vhodné by som označil len dve zo šiestich- predstavenie Newmanna a jeho diela od Juraja Vitteka a esej Matúša Sitára s názvom Strata rozumu v dôsledku straty viery, ktorá pekne ukázala to, čo sa dalo nájsť v samotnom diele medzi riadkami, vhodne to prepojila a dala do vzájomného súvisu, a ukázala spojitosť s dnešnou dobou.
Horšie to bolo s esejami Mariána Kunu a Jozefa Feketeho. Tie boli ukážkou toho, ako sa "akadémia" robí na Slovensku. Veľa slov, kopec citácií a odvolávok na iných autorov, množstvo poznámok pod čiarou, odkaz na kopec cudzojazyčnej literatúry, no veľmi slabý čitateľský zážitok, ktorého výsledkom je upotený, nezáživný, nenápaditý text a tuctová snaha o porovnanie Newmanových myšlienok so súčasným stavom univerzít na Slovensku.
No a najhoršie sú na tom eseje Martina Luterána a Jána Dolného. U Dolného ide o dosť nepodarené prepísanie jeho staršieho (nie zlého) článku o Newmanovej univezrite. Výsledný efekt je, že táto esej pôsobí ako menšia ekologická havária (škoda papiera). U Luterána zas chýba akýkoľvek nápad. Ide o text, ktorý sa snaží nasilu natlačiť Newmanove myšlienky do autorových skúsenosti so vzdelávaním na Slovensku, v USA a vo Veľkej Británií. Výsledný dojem je však taký, že text pôsobí akoby si s ním Luterán buď nevedel dať rady, alebo mu (podobne ako Dolný?) nevenoval takmer žiadnu námahu.

Celkový dojem z knihy ako celku je však pozitívny. Ak si odmyslíme väčšinu esejí od slovenských autorov jedná sa o veľmi hodnotnú a peknú knihu dotvorenú vhodným úvodom od Juraja Vitteka. A ak tých hodnotných esejí nebolo viac ako len jedna, možno ich tam vydavateľ ani nemusel dávať a kniha by pôsobila ešte lepším dojmom.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book in a Goodreads review about another book I was reading, but I somehow forget which.

I have been reading this at the same time I was reading a biography of John Donne. Interesting that I paired the two together: one, a Catholic who became a Protestant in the pressures of the English Reformation, the other an Anglican who became a Catholic in the 19th century.

"The Idea of a University" was written by Cardinal Newman at the time he was helping to found a Catholic University in Ireland. In these lectures, he outlines a philosophy of education that tries to combine intellectual freedom with moral authority. While many of the discussions involved issues from a Catholic perspective, they largely translate to any believer today as well.

What I found particularly moving is his discussion of a liberal education. This is something I have been thinking a lot about lately, because a liberal education is becoming increasingly underappreciated. People only go to college know because a degree is necessary to get a job. We emphasize skills and competency in our schools, increasingly pushing out the "extras" like classical literature and poetry. In colleges, electives are often taken with much complaint by students rather than as a necessary part of a well-rounded education. Science an engineering programs are growing while literature and humanities programs struggle for funding and have to re-define themselves. (Another interesting discussion of the necessity of the humanities is here at LDS Perspectives http://www.ldsperspectives.com/2017/0...).

Several themes come throughout the lectures as a whole. Those educated in a single discipline cannot generalize their knowledge to other disciplines. A lawyer cannot speak authoritatively in theology, even though they may feel qualified. Learning isn't memorizing and acquisition of facts, but being able to order them, understanding their relation with one another, and being able to build something with them. I also liked his discussion how secular knowledge helps keep us from sin by developing civility, but it can also become a rival and opponent of faith if it becomes unanchored.



Quotes:

"This implies that its object is, on the one hand, intellectual , not moral; and, on the other, that it is the diffusion and extension of knowledge rather than the advancement. If its object were scientific and philosophical discovery, I do not see why a University should have students ;"

"To discover and to teach are distinct functions ; they are also distinct gifts , and are not commonly found united in the same person. He, too, who spends his day in dispensing his existing knowledge to all comers is unlikely to have either leisure or energy to acquire new."

"Let him once gain this habit of method, of starting from fixed points, of making his ground good as he goes, of distinguishing what he knows from what he does not know, and I conceive he will be gradually initiated into the largest and truest philosophical views, and will feel nothing but impatience and disgust at the random theories and imposing sophistries and dashing paradoxes, which carry away half-formed and superficial intellects."

"I do not see much difference between avowing that there is no God, and implying that nothing definite can for certain be known about Him;"

"Here we have an explanation of the multitude of off-hand sayings, flippant judgments, and shallow generalizations, with which the world abounds. Not from self-will only, nor from malevolence, but from the irritation which suspense occasions, is the mind forced on to pronounce, without sufficient data for pronouncing. Who does not form some view or other, for instance, of any public man, or any public event, nay, even so far in some cases as to reach the mental delineation of his appearance or of its scene? yet how few have a right to form any view."

"Men, whose life lies in the cultivation of one science, or the exercise of one method of thought, have no more right, though they have often more ambition, to generalize upon the basis of their own pursuit but beyond its range, than the schoolboy or the ploughman to judge of a Prime Minister. But they must have something to say on every subject; habit, fashion, the public require it of them: and, if so, they can only give sentence according to their knowledge. You might think this ought to make such a person modest in his enunciations; not so: too often it happens that, in proportion to the narrowness of his knowledge, is, not his distrust of it, but the deep hold it has upon him, his absolute conviction of his own conclusions, and his positiveness in maintaining them. He has the obstinacy of the bigot, whom he scorns, without the bigot's apology, that he has been taught, as he thinks, his doctrine from heaven."

"If his reading is confined simply to one subject, however such division of labour may favour the advancement of a particular pursuit, a point into which I do not here enter, certainly it has a tendency to contract his mind. If it is incorporated with others, it depends on those others as to the kind of influence which it exerts upon him."

"We are instructed, for instance, in manual exercises, in the fine and useful arts, in trades, and in ways of business; for these are methods, which have little or no effect upon the mind itself, are contained in rules committed to memory, to tradition, or to use, and bear upon an end external to themselves. But education is a higher word; it implies an action upon our mental nature, and the formation of a character; it is something individual and permanent, and is commonly spoken of in connexion with religion and virtue."

"for I consider Knowledge to have its end in itself. For all its friends, or its enemies, may say, I insist upon it, that it is as real a mistake to burden it with virtue or religion as with the mechanical arts. Its direct business is not to steel the soul against temptation or to console it in affliction, any more than to set the loom in motion, or to direct the steam carriage; be it ever so much the means or the condition of both material and moral advancement, still, taken by and in itself, it as little mends our hearts as it improves our temporal circumstances."

"Memory is one of the first developed of the mental faculties; a boy's business when he goes to school is to learn, that is, to store up things in his memory. For some years his intellect is little more than an instrument for taking in facts, or a receptacle for storing them: he welcomes them as fast as they come to him; he lives on what is without; he has his eyes ever about him; he has a lively susceptibility of impressions; he imbibes information of every kind; and little does he make his own in a true sense of the word, living rather upon his neighbours all around him. He has opinions, religious, political, and literary, and, for a boy, is very positive in them and sure about them; but he gets them from his schoolfellows, or his masters, or his parents, as the case may be. Such as he is in his other relations, such also is he in his school exercises; his mind is observant, sharp, ready, retentive; he is almost passive in the acquisition of knowledge. I say this in no disparagement of the idea of a clever boy. Geography, chronology, history, language, natural history, he heaps up the matter of these studies as treasures for a future day."

"Every now and then you will find a person of vigorous or fertile mind, who relies upon his own resources, despises all former authors, and gives the world, with the utmost fearlessness, his views upon religion, or history, or any other popular subject. And his works may sell for a while; he may get a name in his day; but this will be all. His readers are sure to find on the long run that his doctrines are mere theories, and not the expression of facts, that they are chaff instead of bread, and then his popularity drops as suddenly as it rose."

"The enlargement consists, not merely in the passive reception into the mind of a number of ideas hitherto unknown to it, but in the mind's energetic and simultaneous action upon and towards and among those new ideas, which are rushing in upon it. It is the action of a formative power, reducing to order and meaning the matter of our acquirements; it is a making the objects of our knowledge subjectively our own, or, to use a familiar word, it is a digestion of what we receive, into the substance of our previous state of thought; and without this no enlargement is said to follow."

[Tiffany Barron]

I highly recommend this book, not because I always immediately agreed with Newman, but for how thought-provoking it is.

[Josiah DeGraaf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Newman's writing style is complex and a bit difficult to understand, even for someone who's read a lot of classics (I'm not exaggerating when I say the average sentence is probably 5-6 lines long, lol). But while it took some work at times to comprehend Newman's meaning, the reward was worth the effort. Newman has some brilliant thoughts about the value of a classical liberal arts education, the importance of teaching Christianity for a fully effective education, the limits and value of literature, the tension between the freedom of thought and the restraints of Christianity, the value of complex prose, and the value of knowledge, among other things. This book took time and work to understand it. But I don't regret any of the time or work I spent doing so.

Rating: 4.5 Stars (Excellent).

[Kazango · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent presentation of a carefully thought-out philosophy of education.

[Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a lot to still like here, but one has to get by a lot of Catholic triumphalism and plain old English snobbery in defense of empire and the West and, well, all the stuff that gets people wrinkled about dead white men generally. Prepared a set of lectures in defense of the quixotic project (quixotic because Newman was asked to do it, not because of the nature of the project itself—Newman was spectacularly unsuited for the job he was given that gave rise to these lectures in the first place), then later published as a text, this book has been read and trumpeted as a ringing defense of humane values and their place in the increasingly commodified and professionalized university that, in America at least, is rapidly becoming a training school for the workplace. The ideal of character formation, so cherished by Newman, is disappearing. So the message here naturally finds ardent hearers among those who deplore current trends in the academy. Unfortunately, these same listeners often have to cherry pick the text Newman actually wrote in order to cite him as a defender of the ideals they cherish. In other words, Newman's defense of the university as an arena for promoting human values apart from any professional agenda of training workers for the workplace can be usefully borrowed from IF one is willing to overlook the reams of Victorian and Catholic and English prejudices here. Many have no problem with doing that. I wonder if factoring out, say, the centrality of theology (which Newman regarded as essential to the project of a university) finally distorts Newman so much that his usefulness comes only to those willing to radically bowdlerize his text? This is an at times glittering appraisal of what reading and writing can and ought to do in the university. It is also at times a tendentious and partisan refusal to think through the role of anyone other than the avatars of empire as beneficiaries and participants in the project of the university. That fact hampers the text's usefulness today, though it ought to be read (in its entirety) and grappled with nevertheless. This particular edition features a handful of useful commentary essays, the best by sometime biographer Frank Turner, the worst a wildly outdated peroration on technology and digitization in the university.

[Mary Mahoney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Because these are lectures and not a book, there is a fair amount of repetition. Cardinal Newman does a good job of explaining why a University Education should be a liberal arts and sciences education, and not just an education for utility's sake. Newman wrote these lectures after he converted to Catholicism and was fired from Oxford University. The lectures were delivered to different disciplines and different colleges at the first Irish Catholic University, the University of Dublin. My favorite humorous relief part of the lectures were in Elementary Studies: Grammar, and featured two example entrance examinations (oral) of two candidates for college admission in Classics, Mr. Brown (Xenophon) and Mr. Black (Cicero). The Q&A for Mr. Brown was hilarious; he had a fairly superficial grasp of Xenophon's great work, the Anabasis. Brown's hit or miss answers to obvious questions was labored and simply funny as the tutor tries to prompt him. "Relax, Mr. Brown, you know very well."
Mr. Black's answers, on the other hand, are spot on, or when not, Mr. Black easily redirects with good examples. He keeps to the subjects of why certain words are in the dative case, and gives copious examples. Newman's remarks on idiom and structure of the Latin language, also under Elementary studies, are also fascinating. He explains what makes for writing a really good Latin sentence. His overall theme, however, is that the Physical Sciences do not overshadow the Catholic Religion in their certainty, which thesis I accept, but his arguments for this thesis are repeated a lot, again, because it is not a book, like his briefer book on a slightly different subject "An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent" which attempts to establish that Religious assertions can have real truth and consent of the mind, just as scientific assertions can.

[Peter Asper · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished reading the Idea of a University. I've heard many people mention it before but from the way they spoke about it, it seemed like a fairly short read. In reality, this collection of essays from when John Henry Newman was Rector of the University of Dublin is actually over 500 pages long.

Having established that a full read-through of this book is a considerable undertaking I believe that it is worthwhile for those interested in college-level education. From what I have seen, most people quote the Idea of a University from the first lecture. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Newman also considers the relation of science to philosophy, philosophy to physics, physic to religion, and on an on is a series of formal lectures. His words are penetrating and incisive. Even if one were to disagree with him on any of a hundred arguments he presents one would have to do so thoughtfully.

In sum, this is a great read but come with your thinking cap on. Newman says in this book that it is better to learn a little well than reading volumes upon volumes with little progress and understanding. This book is one where I believe that anyone willing to approach it with the inclination to learn will in fact learn quite a bit and learn it well.

[Christopher Byram · Rating 3 out of 5]

I discovered this book, as well as Cardinal John Henry Newman, first during a Zoom meeting held by my old university's Catholic chaplaincy a few months ago, and just now in a document I was reading that relates to the question of the existence of a modern day Knight's Templar order; the Zoom meeting was on the topic of how universities used to be places to cultivate the pursuit of knowledge and higher learning and thought, and only a small percentage of the youth of previous centuries would actually go to university or get to go to some kind of university in the first place (somewhere between 5-10% in the United Kingdom), whereas today universities worldwide are mostly 'degree factories', places where people are pushed through a system where they simply do not have time to pursue the same kinds of knowledge and higher learning and thought that previous generations in previous decades and centuries were able to pursue. A significantly higher percentage of today's youth (somewhere around 50% in the United Kingdom) go to university or study for a higher education qualification as a means to an end, in this case to get a more prestigious and highly-paid job, or simply to go to parties and get drunk every night. Either way, these activities defeat the whole 'Idea of a University'.

[James Weigel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary defense for the place theology has in a university. Seemingly unintentionally, St. John Henry Newman provides ample evidence for the need of proper theological knowledge in the full understanding of any issue in any institution. I see this as a natural conclusion to draw from this writing. Let me attempt to use the light anology Newman used in this piece to explain further.

Allow theology to be considered a science, as Newman successfully argues. Each science represents a medium. A particular light source represents an issue. The emitted light from that source that has been refracted due to a particular medium is some sort of truth related to the issue. When different mediums are used, the resultant light is different. Thus, the use of multiple mediums results in a wider range of refracted light, as does the use of multiple sciences results in a more expansive amount of truth.

If theology is not considered in an issue, can the issue be fully understood? The answer would be no. Sure, you can discover certain truths or realities related to the issue. But you will never see the full picture, you will never be exposed to the full range of refracted light.

[Brendan Conrad]

Cardinal Newman lays out a strong vision for what a true university ought to be, in direct contrast in many ways to the dominant views of education today. He directly challenges ideas of utilitarianism, secular moralism, and the exclusion of certain Sciences (how can we apply an idea of Universality to a “University” if it does not include ALL Sciences?).

While he gets a bit caught up in take shots at Protestant schools v Catholic ones, his general points on education are undeniably true. Some of the most important claims:

Knowledge is a good in and of itself, with no need to defend its utility. However, being a good, it is useful.

True education is formative, not a heaping up of information in the student’s mind.

All truths interact with and illuminate each other.

Humility and modesty ought not be confused or conflated, and they interact very differently with that deadly sin, Pride.

It is a serious danger when a particular study of truth (whether it be politics, economics, sociology, or religion) attempts to explain what it is not meant to examine.

“Literature stands related to Man as Science stands to Nature; it is his history.”

[Michael Joosten · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me eight years, six months, and three days to read this book--to be fair, I started it three times in that time, so that's not 100% accurate. Even so, though it took six years to ever get beyond the opening portion, Newman's work became immediately definitive in my view of the world. As a would-have-been academic, as one who would tout the values of the "useless" liberal arts degrees, and as a Catholic, The Idea of a University is pivotal work in defining my understanding of reality.

I once had a theology professor tell me that if I came out of my philosophy degree able to read and understand Ratzinger's Introduction to Christianity, I had taken enough philosophy to be admitted to theology. I feel that a similar statement could be made here: The Idea of a University is the bar to clear to demonstrate that I have had a well-rounded enough liberal arts education to be admitted to theology. It only took me eight years.