Newman’s educational theories DON BRIEL
Ideas of a modern university
The pursuit of knowledge was always at the centre of Cardinal Newman’s ideal of higher education, a pursuit that acknowledged the importance of connections between different disciplines. Could contemporary academia learn from him?
coherence and its contemporary irrelevance. In particular, Newman has been criticised for his emphasis in his work of the mid-1850s, The Idea of a University, on the extension and diffusion of knowledge rather than its advancement. Newman’s insistence on the university’s obligation to teach universal knowledge; his argument that liberal education involves the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake; his provocative claim that a person trained nar- rowly in one field will not be competent even in that one; his argument that society demands something more of students than mere technical skill; and his repeated empha- sis that a university education is no guarantee of moral virtue and in fact is often its coun- terfeit, now strike many as romantic and unreal. But perhaps the most arresting claim in the work is his insistence that although the university and the Church are distinct, the end of the first, that of knowledge of the truth and that of the second, an incorporation into the truth in holiness, still the university cannot fulfil its object without the Church’s assistance. As Newman put it: “… or to use the theological term, the Church is necessary for its integrity.” Even more striking is his insistence that this help is not merely one of adding a religious value to the university’s core secular identity but rather that of enabling it to fulfil its intel- lectual mission. Newman argued that the fundamental goal of the university was the perfection of the intellect. This was expressed in the enlarge- ment of the mind of its students and sustained by the debates and conversations of its faculty. Both tended toward a grasp of the unity of knowledge. This explains his consistent emphasis on the importance of a philosophical habit, of taking a view, of seeing things in relation, for education is not mere instruction in facts or increasing mastery of information. However, this enlargement of mind did not
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odern interpretations of Newman’s classic work on uni- versity education have tended to stress both its intellectual
come about through the amateurish cultiva- tion of a wide variety of disciplines. At least in this sense Newman favoured a basic spe- cialisation of study. The university’s pursuit of universal knowledge, expressed in the image of the circle, was to be secured not by a cursory examination of a comprehensive set of required subjects, but by a participation in the faculty’s pursuit of their disciplines in relation to the whole and through the students’ own discussions among themselves. This explains Newman’s celebrated argument for the residential character of the university. This alone will secure a genius loci, will “con- stitute a whole … will embody a specific idea”. This also explains Newman’s strong empha- sis on the necessity of the university’s teaching universal knowledge. Of course, he had in mind the dangers of the then increasing ten- dency to exclude theology from university curricula. But he also wanted to protect a more fundamental claim: if a valid discipline is excluded then not only is there a vacuum in the larger curriculum but the relationship between all the other disciplines in the circle of knowledge becomes dysfunctional. Newman had a deep sense of the dynamic tension of relations within that circle and recognised that understanding of any disci- pline depended upon a fuller sense of its relations to the whole. So if the study of eco- nomics, say, is cut off from political science, or from ethics, or law, and perhaps especially from theology, it will be not simply incomplete but fundamentally disordered. It is sometimes argued that Newman was hostile to the modern emphasis on research. It is true that he emphasised the priority of the transmission of knowledge but he insisted that the university had an obligation to ongo- ing scholarship. Again, part of the difficulty may lie in a failure to appreciate Newman’s distinction between the university and the college, the professor and the tutor. In a series of essays he addressed both their relation and their mutual correction. The uni- versity “is for the philosophical discourse, the eloquent sermon, or the well-contested dis-
putation; and the College is for the cate- che tical lecture”, he said. The uni- versit y
The building which
became Newman House in Dublin formed the
cornerstone of University College Dublin
engages the pursuit of knowledge in the abstract, the college “is for the formation of character, intellectual and moral, for the cul- tivation of the mind, for the improvement of the individual, for the study of literature, for the classics, and those rudimental sciences which strengthen and sharpen the intellect”. The ideal would seem to be the “University seated and living in Colleges”. But in fact his- torically there has tended to be a fundamental division between them. He saw in Oxford the abuse of the college and in Germany and Scotland the abuse of the university. He argued that the end of liberal education was knowledge for its own sake and that it would be a fundamental error to burden it with either a practical or a moral end, although he conceded that although the useful is not always good, the good is always useful. He famously insisted that one might “quarry the granite rock with razors, or moor the vessel with a thread of silk; then may you hope with such keen and delicate instruments as human knowledge and human reason to contend against those giants, the passion and pride of man”. The university formed not the saint but the gentleman. Newman offered a remarkable tribute to the importance of being a gentleman: an over- coming of mere prejudice; a wide toleration of diverse claims and customs; an attentiveness to the needs of others, especially those of infe- rior social rank; a strong sense of self-respect. But the measure of the gentleman’s obli- gation is his own dignity; the measure of the Christian’s obligation is duty to God. One is defined by modesty, the other by humility; and Newman was quick to note that modesty masks a fundamental pride. On the surface modesty and humility might resemble one another but in substance they are distinct.
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