Idea of a University, The

John Henry Cardinal Newman

Description

"The Idea of a University [is an] eloquent defense of a liberal education which is perhaps the most timeless of all [Newman’s] books and certainly the one most intellectually accessible to readers of every religious faith and of none. . . . [O]nly one who has read The Idea of a University in its entirety, especially the nine discourses, can hope to understand why its reputation is so high: why the first reading of this book has been called an ‘epoch’ in the life of a college man; why Walter Pater thought it ‘the perfect handling of a theory’; why the historian G. M. Young has ranked it with Aristotle’s Ethics among the most valuable of all works on the aim of Education; or why Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch told his students at Cambridge that ‘of all the books written in these hundred years there is perhaps none you can more profitably thumb and ponder.’” —from the introduction by Martin J. Svaglic

Sujets

• 19th Century
• Modern
• HISTORY
• EDUCATION
• Philosophie et théologie
• Modern history
• Christianity
• Aristotle
• Religion
• Obermodern-Zutzendorf
• Cambridge

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 31 octobre 1992
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268158101
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY
THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY
Defined and Illustrated
In Nine Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin In Occasional Lectures and Essays Addressed to the Members of the Catholic University
BY
JOHN HENRY CARDINAL NEWMAN
Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by Martin J. Svaglic
University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
University of Notre Dame Press edition 1982
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556
www.undpress.nd.edu
Published in the United States of America
Introduction and Notes 1960 by Martin J. Svaglic
All Rights Reserved
Reprinted in 1984, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1994, 1999, 2003, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Newman, John Henry, 1801-1890.
The idea of a university.
1. Education, Higher-Aims and objectives-Addresses, essays, lectures. 2. Newman, John Henry, 1801-1890-Addresses, essays, lectures. 3. Education-Philosophy-Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Svaglic, Martin J. II. Title.
LB2321.N54 1982 378 .01 82-7019
ISBN 13: 978-0-268-01150-5 (pb.)
ISBN 10: 0-268-01150-8 (pb.) AACR2
ISBN 9780268158101
This book is printed on acid-free paper .
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at [e-mail] .
Contents

Editor s Introduction
A Newman Chronology
A Brief Reading List
A Note on the Text
University Teaching
Preface
I.
Introductory
II.
Theology a Branch of Knowledge
III.
Bearing of Theology on Other Branches of Knowledge
IV.
Bearing of Other Branches of Knowledge on Theology
V.
Knowledge Its Own End
VI.
Knowledge Viewed in Relation to Learning
VII.
Knowledge Viewed in Relation to Professional Skill
VIII.
Knowledge Viewed in Relation to Religion
IX.
Duties of the Church Towards Knowledge
University Subjects
I.
Christianity and Letters. A Lecture in the School of Philosophy and Letters (November, 1854)
II.
Literature. A Lecture in the School of Philosophy and Letters (November, 1858)
III.
English Catholic Literature (1854-1858)
1. In its relation to Religious Literature
2. In its relation to Science
3. In its relation to Classical Literature
4. In its relation to the Literature of the Day
IV.
Elementary Studies (1854-1856)
1. Grammar
2. Composition
3. Latin Writing
4. General Religious Knowledge
V.
A Form of Infidelity of the Day (1854)
1. Its Sentiments
2. Its Policy
VI.
University Preaching (1855)
VII.
Christianity and Physical Science. A Lecture in the School of Medicine (November, 1855)
VIII.
Christianity and Scientific Investigation. A Lecture Written for the School of Science (1855)
IX.
Discipline of Mind. An Address to the Evening Classes (November, 1858)
X.
Christianity and Medical Science. An Address to the Students of Medicine (November, 1858)
Editor s Notes
Index
Acknowledgment

We express gratitude and appreciation to the members and friends of the Class of 1956 of the General Program of Liberal Education. Their generosity and concern for the Program and the Great Books in America has led to this edition and the Notre Dame Series in the Great Books. In 1981, on the 25th anniversary of the graduation of this class, the following benefactors gave the founding support to this Series.

Richard and Judith Clark
David and Judith Collins
Henry Dixon
James Flanagan
F. Peter Foy
J. Patrick Houren
William and Evelyn Malloy
Thomas and Ingrid McNeill
Stephen and Dana Rogers
Norman and Judith Savolskis
William and Sheila Sullivan
Richard Vorwerk
Thomas and Letty Wageman
Wallace Witwer
Edward and Patricia Grant
The Faculty
Program of Liberal Studies
University of Notre Dame
Prefatory Note

This Notre Dame Series in the Great Books grows out of the specific need to keep available as inexpensively as possible classic books regularly in use in Notre Dame s Program of Liberal Studies and similar programs. The Series is not begun with the intent of publishing one or another s canonical list of the great books.
It is especially appropriate to initiate this Series with John Henry Newman s classic on the university and liberal education. Newman s The Idea of a University , like other enduring books, speaks of classic issues and great ideas. Yet it is special because among these issues is that of the role and nature of liberal education in the university and that of the place of theology in the circle of knowledge. Newman s teaching on these issues has long influenced the Program of Liberal Studies and the University in which it is set. Whether or not Newman is right in every respect as a guide of the Catholic University of the future, it is imperative that his most intelligent and eloquent lectures be readily available to all who might reflect on higher education.
The Program of Liberal Studies is Notre Dame s Great Books Program, known for most of its thirty-two years as the General Program of Liberal Studies. Special thanks are due to two of the GP graduates of the Class of 56, Tom Wageman and Dick Clark, for their leadership in garnering support for this publication. Special gratitude is also owed to Professor John Lyon, my predecessor as chairman, who pointed out the value of this Series and a way of launching it, to Dr. James Langford, Director of the University of Notre Dame Press, for his enthusiasm for the Series and guidance in shaping it, and to Professor Martin Svaglic of Loyola University of Chicago for his fine introduction and helpful notes.
Walter Nicgorski April, 1982
Introduction

Although the reputation of John Henry Newman as one of the great masters of English prose has never been seriously questioned and is perhaps higher today than ever, it is a reputation which has come to rest, for the average cultivated reader, on two above all of his more than forty volumes: on the Apologia pro Vita Sua , in which, to vindicate his good character, he gives a dramatic and poignant account of his journey from Evangelicalism through the Anglo-Catholicism of the Oxford Movement to the Roman Catholic Church; and on The Idea of a University , that eloquent defense of a liberal education which is perhaps the most timeless of all his books and certainly the one most intellectually accessible to readers of every religious faith and of none.
There must be few American collegians, surely, who do not, thanks to their freshman readers or their literature survey books, connect Newman at least hazily with the affirmation that knowledge is capable of being its own end or that a gentleman is one who never willingly inflicts pain. But only one who has read The Idea of a University in its entirety, especially the nine discourses, can hope to understand why its reputation is so high: why the first reading of this book has been called an epoch in the life of a college man; why Walter Pater thought it the perfect handling of a theory ; why the historian G. M. Young has ranked it with Aristotle s Ethics among the most valuable of all works on the aim of Education; or why Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch told his students at Cambridge that of all the books written in these hundred years there is perhaps none you can more profitably thumb and ponder.
To be sure, Sir Arthur gave his advice more than forty years ago; but in the United States, at least, where in the last few decades the aims of higher education have been the object of such intense critical scrutiny, there is good reason for thinking that it may seem more pertinent today than ever. And since the place of religion in education has recently become a matter of pressing concern in some of our leading universities and we have seen Catholic and Protestant scholars sit down together to discuss the Christian idea of education, it may even come to pass that Newman s discourses on theology will receive more attentive consideration than many educators have hitherto been disposed to accord them. When Newman wrote The Idea of a University , higher education was in the early stages of its long trend toward secularism, on the one hand, and toward utilitarian specialization, on the other. While it would be untrue to say that these trends have since been reversed, they have at least been seriously challenged and partially checked; and those who have striven so hard to restore a balance to American education may find renewed inspiration in The Idea of a University , now that our country s need for the specialist in science has posed a new threat to their humanistic aims.
2
In an age when, as Newman was frank to admit, the aristocracy of intellect was clearly on the side of unbelief, when Hebrew old clothes did indeed seem pass and the task of the religious thinker had more and more come to be viewed in Carlyle s terms as the embodiment of the spirit of the old religion in a new Mythus, Newman gradually emerged as the chief defender in Victorian England of traditional Christianity: i.e., of a revealed religion established by Christ and imposing on its adherents a definite and essentially unchangeable set of credenda. Though his quest for the center of Christian authority took him in 1845 to Rome, he felt that in going there he was not so much breaking with as developing both his Evangelical and his Anglo-Cathol