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Newman's Idea of a University Makes Sense TodayJose Morales Marín aa Facultad de Teología , Universidad de Navarra , pamplona, SpainPublished online: 22 Aug 2006.

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Christian Higher Education, 2:197–211, 2003Copyright © 2003 Taylor & Francis Inc.ISSN: 1536-3759 print/ 1539-4107 onlineDOI: 10.1080/15363750390219574

NEWMAN’S IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY MAKES SENSE TODAY

JOSE MORALES MARÍN

Facultad de TeologíaUniversidad de Navarra

Pamplona, Spain

In his rich personality Newman presents himself to us not only as a religiousleader of remarkable spiritual depth, but also as a humanist capable of proposingan educational ideal. His vision has even now a high degree of relevance in ourcultural setting. Newman included The Idea of a University, published in1852, among his systematic works of ample scope. He defends the just claims oftheology to be counted among the academic subjects of a university. Heunderstands education not primarily as an accumulation of information, butrather as an assimilation of knowledge and, ultimately, of wisdom. Educationlooks at the human person rather than at the individual, understood as ananonymous member of a group governed by pragmatic laws. Newman’s currentrelevance is also due to his attempt to relate the religious and secular spheres ineducation, so that they may neither be confused nor mutually ignore each other.

Those who visit Newman’s living quarters in the Oratory of Bir-mingham can still see the academic gown that he used in Oxford,as Fellow of Oriel College, hanging next to his cardinal’s vestmentsand insignias. This could be interpreted as indicating to the visi-tor that Newman never perceived opposition but rather continu-ity and harmony between the offices represented by both vestments.Indeed in his life and mind, spiritual and academic concerns, reli-gious and intellectual matters were to be found united withoutconfusion, distinct but not separate. This is said of the two naturesof Jesus Christ in the one Person of the Incarnate Word.

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Newman himself included The Idea of a University, publishedin 1852, among his five systematic works of ample scope (Dessain& Gornall, 1973, p. 34). In addition to The Idea, he mentions theProphetic Office of the Church (1837), the Lectures on Justification (1838),the Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (1845), and theGrammar of Assent (1870).

The first part of The Idea of a University is composed of ninediscourses, whose preparation was suggested to Newman in Sep-tember 1851 by then archbishop of Armagh, Paul Cullen. Follow-ing the wishes of Rome, the archbishop had become the principalpromoter of the Catholic University of Ireland, in which Newmanhad accepted the office of rector a short time earlier.

Newman’s discourses were meant to prepare the ground forthe foundation of the desired university, and to capture the atten-tion and interest of the cultured Catholics of Dublin. They werealso intended to instill the principles of a higher education whichhad to be, as the times demanded, Catholic—that is, not mixed—and with a resident student body.

To the Catholic authorities—those in Rome and a large partof those in Ireland—the University of Ireland seemed the onlyvalid alternative to the nonconfessional university centers of Corkand Galway, which were considered dangerous to the faith of theCatholic students due to these institutions’ religious neutrality. TheHoly See sought to create a university in Dublin following the modelof Louvain, which had been reactivated around 1830 as a Catholicuniversity center, with excellent results.

He was personally convinced of the point of view of the eccle-siastical authorities and faithful to their basic directives. Newmannonetheless held an educational ideology based on long experi-ence, that transcended what could be considered the practical andimmediate goals of an institution that was going to be established.Without contradicting these goals in any way, his ideas went be-yond what the situation strictly required at that moment.

Newman reckoned that a university worthy of such a nameought to grant profane Science the place that legitimately corre-sponds to it within the university; and that the reason for exist-ence of the new center had to be the harmonious fusion of humanand theological knowledge. This was, consequently, the guidingprinciple of the conferences he delivered. They faithfully took into

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account the concerns of Archbishop Cullen, and at the same timereflected the educational and religious philosophy of their author.

The speaker achieved an intellectual feat of vast proportionsin these memorable discourses (Introductory Discourse; Theol-ogy a Branch of Knowledge; Bearing of Theology on Other Knowl-edge; Bearing of Other Knowledge on Theology; Knowledge ItsOwn End; Knowledge Viewed in Relation to Learning; KnowledgeViewed in relation to Professional Skills; Knowledge Viewed inRelation to Religious Duty; Duties of the Church Towards Knowl-edge). The discourses not only represented a historical contribu-tion to English prose, but also sketched the general outline of aneducational proposal that was both actual and perennial. Newmanboldly faced up to the great educational problem of his time, whichcould be formulated as follows: What must Catholics do in orderto maintain their traditional religious and theological conceptions,while keeping open to the cultural and scientific perspectives ofthe epoch?

Newman commenced his discourses as a defender of the justclaims of theology to be counted among the academic subjects ofa university. Exclusivity, according to our author, should be attrib-uted not to those who defend such claims, but rather to those whoreject them. A university which by definition professes to teach allsciences cannot deny a place to the science of God, without con-tradicting itself. Moreover, the sciences, more related to each otherwith every passing day and full of reciprocal influence, cannot betaught in an adequate way without taking into account the hori-zon and data of theology. On the other hand, it must be remem-bered that if theology does not appear in the academic plan, therole proper to it will end up, not being ignored, but rather beingusurped, by the other sciences; these would then teach, withoutcredentials and without guarantee, their own conclusions aboutmatters that are diverse in principles and content.

It ought to be recognized too that a university in its pure con-ception, prior to being considered as a legitimate instrument ofthe Church, has a specific objective and mission. It does not pri-marily—directly—strive after moral influence or technical forma-tion; it does not seek to train the mind in art or in duty. Its functionis to impart intellectual culture. Once it has achieved this end itmay dismiss its students, since it has already fulfilled its mission: it

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has educated the intellect in reasoning well, in directing itself to-wards the integral Truth and taking possession of it.

This, for Newman, is the great task of liberal knowledge, thereason for being and the authentic goal of the university. Suchknowledge is a good in itself, and ought to be sought for itself. Ithas (it must also be added) great secular utility, as it constitutesthe best and highest empowerment of the intellect for social andpolitical life. Finally, in its religious aspect it coincides to someextent or at some moment with the Christian ideal; that is, it trav-els along with this ideal part of the way, separating from it furtheron. As a consequence, on some occasions it becomes an impor-tant ally of religion, and at other times, due to the external simi-larity, it becomes a dangerous and subtle enemy.

Thus, we see that discourse 8 not only discontinues the lineproposed in discourses 6 and 7, but also ruptures and modifiesthe argument, notably with the aim of finding an equilibrium be-tween the demands of the humanistic ideal and the postulates ofthe religious ideal.

This, in very brief terms, is Newman’s educational manifesto.It is the idea of what he calls liberal education, to distinguish itfrom ecclesiastical education as well as from purely utilitarian, tech-nical, and specialized education. Newman’s notion bears evidenceof the stamp received during his years at Oxford, and especiallyreflects the intellectual habits of his colleagues at Oriel. But if inOriel Newman as a tutor had tried to enrich the educational sys-tem with the addition of religious elements lived to the full andwithout routine, in his new Catholic surrounding he consideredhimself called to a different task: that of uplifting the pedagogicalgoals and horizons of a system which he regarded as excessivelycentered on ecclesiastical aspects, respectable but no longer ad-equate to the situation and necessities of the Catholic laity.

Newman proposes a liberal program of education (that is,one centered on science or knowledge for its own sake) which,thanks to its connection with theology, does not lead to doctrinalliberalism or to religious indifference. This program surpassesother pedagogical conceptions where religion is corrupted (Ox-ford Anglican) or absent (London University, Queen’s College ofIreland). Likewise, in the Catholic sphere the educational ideal ofNewman represents a novelty. It implies a pedagogical mutation,

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not only due to the classical characteristics which, perhaps exces-sively, mark it and even compromise it, but above all because itdoes not speak of profane science as being subject to religion orexisting in its name.

We are in the presence of autonomous science, one that freelyaccepts the true Catholic religion and derives sustenance from it.Evidently, this does not mean that for Newman science is whollydevoid of a religious principle or that it may be qualified as atheis-tic. The opinion of Saint-Arnaud (1972, p. 179) is to my mindexaggerated. A document with the program of his activity of found-ing the Catholic University of Ireland, written in September 1851,informs us rather of the contrary. We read there that all universityauthorities and professors, on taking charge of their duties, shouldmake a profession of the Catholic faith following the formula ofPope Pius IV and that they will always be urged not only to avoidteaching anything contrary to (Catholic) religion, but also to makeuse of the subjects that they teach to show that religion is the basisof science, and to instill a love for religion and religious duties(Newman, 1896, p. 80).

As might be expected, the novelty of its contents and the deli-cate moment in which it made its appearance and exercised itsinfluence made The Idea a controversial book in some EnglishCatholic circles. It was particularly criticised by W. C. Ward—likeNewman, an Oxford convert—both by word and through the pagesof the Dublin Review (Ward, 1873, pp. 402, 428). Ward alwaysthought that The Idea did not sufficiently stress the religious aspectof education, and that it attributed excessive importance insteadto the intellectual. The historical context and Ward’s personalityinvite us to think that he considered the adjectives “religious” and“ecclesiastical” as practically equivalent. In any case, his criticismwas misdirected, since Newman was certainly not Socratic on thispoint. Newman never considered that science or knowledge byitself could do good to a person. He clearly realized that knowingis one thing, and doing a very different thing.

Being the person he was, one who held the formation andeducation of the intellect in such high esteem, Newman did nothesitate to affirm: “Quarry the granite rock with razors, or moorthe vessel with a thread of silk; then may you hope with such keenand delicate instruments as human knowledge and human reason

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to contend against those giants, the passion and the pride of man”(Newman, 1976, p. 111).

Newman seemed satisfied with The Idea. None of the importantmodifications implemented by himself altered the central theses.And the wide circulation of the book was a source of satisfactionand noble pride for its author. “But to my surprise, I find thatthose books on Universities have had an application and an influ-ence which I did not expect. I find that they have removed diffi-culties and cleared views, reconciled persons to the present stateof Catholicism, and given them hopes, when they were despair-ing, of the future. I begin to think that I may have opened a veinof metal which others may work out after me when I am gone”(Dessain, 1969, p. 251).

The convictions that took form and crystallized in The Idea ofa University had matured in the mind of its author long before.They were not improvised considerations. Newman made use ofthe unexpected call to Dublin to formulate at length the educa-tional creed that had been in his mind for quite some time. Simi-larly he had made use in 1864 of the slanderous attack of theAnglican Charles Kingsley to immortalize in the Apologia pro VitaSua the history of his religious convictions and his personal evolu-tion from Anglicanism to the Catholic faith.

As precedent and interpretative criterion of the Idea of theUniversity, the seven letters that Newman addressed to the editorof the Times of London in February 1841 are worthy of mention.These letters deal with the utilitarian postulates formulated by theminister Robert Peel in a speech on the occasion of the inaugura-tion of a library in his electoral district of Tamworth.

The seven texts, which constitute a well-knit whole, providean excellent summary of Newman’s thought regarding the rela-tions between profane science, religion, and morality. They de-scribe and criticize the ideals proposed by Peel regarding practicalknowledge as a way towards the transformation of human beings.And they contain an eloquent defence of religion as part of thetemporal common good of society and as an instrument of trueeducation.

The principles of Peel, says Newman, are guided by a nobleintention of progress, without any desire whatever to prejudicereligion. They fall, however, into the simplification of asserting

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that the science of the useful is the mother of virtue and that it hasthe capacity to raise mankind to its highest perfection. In fact inthis way the individual and social space of religion becomes re-duced; spiritual goals are assigned to culture and technical forma-tion, which they cannot attain; culture is converted into a substitutefor religion.

Newman attempts to show that profane science is not always aprinciple of moral progress, and that the human being does notnecessarily become better through becoming wiser or more cul-tured. The goodness and interior perfection of the individual arehigher effects which require proportionate causes and means. Toknow is one thing; to do is another very different thing. To beaware of one’s duty is not equivalent to performing it.

Upon closer examination, the aims of Peel and of the schoolof thought he knowingly or unknowingly represents turn out tobe much more modest. Actually, they do not propose a victory ofthe mind over itself, the supremacy of the moral law, the reduc-tion of interior malady, the unity of disordered nature, the chang-ing of character; rather, they propound only the calming of thepassions through distraction with other objects and the simpleremoval of temptations and obstacles to doing good.

“Peel makes no pretence of subduing the giant nature, inwhich we were born, of smiting the loins of the domestic enemiesof our peace, of overthrowing passion and fortifying reason; hedoes but offer to bribe the foe for the nonce with gifts which willavail for that purpose just so long as they will avail, and no longer”(Newman, 1899, p. 264). That is to say, what is sought is a modifi-cation of external objectives, not interior change. Such a goal isproportional to the philosophy of numerous schools, which con-sider perfection and well-being as something proceeding from theoutside and not from the inside; something achieved not throughpersonal effort but rather through a passive exposition to influ-ences beyond one’s control.

“It does not require many words,” continues Newman, “todetermine that, taking human nature as it is actually found, andassuming that there is an Art of life, to say that it consists, or in anyessential manner is placed, in the cultivation of Knowledge, thatthe mind is changed by a discovery, or saved by a diversion, andcan thus be amused into immortality—that grief, anger, coward-

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ice, self-conceit pride, or passion, can be subdued by an examina-tion of shells or grasses, or inhaling of gases, or chipping of rocks,or calculating the longitude, is the veriest of pretences which soph-ist or mountebank ever professed to a gaping auditory. If virtue bea mastery over the mind, if its end be action, if its perfection beinward order, harmony, and peace, we must seek it in graver andholier places than in Libraries and Reading-rooms” (Newman,1899, p. 268).

If profane science is not a principle of moral progress, nei-ther does it constitute a direct means to achieving the latter. It isnot knowledge and prestige, but rather grace and the Word ofGod that are the principles capable of driving, renovating, andexpressing the spiritual man regenerated by the gospel as well asthe society in which he lives.

Culture, at most could give rise to a human morality. But inmorals, just as in physics, the stream of water cannot rise above itssource. Christianity raises mankind above the earth because itcomes from heaven. Human morality, on the contrary, drags itselfalong the level of the ground and does not have wings to fly. Worldlyschools that preach mere knowledge do not contemplate elevat-ing the human being above himself; they leave him where theyhave found him. Vice and interior corruption cannot be banishedusing human means alone; we must turn to a higher source torenew the heart and the will. Human methods are good if they areused in the place that corresponds to them. They are useless, andeven damaging, beyond that place.

Christianity has to be inserted at the root of all true educa-tion. If in education we begin with nature before grace, with evi-dence before faith, with science before conscience, we embark onthe road of surrendering to our appetites and passions and clos-ing our ears to reason. Faith must be placed first and knowledgeafter; the university must serve the church, classical poetry shouldbe a figure of the gospel truth, science a commentary on Genesis.

Neither is profane science an obligatory precedent or precur-sor for moral and religious development. It could never substitutetheology and the scientific elaboration of the religious sciences.

Newman affirms, finally, that profane science, developed atthe cost of disqualifying religion as dogmatic and divisive in itscreeds, cannot be a principle of social unity and cohesion.

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Science is incapable of making a man religious who is notalready religious to begin with. It is absurd to seek through phi-losophy what has always been sought through religion. Profaneknowledge without the company of a personal religion leads tounbelief.

As a summary, the author closes the exposition with the fol-lowing words: “I consider that intrinsically excellent and noble asare scientific pursuits, and worthy of a place in a liberal education,and fruitful in temporal benefits to the community, still they arenot and cannot be, the instrument of an ethical training; that phys-ics do not supply a basis, but only materials for religious senti-ment; that knowledge does but occupy, does not form the mind;that apprehension of the unseen is the only known principle ca-pable of subduing moral evil, educating the multitude, and orga-nizing society” ( Newman, 1899, p. 304).

The letters contain an essentially valid teaching and ought tobe read together with The Idea of a University, to which they serveadmirably as introduction.

Newman also vigorously propounds the correct equilibriumbetween faith and profane culture in the formation of the Chris-tian man and woman. The goal of a well-understood and well-applied Christianity is to “reunite things which were in thebeginning joined together by God, and have been put asunderby man. I wish the intellect to range with the utmost freedom,and religion to enjoy an equal freedom. I wish the same spotsand the same individuals to be at once oracles of philosophyand shrines of devotion. I want the intellectual layman to bereligious, and the devout ecclesiastic to be intellectual”(Newman, 1900, p. 13).

In reply to Tertullian’s famous rhetorical question: “What doesAthens have to do with Jerusalem?” Newman says: “The ancientVoices of religion and learning are silenced only to revive moregloriously and perfectly elsewhere. . . . The grace stored in Jerusa-lem, and the gifts which radiate from Athens, are made over andconcentrated in Rome. This is true as a matter of history. Romehas inherited both sacred and profane learning; she has perpetu-ated and dispensed the tradition of Moses and David in the super-natural order, and of Homer and Aristotle in the natural. Toseparate those distinct teachings, human and divine, which meet

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in Rome, is to retrograde; it is to rebuild the Jewish Temple and toplan anew the groves of Academus” (Newman, 1976, p. 223).

Newman laments the fact that intelligence, creativity, taste,and richness of imagination are often found on the side of errorrather than that of virtue, while virtuous and conscientious per-sons prove at times to have a very restricted mind.

What animated Newman’s entire work with the university wasthe defense of a center of integral study, precisely when the uni-versity was beginning to be attacked and dislocated by empiristicand utilitarian currents of modernity.

In the face of the fact that the years which have elapsed be-tween Newman’s undertaking and our time have witnessed thetriumph, not of what the cardinal proposed, but rather of the ten-dencies that he considered a cause of disintegration, the perusalof his discourses becomes somewhat anachronistic and at the sametime extremely actual.

Newman defends a type of university that coincides with thegreat discovery of the Christian West, that is, a higher center ofinvestigation and transmission of a free, systematic, formative, anddisinterested knowledge. This type of university, born in the cen-turies when Catholic culture enjoyed its most intense presence,has in recent times suffered a process—inevitable and understand-able—of fragmentation of knowledge, utilitarian subordination toproductive processes, economic dependence upon state and in-dustrial powers, and ideological and political conditioning.

The primacy of humanistic and philosophical–theologicalknowledge, within which the university was born, is more oftenthan not destroyed by ideologies or paralyzed by a soulless tech-nology.

In general the universitas no longer provides formative knowl-edge, but rather operative technology, integrated in the processof production–consumption. It is this situation which provokedthe complaint of the poet T. S. Eliot years ago, exclaiming, Whereis the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledgewe have lost in information?

Just as the ethical has been converted into the technical, truthhas been converted into calculation and numbers. It seems thatwe are seeing the end of that humanistic knowledge, upon whichNewman wished to confer the task of mediating between the di-

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verse sciences and theology. That would signify the loss of a cru-cial aim of the university, as it is progressively becoming a higherschool of technology or an instruction center for “specialists with-out a soul,” as the sociologist Max Weber said.

Precisely because of these reasons, the anachronism ofNewman’s proposal stands out for its extraordinary relevance to-day, and speaks to our age with marked eloquence. It points to aninsuperable model of the university, invented cumulatively by theGreek, Roman, and Christian civilizations, and shows that West-ern man, at the close of the modern era, can avoid falling intointellectual barbarism if he manages to recover that unitary knowl-edge which is so proper for the university to promote and trans-mit.

The nine discourses that constitute the first part of The Idea ofa University have been increasingly examined in the last two de-cades from the perspective of the contemporary crisis of educa-tion, the pluralism reflected in the academic world, and thepresence or absence of theology in the university curriculum (Th-ompson, 1983). There are those who consider that the Christianhumanism of Newman—far removed from clericalism or laicism—with its insistence on the global formation of the intellect and thenecessary role of theology, is today irrelevant and outdated as aneducational idea. This, for example, is the case of Roy Jenkins,who precisely criticizes the Newmanian attempt of connecting re-ligion and the academic world (Brown, 1990, pp. 155ff.). An analo-gous critique is sustained by J. M. Roberts, President of MertonCollege (Oxford), although the author acknowledges a numberof worthy things in Newman’s book (Roberts, 1990, pp. 192–222).

Roberts writes: “We should not waste our time in trying toforce new meaning upon Newman or rewrite him. . . . We do notneed to make him fit. We should, rather, praise him for turningour attention to certain topics, rather than for providing us withhelpful formulas. . . . Reflection on the actual book as a wholeseems to me to point to two rather unexciting conclusions.

“One is that it is no longer possible to write a book with sucha title. If it carries implications of comprehensiveness or essential-ity, The Idea of a University is no longer conceivable. No generaldoctrine of universities is possible. From this follows the other con-clusion, that we must expect actual universities to contribute to

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the common good in different ways and different degree” (Rob-erts, 1990, pp. 221–222).

The cultural conformism and the absence of defined educa-tional objectives manifested in the judgment of Roberts have beencriticized, among others, by Jaroslav Pelikan, of Yale University(Pelikan. 1993, p. 207). With the ideas of Newman as a point ofreference, this author examines three central aspects of the mod-ern university: the connection of things with their first principles,teaching and investigation as central issues of a university, and theobligations of the university institution with respect to society (oneof them being the integration of the professional school withinthe framework of the university).

Pelikan does not see incompatibility between these universityconcerns and the basic ideology proposed by Newman. Doubtless,this point is subject to varied interpretations; ideas useful for aright focus may be found in a recent essay of the North Americanauthor Katherine Tillman. She draws attention to the fact that forNewman, the idea or notion truly exists only in the course of itshistorical evolution and development. Newman’s types or concretespecies in the history of the university’s evolution arise from thepermanent adaptation of an intellectual form, in which liberallearning is always preserved (Tillman, 1992, pp. 125–136).

This means that the basic ideas of Newman regarding well-rounded formation and the presence of religion—as opposed tomental parochialism, ideology, and methodical incredulity—canand should exist as nuclear elements underlying all university teach-ing, apart from other elements of a more pragmatic nature thatalso deserve to be taken into account.

The fact that Newman’s educational ideas are still alive andrelevant today has been shown by the ongoing debate stirred upby Allan Bloom, with the publication in 1987 of his polemic essayThe Closing of the American Mind. The inexhaustible matrix of ideasthat constitute modern society’s educational imperative has in thiscase yielded a work of denunciation and criticism, which is not thefirst of its kind nor, probably, the last. Bloom attempts to diagnosewhat he considers the maladies of contemporary education, tak-ing the North American situation as his point of reference: in spiteof its peculiar tradition, it has much in common with the experi-ence of western European countries.

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Bloom speaks of the decadence of all substantial discourse inthe academic field. The cause would seem to lie in the dominanceof various forms of relativism, which have impoverished fruitfuldiscussion and the moral horizon. The opening up to diverse cul-tures, he claims, has led to a situation of ideology and indifferencewith respect to the universal dimensions of the human nature.

According to Bloom, the ultimate roots of the sickly condi-tion of the academia may be found in the almost total neglect ofthe Socratic tradition of philosophical inquiry. The rich drama ofthe life and teaching of Socrates are, in his view, “the soul of theuniversity” (Bloom, 1987, p. 268). Socratic knowledge is not onlycritical of myths, but is also architectonic, in the sense that it candiscover the correct order of things and construct the best form ofgood life in accord with this order (Bloom, 1987, p. 377).

Bloom confronts the Socratic vision with that proffered by itsgreat critic, Friedrich Nietzsche. In the latter’s Dionysian philoso-phy, reason is banished to leave room for the mythical or the de-monic, or other forms of subjectivism and irrationality. Bloom,critical of the proclamation of “the death of God,” propounds agreater acceptance of the Bible and of religion in the intellectualworld.

That Bloom does not mention Newman anywhere in his bookhas been pointed out. In fact, there are reasons for this omission.Though certain points of contact exist between the educationalideas of both authors, their differences are greater than their simi-larities. Despite the sincerity of his allegation, Bloom is himself aprisoner of the presuppositions that have directly or indirectly givenrise to the crisis of the university in the West. In 1989 the Ameri-can George Rutler already pointed to the Kantian influence thatweighed upon Bloom’s thesis, especially in his longing for a greaterpresence of theology in the lecture halls. Such desires are uto-pian, and somewhat incoherent, in a thinker who seems not tohave overcome Kant’s agnosticism, and for whom religion doesnot imply a cognitive dimension (Rutler, 1989, p. 112).

Nicolas Lash makes similar observations and, precisely in hiscritique of the alternative offered by Bloom, highlights the cur-rent relevance and depth of the Newmanian discourses (Lash, 1990,pp. 188–202). Lash affirms that although Newman and Bloom seemto be allies at first sight, they are not so in fact. “Bloom’s vision,

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210 J. M. Marín

unlike Newman’s, is reactionary, collusive with the acquisitive in-dividualism which, at the same time, he despises” (Lash. 1990, p.189). Bloom would have nothing to offer, except disapproval andpessimistic censure of the present situation. “Bloom’s university isan enclave of spuriously pure reason holding itself aloof from thepain and turbulence of the world outside. Newman, in contrast,knew that no ideas are more wild than those which are relentlesslyreasoned out by the hard heart and the sober judgment. He alsoappreciated that since universities consist of people, the stormsrage not only outside but within” (Lash, 1990, p. 197).

For the American Daniel Cere, Bloom’s attempt to recoverthe Socratic contribution not only sacrifices realistic and coherenttheology; it makes Bloom continue under the shadow of Nietzsche,who had already warned of the consequences of removing Godfrom grammar and from life. The Socratic quest for the ultimategood is not viable without an authentic doctrine about God. Bloomseems to accept uncritically the fact that theology has been setaside as a basic element in modern intellectual debate (Cere, 1994,pp. 3–23). Other criticisms on Bloom have been expressed byCharles Taylor (Taylor, 1994, pp. 51–52).

We may conclude with the observation that if university edu-cation and its social framework have changed much since Newmanwrote his discourses, there are at least two aspects in whichNewmanian thought has stood the test of time and remains as validtoday as it was in the 19th century. We refer, in the first place, tohis understanding of education not as an accumulation of infor-mation, but rather as an assimilation of knowledge and, ultimately,of wisdom. From this perspective, education looks at the humanperson rather than at the individual (understood as an anonymousmember of the group governed by pragmatic laws).

In the second place, Newman’s current relevance owes to hisattempt to relate the religious and secular spheres in education,so that they may neither be confused with each other nor mutu-ally ignore each other. We do not refer to a juxtaposition but ratheran integration of the two spheres, through the unity of the humanperson.

Newman’s principles are meant, in the final analysis, to im-pede, or at least make difficult the triumph of ideology over ideas,so frequent in the academic world. They are also meant to over-

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Newman’s Idea of a University Makes Sense 211

come the strong actual tendency towards the fragmentation ofknowledge and towards a type of nihilism disguised as a free culti-vation of the humanities. We must be grateful to Newman for main-taining human nature in its entirety within his sights, thus keepingalways faithful to the classical Christian principle gratia non tollitnaturam sed perficit.

These memorable discourses remind us of the need to re-store, or maintain, the primacy of humanistic and philosophical–theological knowledge in the university in the West, heir of a cultureall at once Greek, Roman, and Christian.

References

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ford: Clarendon Press.Lash, N. (1990). A seat of wisdom, a light of the world: Considering the univer-

sity. Louvian Studies (Vol. 13).Newman, J. H. (1896). My campaign in Ireland. Private circulation.Newman, J. H. (1899). The Tamworth reading room, discussions and arguments on

various subjects. London: Longmans.Newman, J. H. (1900). The idea of a university defined and illustrated. (I. T. Ker

Ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. (Original work published 1852/1873).Pelikan, J. (1993). Ex corde universitatis: Reflections on the significance of

Newman’s “insisting in solely on natural theology.” In J. F. Langan (Ed.),Catholic universities in church and society. Washington, DC: Catholic UniversityPress.

Roberts, J. M. (1990). The idea of a university revisited. Newman after a hundredyears. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Rutler, G. (1989). Newman’s idea of a Catholic university, Newman today. San Fran-cisco: Ignatius Press.

Saint-Arnaud, J. G. (1972). Newman et l’incroyance. Paris: Desclée.Taylor, C. (1994). La Ética de la autenticidad. Barcelona.Tillman, K. (1992). La idea de una universidad según Newman. Diálogo ecuménico

(Salamanaca) (Vol. 27).Thompson, J. A. G. (1983). On the idea of university. Unpublished doctoral disser-

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