like Lord Morley, he is simply a master of English
style and not to be considered as a thinker. To
some, like certain German critics, he is an ecclesi-
astic and theologian, a writer concerned with the-
ory and development in dogma ; and to others, like
Dean Stanley, he belongs to the literature of all
time. He himself illustrates what his biographer
has said:
That the same object may be seen by different onlookers
under aspects so various and partial as to make their views,
from their inadequacy, appear occasionally even contradic-
tory. 1
Yet in a still different light lies our task, of in-
terpreting Newman as an educationist. For, in a
word, what is education according to John Henry
Newman ?
The answer to this fundamental question can be
made for him by seeking out his interpretation of
the human reason, its nature, character, possibili-
ties and limitations.
In one of his great sermons sermons which
have the lyric element as a superlative excellence
he says:
Reason is that faculty of the mind by which knowledge of
things external to us, of beings, facts and events, is attained
beyond the range of sense. It ascertains for us not natural
things only, or immaterial only, or present only, or past, or
future; but, even if limited in its power, it is unlimited in
its range, viewed as a faculty, though, of course, in individu-
als it varies in range also. It reaches to the ends of the uni-
'"The Life of John Henry Cardinal Newman," by Wilfrid Ward,
Vol. I., p. 2.
224 EDUCATION
verse, and to the throne of God beyond them; it brings us
knowledge, whether clear or uncertain, still knowledge, in
whatever degree of perfection, from every side; but, at the
same time, with this characteristic, that it obtains it indirectly,
not directly.
Reason does not really perceive any thing; but it is a fac-
ulty of proceeding from things that are perceived to things
which are not; the existence of which it certifies to us on the
hypothesis of something else being known to exist, in other
words, being assumed to be true. . . .
Reason is the faculty of gaining knowledge without direct
perception, or of ascertaining one thing by means of another.
In this way it is able, from small beginnings, to create to
itself a world of ideas, which do or do not correspond to the
things themselves for which they stand, or are true or not,
according as it is exercised soundly or otherwise. One fact
may suffice for a whole theory; one principle may create
and sustain a system; one minute token is a clue to a large
discovery. The mind ranges to and fro, and spreads out,
and advances forward with a quickness which has become
a proverb, and a subtlety and versatility which baffle inves-
tigation. It passes on from! point to point, gaining one by
some indication; another on a probability; then availing it-
self of an association; then falling back on some received
law; next seizing on testimony; then committing itself to
some popular impression, or some inward instinct, or some
obscure memory; and thus it makes progress not unlike a
clamberer on a steep cliff, who, by quick eye, prompt hand,
and firm foot, ascends how he knows not himself, by per-
sonal endowments and by practice, rather than by rule,
leaving no track behind him, and unable to teach another.
It is not too much to say that the stepping by which great
ACCORDING TO JOHN NEWMAN 225
geniuses scale the mountains of truth is as unsafe and pre-
carious to men in general, as the ascent of a skilful moun-
taineer up a literal crag. It is a way which they alone can
take; and its justification lies in their success. And such
mainly is the way in which all men, gifted or not gifted, com-
monly reason, not by rule, but by an inward faculty. 2
In another sermon, he, with great significance,
interprets still further :
Philosophy is Reason exercised upon Knowledge ; for, from
the nature of the case, where the facts are given, as is here
supposed, Reason is synonymous with analysis, having no
office beyond that of ascertaining the relations existing be-
tween them. Reason is the power of proceeding to new ideas
by means of given ones. 8
Yet this faculty of reason is to be used in wis-
dom, in faith and through the gracious help of God
himself. The piety of reason is voiced in this
prayer:
O gracious and merciful God, Father of Lights, I humbly
pray and beseech Thee, that in all my exercises of Reason,
Thy gift, I may use it, as Thou wouldst have me use it, in
the obedience of Faith, with a view to Thy Glory, with an
aim at Thy Truth, in dutiful submission to Thy Will, for
the comfort of Thine elect, for the edification of Holy Jerusa-
lem, Thy Church, and in recollection of Thine own solemn
warning : ' ' Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall
'"Oxford University Sermons," pp. 206, 256.
'Ibid., p. 290.
226 EDUCATION
give an account thereof in the day of judgment; for by
thy words, thou shalt be justified, and by thy words, thou
shalt be condemned. ' ' *
The reason of man is to be trained and formed ;
and this training and discipline will manifest them-
selves in certain unique intellectual methods and
conditions.
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 stead-
iness of view, which characterize it. In some it will have de-
veloped habits of business, power of influencing others, and
sagacity. In others it will elicit the talent of philosophical
speculation, and lead the mind forward to eminence in this
or that intellectual department. In all it will be a faculty of
entering with comparative ease into any subject of thought,
and of taking up with aptitude any science or profession. 5
The first step in intellectual training is to impress upon
a boy's mind the idea of science, method, order, principle,
and system ; of rule and exception, of richness and harmony.
This is commonly and excellently done by making him be-
gin with Grammar; nor can too great accuracy, or minute-
ness and subtlety of teaching be used towards him, as his
faculties expand, with this simple purpose. Hence it is that
4 Ward's, "Life of," etc., Vol. II., pp. 364-365.
8 "The Idea of a University," Preface, pp. xvii-xviii.
critical scholarship is so important a discipline for him when
he is leaving school for the University. A second science is
the Mathematics: this should follow Grammar, still with
the same object, viz., to give him a conception of develop-
ment and arrangement from and around a common centre.
Hence it is that Chronology and Geography are so necessary
for him, when he reads History, which is otherwise little bet-
ter than a story-book. Hence, too, Metrical Composition, when
he reads Poetry ; in order to stimulate his powers into action
in every practicable way, and to prevent a merely passive
reception of images and ideas which in that case are likely
to pass out of the mind as soon as they have entered it. Let
him once gain this habit of method, of starting from fixed
tpoints, of making his ground good as he goes, of distinguish-
ing what he knows from what he does not know, and I con-
ceive 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
tdashing paradoxes, which carry away half-formed and super-
ficial intellects. 8
The education thus secured we denominate "lib-
,eral" because it sets the reason free, making it at
| home in every intellectual zone. The man who has
I such a training
apprehends the great outlines of knowledge, the principles
on which it rests, the scale of its parts, its lights and its
shades, its great points and its little, as he otherwise cannot
apprehend them. Hence it is that his education is called
'Ibid., pp. xix-xx.
228 EDUCATION
"Liberal." A habit of mind is formed which lasts through
life, of which the attributes are, freedom, equitableness, calm-
ness, moderation, and wisdom. 7
It is common to speak of "liberal knowledge," of the
"liberal arts and studies," and of a "liberal education,"
as the especial characteristic or property of a University and
of a gentleman; what is really meant by the word? Now,
first, in its grammatical sense it is opposed to servile; and
by "servile work" is understood, as our catechisms inform
us, bodily labour, mechanical employment, and the like, in
which the mind has little or no part. Parallel to such servile
works are those arts, if they deserve the name, of which the
poet speaks, which owe their origin and their method to haz-
ard, not to skill ; as, for instance, the practice and operations
of an empiric. As far as this contrast may be considered as
a guide into the meaning of the word, liberal education and
liberal pursuits are exercises of mind, of reason, of reflection.
But we want something more for its explanation, for there
are bodily exercises which are liberal, and mental exercises
which are not so. For instance, in ancient times the practi-
tioners in medicine were commonly slaves; yet it was an art
as intellectual in its nature, in spite of the pretence, fraud,
and quackery with which it might then, as now, be debased,
as it was heavenly in its aim. And so in like manner, we
contrast a liberal education with a commercial education
or a professional; yet no one can deny that commerce and
the professions afford scope for the highest and most diversi-
fied powers of mind. There is then a great variety of intel-
lectual exercises, which are not technically called "liberal";
on the other hand, I say, there are exercises of the body
nd., p. 101.
ACCORDING TO JOHN NEWMAN 229
which do receive that appellation. Such, for instance, was
the paUestra, in ancient times; such the Olympic games, in
which strength and dexterity of body as well as of mind
gained the prize. In Xenophon we read of the young Persian
nobility being taught to ride on horseback and to speak the
truth ; both being among the accomplishments of a gentleman.
War, too, however rough a profession, has ever been ac-
counted liberal, unless in cases when it becomes heroic, which
would introduce us to another subject. 8
The principle of real dignity in Knowledge, its worth, its
desirableness, considered irrespectively of its results, is this
germ within it of a scientific or a philosophical process. This
is how it comes to be an end in itself; this is why it admits
of being called Liberal. Not to know the relative disposition
of things is the state of slaves or children; to have mapped
out the Universe is the boast, or at least the ambition, of
Philosophy
When, then, we speak of the communication of Knowl-
edge as being Education, we thereby really imply that that
Knowledge is a state or condition of mind; and since culti-
vation 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 word "Philosophy" have already
suggested, that there is a Knowledge, which is desirable,
though nothing comes of it, as being of itself a treasure, and
a sufficient remuneration of years of labour. 9
Such an education has tremendous significances
for the individual man and for the race :
Ibid., p. 106.
Ibid., pp. 113, 114.
230 EDUCATION
One main portion of intellectual education, of the labours
of both school and university, is to remove the original dinv
ness of the mind 's eye ; to strengthen and perfect its vision ; to
enable it to look out into the world right forward, steadily and
truly; to give the mind clearness, accuracy, precision; to
enable it to use words aright, to understand what it says,
to conceive justly what it thinks about, to abstract, compare,
analyze, divide, define, and reason, correctly. There is a
particular science which takes these matters in hand, and
it is called logic ; but it is not by logic, certainly not by logic
alone, that the faculty I speak of is acquired. The infant
does not learn to spell and read the hues upon his retina by
any scientific rule; nor does the student learn accuracy of
thought by any manual or treatise. The instruction given
him, of whatever kind, if it be really instruction, is mainly,
or at least pre-eminently, this, a discipline in accuracy of
mind. 10
The reason of man, thus disciplined, is not sim-
ply a thinking machine: it is far other than
mechanical. It
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. Boys outgrow their
shape and their strength ; their limbs have to be knit together,
and their constitution needs tone. Mistaking animal spirits
for vigour, and overconfident in their health, ignorant what
they can bear and how to manage themselves, they are immod-
erate and extravagant ; and fall into sharp sicknesses. This is
"Ibid., p. 332.
ACCORDING TO JOHN NEWMAN 231
an emblem of their minds; at first they have no principles
laid down within them as a foundation for the intellect to
build upon; they have no discriminating convictions, and
no grasp of consequences. 11
But perhaps the most comprehensive result of a
liberal education lies in the enlargement of the
mind of man. In sermon as well as in essay New-
man refers to this precious consequence.
However, a very little consideration will make it plain also,
that knowledge itself, though a Condition of the mind's en-
largement, yet, whatever be its range, is not that very thing
which enlarges it. Rather the foregoing instances show that
this enlargement consists in the comparison of the subjects
of knowledge one with another. We feel ourselves to be
ranging freely, when we not only learn something, but when
we also refer it to what we knew before. It is not the mere
addition to our knowledge which is the enlargement, but the
change of place, the movement onwards, of that moral centre,
to which what we know and what we have been acquiring,
the whole mass of our knowledge, as it were, gravitates. And
therefore a philosophical cast of thought, or a comprehensive
mjnd, or wisdom in conduct or policy, implies a connected
view of the old with the new; an insight into the bearing
and influence of each part upon every other; without which
there is no whole, and could be no centre. It is the knowl-
edge, not only of things, but of their mutual relations. It is
organized, and therefore living knowledge. 12
11 Ibid., Preface, p. xvi.
""Oxford University Sermons," p. 287.
232 EDUCATION
Narrow minds have no power of throwing themselves into
the minds of others. They have stiffened in one position, as
limbs of the body subjected to confinement, or as our organs
of speech, which after a while cannot learn new tones and
inflections. They have already parcelled out to their own
satisfaction the whole world of knowledge ; they have drawn
their lines, and formed their classes, and given to each opin-
ion, argument, principle, and party, its own locality; they
profess to know where to find every thing; and they cannot
learn any other disposition. They are vexed at new prin-
ciples of arrangement, and grow giddy amid cross divisions;
and, even if they make the effort, cannot master them. They
think that any one truth excludes another which is distinct
from it, and that every opinion is contrary to their own
opinions which is not included in them. They cannot sepa-
rate words from their own ideas, and ideas from their own
associations; and if they attain any new view of a subject,
it is but for a moment. They catch it one moment, and let
it go the next ; and then impute to subtlety in it, or obscurity
in its expression, what really arises from their own want of
elasticity or vigour. And when they attempt to describe it in
their own language, their nearest approximation to it is a
mistake ; not from any purpose to be unjust, but because they
are expressing the ideas of another mind, as it were, in
translation. 13
The enlargement consists, not merely in the passive recep-
tion 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
"Ibid., pp. 307-308.
ACCORDING TO JOHN NEWMAN 233
a making the objects of our knowledge subjectively our own,
or, to use a familiar word, it is a digestion of what we re-
ceive, into the substance of our previous state of thought;
and without this no enlargement is said to follow. There is
no enlargement, unless there be a comparison of ideas one
with another, as they come before the mind, and a systematiz-
ing of them. We feel our minds to be growing and expanding
then, when we not only learn, but refer what we learn to
what we know already. It is not the mere addition to our
knowledge that is the illumination; but the locomotion, the
movement onwards, of that mental centre, to which both what
we know, and what we are learning, the accumulating mass of
our acquirements, gravitates. 1 *
Knowledge then is the indispensable condition of expansion
of mind, and the instrument of attaining to it; this cannot
be denied, it is ever to be insisted on; I begin with it as a
first principle; however, the very truth of it carries men
too far, and confirms to them the notion that it is the whole
of the matter. A narrow mind is thought to be that which
contains little knowledge; and an enlarged mind, that which
holds a great deal ; and what seems to put the matter beyond
dispute is, the fact of the great number of studies which are
pursued in a University, by its very profession. 15
To give this liberal education, set forth thus in
noblest and happy phrase and comprehensive and
inspiring paragraph, is the primary purpose of a
university. Its business is to make the mind a
14<< The Idea of a University," p. 134.
"Ibid., p. 129.
234 EDUCATION
freeman of every nation, a happy citizen in every
intellectual zone.
This process of training, by which the intellect, instead
of being formed or sacrificed to some particular or acci-
dental purpose, some specific trade or profession, or study
or science, is disciplined for its own sake, for the perception
of its own proper object, and for its own highest culture, is
called Liberal Education ; and though there is no one in whom
it is carried as far as is conceivable, or whose intellect would
be a pattern of what intellects should be made, yet there
is scarcely any one but may gain an idea of what real train-
ing is, and at least look towards it, and make its true scope
and result, not something else, his standard of excellence ; and
numbers there are who may submit themselves to it, and
secure it to themselves in good measure. And to set forth
the right standard, and to train according to it, and to
help forward all students towards it according to their vari-
ous capacities, this I conceive to be the business of a
University. 18
In giving such an education, the university, of
course, is to provide a broad and general, not a
technical, knowledge. Newman says :
Here are two methods of Education; the end of the one
is to be philosophical, of the other to be mechanical ; the one
rises towards general ideas, the other is exhausted upon what
is particular and external. Let me not be thought to deny
the necessity, or to decry the benefit, of such attention to what
is particular and practical, as belongs to the useful or me-
"llid., pp. 152-153.
ACCORDING TO JOHN NEWMAN 235
chanical arts; life could not go on without them; we owe
our daily welfare to them ; their exercise is the duty of the
many, and we owe to the many a debt of gratitude for ful-
filling that duty. I only say that Knowledge, in proportion
as it tends more and more to be particular, ceases to be
Knowledge. It is a question whether Knowledge can in any
proper sense be predicated of the brute creation ; without
pretending to metaphysical exactness of phraseology, which
would be unsuitable to an occasion like this, I say, it seems
to me improper to call that passive sensation, or perception
of things, which brutes seem to possess, by the name of Knowl-
edge. When I speak of Knowledge, I mean something intel-
lectual, something which grasps what it perceives through
the senses; something which takes a view of things; which
sees more than the senses convey; which reasons upon what
it sees, and while it sees; which invests it with an idea. It
expresses itself, not in a mere enunciation, but by an en-
thymeme : it is of the nature of science from the first, and in
this consists its dignity. 11
And so as regards intellectual culture, I am far from
denying utility in this large sense as the end of Education,
when I lay it down, that the culture of the intellect is a
good in itself and its own end; I do not exclude from the
idea of intellectual culture what it cannot but be, from the
very nature of things; I only deny that we must be able to
point out, before we have any right to call it useful, some
art, or business, or profession, or trade, or work, as resulting
from it, and as its real and complete end. The parallel is
exact: As the body may be sacrificed to some manual or
other toil, whether moderate or oppressive, so may the intel-
"Ibid., pp. 112-113.
236 EDUCATION
lect be devoted to some specific profession ; and I do not call
this the culture of the intellect. Again, as some member or
organ of the body may be inordinately used and developed,
so may memory, or imagination, or the reasoning faculty;
and this again is not intellectual culture. On the other
hand, as the body may be tended, cherished, and exercised
with a simple view to its general health, so may the intellect
also be generally exercised in order to its perfect state; and
this is its cultivation.
Again, as health ought to precede labour of the body, and
as a man in health can do what an unhealthy man cannot
do, and as of this health the properties are strength, energy,
agility, graceful carriage and action, manual dexterity, and
endurance of fatigue, so in like manner general culture of
mind is the best aid to professional and scientific study, and
educated men can do what illiterate cannot ; and the man who
has learned to think and to reason and to compare and to
discriminate and to analyze, who has refined his taste, and
formed his judgment, and sharpened his mental vision, will
not indeed at once be a lawyer, or a pleader, or an orator,
or a statesman, or a physician, or a good landlord, or a man
of business, or a soldier, or an engineer, or a chemist, or a
geologist, or an antiquarian, but he will be placed in that
state of intellect in which he can take up any one of the
sciences or callings I have referred to, or any other for which
he has a taste or special talent, with an ease, a grace, a
versatility, and a success, to which another is a stranger. In
this sense then, and as yet I have said but a very few words on
a large subject, mental culture is emphatically useful.
v lbid., pp. 165-166.
ACCORDING TO JOHN NEWMAN 237
The task, therefore, of founding and carrying
forward a university is among the noblest which
can engage the powers of man :
To set on foot and to maintain in life and vigour a real
University, is confessedly,, as soon as the word "University"
is understood, one of those greatest works, great in their
difficulty and their importance, on which are deservedly ex-
pended the rarest intellects and the most varied endowments.
For, first of all, it professes to teach whatever has to be
taught in any whatever department of human knowledge, and
it embraces in its scope the loftiest subjects of human thought,
and the richest fields of human inquiry. Nothing is too vast,
nothing too subtle, nothing too distant, nothing too minute,
nothing too discursive, nothing too exact, to engage its
attention. 18
This, Gentlemen, is why I say that to erect a University is
at once so arduous and beneficial an undertaking, viz., be-
cause it is pledged to admit, without fear, without prejudice,
without compromise, all comers, if they come in the name
of Truth; to adjust views, and experiences, and habits of