*The Idea of a University defined and Illustrated*
*In Nine Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin*
*by John Henry Newman*
CONTENTS
Preface.
University Teaching.
Introductory.
Theology A Branch Of Knowledge.
Bearing Of Theology On Other Branches Of Knowledge.
Bearing Of Other Branches Of Knowledge On Theology.
Knowledge Its Own End.
Knowledge Viewed In Relation To Learning.
Knowledge Viewed In Relation To Professional Skill.
Knowledge Viewed In Relation To Religion.
Duties Of The Church Towards Knowledge.
University Subjects, Discussed in Occasional Lectures and Essays.
Introductory Letter.
Advertisement.
Christianity And Letters. A Lecture in the School of Philosophy and
Letters.
Literature. A Lecture in the School of Philosophy and Letters.
English Catholic Literature.
Elementary Studies.
A Form Of Infidelity Of The Day.
University Preaching.
Christianity and Physical Science. A Lecture in the School of Medicine.
Christianity And Scientific Investigation. A Lecture Written for the
School of Science.
Discipline Of Mind. An Address To The Evening Classes.
Christianity And Medical Science. An Address to the Students Of
Medicine.
Note on Page 478.
Index.
Footnotes
_Hospes eram, et collegistis Me._
IN GRATEFUL NEVER-DYING REMEMBRANCE
OF HIS MANY FRIENDS AND BENEFACTORS,
LIVING AND DEAD,
AT HOME AND ABROAD
IN GREAT BRITAIN, IRELAND, FRANCE,
IN BELGIUM, GERMANY, POLAND, ITALY, AND MALTA,
IN NORTH AMERICA, AND OTHER COUNTRIES,
WHO, BY THEIR RESOLUTE PRAYERS AND PENANCE,
AND BY THEIR GENEROUS STUBBORN EFFORTS
AND BY THEIR MUNIFICENT ALMS,
HAVE BROKEN FOR HIM THE STRESS
OF A GREAT ANXIETY,
THESE DISCOURSES,
OFFERED TO OUR LADY AND ST. PHILIP ON ITS RISE,
COMPOSED UNDER ITS PRESSURE,
FINISHED ON THE EVE OF ITS TERMINATION,
ARE RESPECTFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED
BY THE AUTHOR.
IN FEST. PRÆSENT.
B. M. V.
NOV. 21, 1852
PREFACE.
The view taken of a University in these Discourses is the following:—That
it is a place of _teaching_ universal _knowledge_. 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; if religious training, I
do not see how it can be the seat of literature and science.
Such is a University in its _essence_, and independently of its relation
to the Church. But, practically speaking, it cannot fulfil 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_. Not
that its main characters are changed by this incorporation: it still has
the office of intellectual education; but the Church steadies it in the
performance of that office.
Such are the main principles of the Discourses which follow; though it
would be unreasonable for me to expect that I have treated so large and
important a field of thought with the fulness and precision necessary to
secure me from incidental misconceptions of my meaning on the part of the
reader. It is true, there is nothing novel or singular in the argument
which I have been pursuing, but this does not protect me from such
misconceptions; for the very circumstance that the views I have been
delineating are not original with me may lead to false notions as to my
relations in opinion towards those from whom I happened in the first
instance to learn them, and may cause me to be interpreted by the objects
or sentiments of schools to which I should be simply opposed.
For instance, some persons may be tempted to complain, that I have
servilely followed the English idea of a University, to the disparagement
of that Knowledge which I profess to be so strenuously upholding; and they
may anticipate that an academical system, formed upon my model, will
result in nothing better or higher than in the production of that
antiquated variety of human nature and remnant of feudalism, as they
consider it, called “a gentleman.”(1) Now, I have anticipated this charge
in various parts of my discussion; if, however, any Catholic is found to
prefer it (and to Catholics of course this Volume is primarily addressed),
I would have him first of all ask himself the previous question, _what_ he
conceives to be the reason contemplated by the Holy See in recommending
just now to the Irish Hierarchy the establishment of a Catholic
University? Has the Supreme Pontiff recommended it for the sake of the
Sciences, which are to be the matter, and not rather of the Students, who
are to be the subjects, of its teaching? Has he any obligation or duty at
all towards secular knowledge as such? Would it become his 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 electro-magnetism? Would he be acquitting
himself of the dispensation committed to him if he were smitten with an
abstract love of these matters, however true, or beautiful, or ingenious,
or useful? Or rather, does he not contemplate such achievements of the
intellect, as far as he contemplates them, solely and simply in their
relation to the interests of Revealed Truth? Surely, what he does he does
for the sake of Religion; if he looks with satisfaction on strong temporal
governments, which promise perpetuity, it is for the sake of Religion; and
if he encourages and patronizes art and science, it is for the sake of
Religion. He rejoices in the widest and most philosophical systems of
intellectual education, from an intimate conviction that Truth is his real
ally, as it is his profession; and that Knowledge and Reason are sure
ministers to Faith.
This being undeniable, it is plain that, when he suggests to the Irish
Hierarchy the establishment of a University, his first and chief and
direct object is, not science, art, professional skill, literature, the
discovery of knowledge, but some benefit or other, to accrue, by means of
literature and science, to his own children; not indeed their formation on
any narrow or fantastic type, as, for instance, that of an “English
Gentleman” may be called, but their exercise and growth in certain habits,
moral or intellectual. Nothing short of this can be his aim, if, as
becomes the Successor of the Apostles, he is to be able to say with St.
Paul, “Non judicavi me scire aliquid inter vos, nisi Jesum Christum, et
hunc crucifixum.” Just as a commander wishes to have tall and well-formed
and vigorous soldiers, not from any abstract devotion to the military
standard of height or age, but for the purposes of war, and no one thinks
it any thing but natural and praiseworthy in him to be contemplating, not
abstract qualities, but his own living and breathing men; so, in like
manner, when the Church founds a University, she is not cherishing talent,
genius, or knowledge, for their own sake, but for the sake of her
children, with a view to their spiritual welfare and their religious
influence and usefulness, with the object of training them to fill their
respective posts in life better, and of making them more intelligent,
capable, active members of society.
Nor can it justly be said that in thus acting she sacrifices Science, and,
under a pretence of fulfilling the duties of her mission, perverts a
University to ends not its own, as soon as it is taken into account that
there are other institutions far more suited to act as instruments of
stimulating philosophical inquiry, and extending the boundaries of our
knowledge, than a University. Such, for instance, are the literary and
scientific “Academies,” which are so celebrated in Italy and France, and
which have frequently been connected with Universities, as committees, or,
as it were, congregations or delegacies subordinate to them. Thus the
present Royal Society originated in Charles the Second’s time, in Oxford;
such just now are the Ashmolean and Architectural Societies in the same
seat of learning, which have risen in our own time. Such, too, is the
British Association, a migratory body, which at least at times is found in
the halls of the Protestant Universities of the United Kingdom, and the
faults of which lie, not in its exclusive devotion to science, but in
graver matters which it is irrelevant here to enter upon. Such again is
the Antiquarian Society, the Royal Academy for the Fine Arts, and others
which might be mentioned. This, then, is the sort of institution, which
primarily contemplates Science itself, and not students; and, in thus
speaking, I am saying nothing of my own, being supported by no less an
authority than Cardinal Gerdil. “Ce n’est pas,” he says, “qu’il y ait
aucune véritable opposition entre l’esprit des Académies et celui des
Universités; ce sont seulement des vues differentes. Les Universités sont
établies pour _enseigner_ les sciences _aux élèves_ qui veulent s’y
former; les Académies se proposent _de nouvelles recherches_ à faire dans
la carriàre des sciences. Les Universités d’Italie ont fourni des sujets
qui ont fait honneur aux Académies; et celles-ci ont donné aux Universités
des Professeurs, qui ont rempli les chaires avec la plus grande
distinction.”(2)
The nature of the case and the history of philosophy combine to recommend
to us this division of intellectual labour between Academies and
Universities. 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. The
common sense of mankind has associated the search after truth with
seclusion and quiet. The greatest thinkers have been too intent on their
subject to admit of interruption; they have been men of absent minds and
idosyncratic habits, and have, more or less, shunned the lecture room and
the public school. Pythagoras, the light of Magna Græcia, lived for a time
in a cave. Thales, the light of Ionia, lived unmarried and in private, and
refused the invitations of princes. Plato withdrew from Athens to the
groves of Academus. Aristotle gave twenty years to a studious discipleship
under him. Friar Bacon lived in his tower upon the Isis. Newton indulged
in an intense severity of meditation which almost shook his reason. The
great discoveries in chemistry and electricity were not made in
Universities. Observatories are more frequently out of Universities than
in them, and even when within their bounds need have no moral connexion
with them. Porson had no classes; Elmsley lived a good part of his life in
the country. I do not say that there are not great examples the other way,
perhaps Socrates, certainly Lord Bacon; still I think it must be allowed
on the whole that, while teaching involves external engagements, the
natural home for experiment and speculation is retirement.
Returning, then, to the consideration of the question, from which I may
seem to have digressed, thus much I think I have made good,—that, whether
or no a Catholic University should put before it, as its great object, to
make its students “gentlemen,” still to make them something or other _is_
its great object, and not simply to protect the interests and advance the
dominion of Science. If, then, this may be taken for granted, as I think
it may, the only point which remains to be settled is, whether 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. Certainly it
does not seem to me rash to pronounce that, whereas Protestants have great
advantages of education in the Schools, Colleges, and Universities of the
United Kingdom, our ecclesiastical rulers have it in purpose that
Catholics should enjoy the like advantages, whatever they are, to the
full. I conceive they view it as prejudicial to the interests of Religion
that there should be any cultivation of mind bestowed upon Protestants
which is not given to their own youth also. As they wish their schools for
the poorer and middle classes to be at least on a par with those of
Protestants, they contemplate the same object also as regards that higher
education which is given to comparatively the few. Protestant youths, who
can spare the time, continue their studies till the age of twenty-one or
twenty-two; thus they employ a time of life all-important and especially
favourable to mental culture. I conceive that our Prelates are impressed
with the fact and its consequences, that a youth who ends his education at
seventeen is no match (_cæteris paribus_) for one who ends it at
twenty-two.
All classes indeed of the community are impressed with a fact so obvious
as this. The consequence is, that Catholics who aspire to be on a level
with Protestants in discipline and refinement of intellect have recourse
to Protestant Universities to obtain what they cannot find at home.
Assuming (as the Rescripts from Propaganda allow me to do) that Protestant
education is inexpedient for our youth,—we see here an additional reason
why those advantages, whatever they are, which Protestant communities
dispense through the medium of Protestantism should be accessible to
Catholics in a Catholic form.
What are these advantages? I repeat, they are in one word the culture of
the intellect. Robbed, oppressed, and thrust aside, Catholics in these
islands have not been in a condition for centuries to attempt the sort of
education which is necessary for the man of the world, the statesman, the
landholder, or the opulent gentleman. Their legitimate stations, duties,
employments, have been taken from them, and the qualifications withal,
social and intellectual, which are necessary both for reversing the
forfeiture and for availing themselves of the reversal. The time is come
when this moral disability must be removed. Our desideratum is, not the
manners and habits of gentlemen;—these can be, and are, acquired in
various other ways, by good society, by foreign travel, by the innate
grace and dignity of the Catholic mind;—but the force, the steadiness, the
comprehensiveness and the versatility of intellect, the command over our
own powers, the instinctive just estimate of things as they pass before
us, which sometimes indeed is a natural gift, but commonly is not gained
without much effort and the exercise of years.
This is real cultivation of mind; and I do not deny that the
characteristic excellences of a gentleman are included in it. Nor need we
be ashamed that they should be, since the poet long ago wrote, that
“Ingenuas didicisse fideliter artes Emollit mores.” 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. 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 over-confident in their health, ignorant what they
can bear and how to manage themselves, they are immoderate and
extravagant; and fall into sharp sicknesses. This is 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. And therefore they talk at
random, if they talk much, and cannot help being flippant, or what is
emphatically called “_young_.” They are merely dazzled by phenomena,
instead of perceiving things as they are.
It were well if none remained boys all their lives; but what is more
common than the sight of grown men, talking on political or moral or
religious subjects, in that offhand, idle way, which we signify by the
word _unreal_? “That they simply do not know what they are talking about”
is the spontaneous silent remark of any man of sense who hears them. Hence
such persons have no difficulty in contradicting themselves in successive
sentences, without being conscious of it. Hence others, whose defect in
intellectual training is more latent, have their most unfortunate
crotchets, as they are called, or hobbies, which deprive them of the
influence which their estimable qualities would otherwise secure. Hence
others can never look straight before them, never see the point, and have
no difficulties in the most difficult subjects. Others are hopelessly
obstinate and prejudiced, and, after they have been driven from their
opinions, return to them the next moment without even an attempt to
explain why. Others are so intemperate and intractable that there is no
greater calamity for a good cause than that they should get hold of it. It
is very plain from the very particulars I have mentioned that, in this
delineation of intellectual infirmities, I am drawing, not from Catholics,
but from the world at large; I am referring to an evil which is forced
upon us in every railway carriage, in every coffee-room or _table-d’hæte_,
in every mixed company, an evil, however, to which Catholics are not less
exposed than the rest of mankind.
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. 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. All
this it will be and will do in a measure, even when the mental formation
be made after a model but partially true; for, as far as effectiveness
goes, even false views of things have more influence and inspire more
respect than no views at all. Men who fancy they see what is not are more
energetic, and make their way better, than those who see nothing; and so
the undoubting infidel, the fanatic, the heresiarch, are able to do much,
while the mere hereditary Christian, who has never realized the truths
which he holds, is unable to do any thing. But, if consistency of view can
add so much strength even to error, what may it not be expected to furnish
to the dignity, the energy, and the influence of Truth!
Some one, however, will perhaps object that I am but advocating that
spurious philosophism, which shows itself in what, for want of a word, I
may call “viewiness,” when I speak so much of the formation, and
consequent grasp, of the intellect. It may be said that the theory of
University Education, which I have been delineating, if acted upon, would
teach youths nothing soundly or thoroughly, and would dismiss them with
nothing better than brilliant general views about all things whatever.
This indeed, if well founded, would be a most serious objection to what I
have advanced in this Volume, and would demand my immediate attention, had
I any reason to think that I could not remove it at once, by a simple
explanation of what I consider the true _mode_ of educating, were this the
place to do so. But these Discourses are directed simply to the
consideration of the _aims_ and _principles_ of Education. Suffice it,
then, to say here, that I hold very strongly that 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 begin
with Grammar; nor can too great accuracy, or minuteness and subtlety of
teaching be used towards him, as his faculties expand, with this simple
purpose. Hence it is that 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 development 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
better 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
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.
Such parti-coloured ingenuities are indeed one of the chief evils of the
day, and men of real talent are not slow to minister to them. An
intellectual man, as the world now conceives of him, is one who is full of
“views” on all subjects of philosophy, on all matters of the day. It is
almost thought a disgrace not to have a view at a moment’s notice on any
question from the Personal Advent to the Cholera or Mesmerism. This is
owing in great measure to the necessities of periodical literature, now so
much in request. Every quarter of a year, every month, every day, there
must be a supply, for the gratification of the public, of new and luminous
theories on the subjects of religion, foreign politics, home politics,
civil economy, finance, trade, agriculture, emigration, and the colonies.
Slavery, the gold fields, German philosophy, the French Empire,
Wellington, Peel, Ireland, must all be practised on, day after day, by
what are called original thinkers. As the great man’s guest must produce
his good stories or songs at the evening banquet, as the platform orator
exhibits his telling facts at mid-day, so the journalist lies under the
stern obligation of extemporizing his lucid views, leading ideas, and
nutshell truths for the breakfast table. The very nature of periodical
literature, broken into small wholes, and demanded punctually to an hour,
involves the habit of this extempore philosophy. “Almost all the
Ramblers,” says Boswell of Johnson, “were written just as they were wanted
for the press; he sent a certain portion of the copy of an essay, and
wrote the remainder while the former part of it was printing.” Few men
have the gifts of Johnson, who to great vigour and resource of intellect,
when it was fairly roused, united a rare common-sense and a conscientious
regard for veracity, which preserved him from flippancy or extravagance in
writing. Few men are Johnsons; yet how many men at this day are assailed
by incessant demands on their mental powers, which only a productiveness
like his could suitably supply! There is a demand for a reckless
originality of thought, and a sparkling plausibility of argument, which he
would have despised, even if he could have displayed; a demand for crude
theory and unsound philosophy, rather than none at all. It is a sort of
repetition of the “Quid novi?” of the Areopagus, and it must have an
answer. Men must be found who can treat, where it is necessary, like the
Athenian sophist, _de omni scibili_,
“Grammaticus, Rhetor, Geometres, Pictor, Aliptes,
Augur, Schœnobates, Medicus, Magus, omnia novit.”
I am speaking of such writers with a feeling of real sympathy for men who
are under the rod of a cruel slavery. I have never indeed been in such
circumstances myself, nor in the temptations which they involve; but most
men who have had to do with composition must know the distress which at
times it occasions them to have to write—a distress sometimes so keen and
so specific that it resembles nothing else than bodily pain. That pain is
the token of the wear and tear of mind; and, if works done comparatively
at leisure involve such mental fatigue and exhaustion, what must be the
toil of those whose intellects are to be flaunted daily before the public
in full dress, and that dress ever new and varied, and spun, like the
silkworm’s, out of themselves! Still whatever true sympathy we may feel
for the ministers of this dearly purchased luxury, and whatever sense we
may have of the great intellectual power which the literature in question
displays, we cannot honestly close our eyes to its direct evil.
One other remark suggests itself, which is the last I shall think it
necessary to make. The authority, which in former times was lodged in
Universities, now resides in very great measure in that literary world, as
it is called, to which I have been referring. This is not satisfactory,
if, as no one can deny, its teaching be so offhand, so ambitious, so
changeable. It increases the seriousness of the mischief, that so very
large a portion of its writers are anonymous, for irresponsible power
never can be any thing but a great evil; and, moreover, that, even when
they are known, they can give no better guarantee for the philosophical
truth of their principles than their popularity at the moment, and their
happy conformity in ethical character to the age which admires them.
Protestants, however, may do as they will: it is a matter for their own
consideration; but at least it concerns us that our own literary tribunals
and oracles of moral duty should bear a graver character. At least it is a
matter of deep solicitude to Catholic Prelates that their people should be
taught a wisdom, safe from the excesses and vagaries of individuals,
embodied in institutions which have stood the trial and received the
sanction of ages, and administered by men who have no need to be
anonymous, as being supported by their consistency with their predecessors
and with each other.
_November 21. 1852._
UNIVERSITY TEACHING.
Discourse I.
Introductory.
1.
In addressing myself, Gentlemen, to the consideration of a question which
has excited so much interest, and elicited so much discussion at the
present day, as that of University Education, I feel some explanation is
due from me for supposing, after such high ability and wide experience
have been brought to bear upon it, that any field remains for the
additional labours either of a disputant or of an inquirer. If,
nevertheless, I still venture to ask permission to continue the
discussion, already so protracted, it is because the subject of Liberal
Education, and of the principles on which it must be conducted, has ever
had a hold upon my own mind; and because I have lived the greater part of
my life in a place which has all that time been occupied in a series of
controversies both domestic and with strangers, and of measures,
experimental or definitive, bearing upon it. About fifty years since, the
English University, of which I was so long a member, after a century of
inactivity, at length was roused, at a time when (as I may say) it was
giving no education at all to the youth committed to its keeping, to a
sense of the responsibilities which its profession and its station
involved, and it presents to us the singular example of an heterogeneous
and an independent body of men, setting about a work of self-reformation,
not from any pressure of public opinion, but because it was fitting and
right to undertake it. Its initial efforts, begun and carried on amid many
obstacles, were met from without, as often happens in such cases, by
ungenerous and jealous criticisms, which, at the very moment that they
were urged, were beginning to be unjust. Controversy did but bring out
more clearly to its own apprehension the views on which its reformation
was proceeding, and throw them into a philosophical form. The course of
beneficial change made progress, and what was at first but the result of
individual energy and an act of the academical corporation, gradually
became popular, and was taken up and carried out by the separate
collegiate bodies, of which the University is composed. This was the first
stage of the controversy. Years passed away, and then political
adversaries arose against it, and the system of education which it had
established was a second time assailed; but still, since that contest was
conducted for the most part through the medium, not of political acts, but
of treatises and pamphlets, it happened as before that the threatened
dangers, in the course of their repulse, did but afford fuller development
and more exact delineation to the principles of which the University was
the representative.
In the former of these two controversies the charge brought against its
studies was their remoteness from the occupations and duties of life, to
which they are the formal introduction, or, in other words, their
_inutility_; in the latter, it was their connexion with a particular form
of belief, or, in other words, their _religious exclusiveness_.
Living then so long as a witness, though hardly as an actor, in these
scenes of intellectual conflict, I am able to bear witness to views of
University Education, without authority indeed in themselves, but not
without value to a Catholic, and less familiar to him, as I conceive, than
they deserve to be. And, while an argument originating in the
controversies to which I have referred, may be serviceable at this season
to that great cause in which we are here so especially interested, to me
personally it will afford satisfaction of a peculiar kind; for, though it
has been my lot for many years to take a prominent, sometimes a
presumptuous, part in theological discussions, yet the natural turn of my
mind carries me off to trains of thought like those which I am now about
to open, which, important though they be for Catholic objects, and
admitting of a Catholic treatment, are sheltered from the extreme delicacy
and peril which attach to disputations directly bearing on the
subject-matter of Divine Revelation.
2.
There are several reasons why I should open the discussion with a
reference to the lessons with which past years have supplied me. One
reason is this: It would concern me, Gentlemen, were I supposed to have
got up my opinions for the occasion. This, indeed, would have been no
reflection on me personally, supposing I were persuaded of their truth,
when at length addressing myself to the inquiry; but it would have
destroyed, of course, the force of my testimony, and deprived such
arguments, as I might adduce, of that moral persuasiveness which attends
on tried and sustained conviction. It would have made me seem the
advocate, rather than the cordial and deliberate maintainer and witness,
of the doctrines which I was to support; and, though it might be said to
evidence the faith I reposed in the practical judgment of the Church, and
the intimate concurrence of my own reason with the course she had
authoritatively sanctioned, and the devotion with which I could promptly
put myself at her disposal, it would have cast suspicion on the validity
of reasonings and conclusions which rested on no independent inquiry, and
appealed to no past experience. In that case it might have been plausibly
objected by opponents that I was the serviceable expedient of an
emergency, and never, after all, could be more than ingenious and adroit
in the management of an argument which was not my own, and which I was
sure to forget again as readily as I had mastered it. But this is not so.
The views to which I have referred have grown into my whole system of
thought, and are, as it were, part of myself. Many changes has my mind
gone through: here it has known no variation or vacillation of opinion,
and though this by itself is no proof of the truth of my principles, it
puts a seal upon conviction, and is a justification of earnestness and
zeal. Those principles, which I am now to set forth under the sanction of
the Catholic Church, were my profession at that early period of my life,
when religion was to me more a matter of feeling and experience than of
faith. They did but take greater hold upon me, as I was introduced to the
records of Christian Antiquity, and approached in sentiment and desire to
Catholicism; and my sense of their correctness has been increased with the
events of every year since I have been brought within its pale.
And here I am brought to a second and more important reason for referring,
on this occasion, to the conclusions at which Protestants have arrived on
the subject of Liberal Education; and it is as follows: Let it be
observed, then, that the principles on which I would conduct the inquiry
are attainable, as I have already implied, by the mere experience of life.
They do not come simply of theology; they imply no supernatural
discernment; they have no special connexion with Revelation; they almost
arise out of the nature of the case; they are dictated even by human
prudence and wisdom, though a divine illumination be absent, and they are
recognized by common sense, even where self-interest is not present to
quicken it; and, therefore, though true, and just, and good in themselves,
they imply nothing whatever as to the religious profession of those who
maintain them. They may be held by Protestants as well as by Catholics;
nay, there is reason to anticipate that in certain times and places they
will be more thoroughly investigated, and better understood, and held more
firmly by Protestants than by ourselves.
It is natural to expect this from the very circumstance that the
philosophy of Education is founded on truths in the natural order. Where
the sun shines bright, in the warm climate of the south, the natives of
the place know little of safeguards against cold and wet. They have,
indeed, bleak and piercing blasts; they have chill and pouring rain, but
only now and then, for a day or a week; they bear the inconvenience as
they best may, but they have not made it an art to repel it; it is not
worth their while; the science of calefaction and ventilation is reserved
for the north. It is in this way that Catholics stand relatively to
Protestants in the science of Education; Protestants depending on human
means mainly, are led to make the most of them: their sole resource is to
use what they have; “Knowledge is” their “power” and nothing else; they
are the anxious cultivators of a rugged soil. It is otherwise with us;
“_funes ceciderunt mihi in prœclaris_.” We have a goodly inheritance. This
is apt to cause us (I do not mean to rely too much on prayer, and the
Divine Blessing, for that is impossible; but) we sometimes forget that we
shall please Him best, and get most from Him, when, according to the
Fable, we “put our shoulder to the wheel,” when we use what we have by
nature to the utmost, at the same time that we look out for what is beyond
nature in the confidence of faith and hope. However, we are sometimes
tempted to let things take their course, as if they would in one way or
another turn up right at last for certain; and so we go on, living from
hand to mouth, getting into difficulties and getting out of them,
succeeding certainly on the whole, but with failure in detail which might
be avoided, and with much of imperfection or inferiority in our
appointments and plans, and much disappointment, discouragement, and
collision of opinion in consequence. If this be in any measure the state
of the case, there is certainly so far a reason for availing ourselves of
the investigations and experience of those who are not Catholics, when we
have to address ourselves to the subject of Liberal Education.
Nor is there surely any thing derogatory to the position of a Catholic in
such a proceeding. The Church has ever appealed and deferred to witnesses
and authorities external to herself, in those matters in which she thought
they had means of forming a judgment: and that on the principle, _Cuique
in arte sua credendum_. She has even used unbelievers and pagans in
evidence of her truth, as far as their testimony went. She avails herself
of scholars, critics, and antiquarians, who are not of her communion. She
has worded her theological teaching in the phraseology of Aristotle;
Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion, Origen, Eusebius, and Apollinaris, all more
or less heterodox, have supplied materials for primitive exegetics. St.
Cyprian called Tertullian his master; St. Augustin refers to Ticonius;
Bossuet, in modern times, complimented the labours of the Anglican Bull;
the Benedictine editors of the Fathers are familiar with the labours of
Fell, Ussher, Pearson, and Beveridge. Pope Benedict XIV. cites according
to the occasion the works of Protestants without reserve, and the late
French collection of Christian Apologists contains the writings of Locke,
Burnet, Tillotson, and Paley. If, then, I come forward in any degree as
borrowing the views of certain Protestant schools on the point which is to
be discussed, I do so, Gentlemen, as believing, first, that the Catholic
Church has ever, in the plenitude of her divine illumination, made use of
whatever truth or wisdom she has found in their teaching or their
measures; and next, that in particular places or times her children are
likely to profit from external suggestions or lessons, which have not been
provided for them by herself.
3.
And here I may mention a third reason for appealing at the outset to the
proceedings of Protestant bodies in regard to Liberal Education. It will
serve to intimate the mode in which I propose to handle my subject
altogether. Observe then, Gentlemen, I have no intention, in any thing I
shall say, of bringing into the argument the authority of the Church, or
any authority at all; but I shall consider the question simply on the
grounds of human reason and human wisdom. I am investigating in the
abstract, and am determining what is in itself right and true. For the
moment I know nothing, so to say, of history. I take things as I find
them; I have no concern with the past; I find myself here; I set myself to
the duties I find here; I set myself to further, by every means in my
power, doctrines and views, true in themselves, recognized by Catholics as
such, familiar to my own mind; and to do this quite apart from the
consideration of questions which have been determined without me and
before me. I am here the advocate and the minister of a certain great
principle; yet not merely advocate and minister, else had I not been here
at all. It has been my previous keen sense and hearty reception of that
principle, that has been at once the reason, as I must suppose, of my
being selected for this office, and is the cause of my accepting it. I am
told on authority that a principle is expedient, which I have ever felt to
be true. And I argue in its behalf on its own merits, the authority, which
brings me here, being my opportunity for arguing, but not the ground of my
argument itself.
And a fourth reason is here suggested for consulting the history of
Protestant institutions, when I am going to speak of the object and nature
of University Education. It will serve to remind you, Gentlemen, that I am
concerned with questions, not simply of immutable truth, but of practice
and expedience. It would ill have become me to undertake a subject, on
which points of dispute have arisen among persons so far above me in
authority and name, in relation to a state of society, about which I have
so much to learn, if it involved an appeal to sacred truths, or the
determination of some imperative rule of conduct. It would have been
presumptuous in me so to have acted, nor am I so acting. Even the question
of the union of Theology with the secular Sciences, which is its religious
side, simple as it is of solution in the abstract, has, according to
difference of circumstances, been at different times differently decided.
Necessity has no law, and expedience is often one form of necessity. It is
no principle with sensible men, of whatever cast of opinion, to do always
what is abstractedly best. Where no direct duty forbids, we may be obliged
to do, as being best under circumstances, what we murmur and rise against,
while we do it. We see that to attempt more is to effect less; that we
must accept so much, or gain nothing; and so perforce we reconcile
ourselves to what we would have far otherwise, if we could. Thus a system
of what is called secular Education, in which Theology and the Sciences
are taught separately, may, in a particular place or time, be the least of
evils; it may be of long standing; it may be dangerous to meddle with; it
may be professedly a temporary arrangement; it may be under a process of
improvement; its disadvantages may be neutralized by the persons by whom,
or the provisions under which, it is administered.
Hence it was, that in the early ages the Church allowed her children to
attend the heathen schools for the acquisition of secular accomplishments,
where, as no one can doubt, evils existed, at least as great as can attend
on Mixed Education now. The gravest Fathers recommended for Christian
youth the use of Pagan masters; the most saintly Bishops and most
authoritative Doctors had been sent in their adolescence by Christian
parents to Pagan lecture halls.(3) And, not to take other instances, at
this very time, and in this very country, as regards at least the poorer
classes of the community, whose secular acquirements ever must be limited,
it has seemed best to the Irish Bishops, under the circumstances, to
suffer the introduction into the country of a system of Mixed Education in
the schools called National. Such a state of things, however, is passing
away; as regards University education at least, the highest authority has
now decided that the plan, which is abstractedly best, is in this time and
country also most expedient.
4.
And here I have an opportunity of recognizing once for all that higher
view of approaching the subject of these Discourses, which, after this
formal recognition, I mean to dispense with. Ecclesiastical authority, not
argument, is the supreme rule and the appropriate guide for Catholics in
matters of religion. It has always the right to interpose, and sometimes,
in the conflict of parties and opinions, it is called on to exercise that
right. It has lately exercised it in our own instance: it has interposed
in favour of a pure University system for Catholic youth, forbidding
compromise or accommodation of any kind. Of course its decision must be
heartily accepted and obeyed, and that the more, because the decision
proceeds, not simply from the Bishops of Ireland, great as their authority
is, but the highest authority on earth, from the Chair of St. Peter.
Moreover, such a decision not only demands our submission, but has a claim
upon our trust. It not only acts as a prohibition of any measures, but as
an _ipso facto_ confutation of any reasonings, inconsistent with it. It
carries with it an earnest and an augury of its own expediency. For
instance, I can fancy, Gentlemen, there may be some, among those who hear
me, disposed to say that they are ready to acquit the principles of
Education, which I am to advocate, of all fault whatever, except that of
being impracticable. I can fancy them granting to me, that those
principles are most correct and most obvious, simply irresistible on
paper, but maintaining, nevertheless, that after all, they are nothing
more than the dreams of men who live out of the world, and who do not see
the difficulty of keeping Catholicism anyhow afloat on the bosom of this
wonderful nineteenth century. Proved, indeed, those principles are, to
demonstration, but they will not work. Nay, it was my own admission just
now, that, in a particular instance, it might easily happen, that what is
only second best is best practically, because what is actually best is out
of the question.
This, I hear you say to yourselves, is the state of things at present. You
recount in detail the numberless impediments, great and small, formidable
or only vexatious, which at every step embarrass the attempt to carry out
ever so poorly a principle in itself so true and ecclesiastical. You
appeal in your defence to wise and sagacious intellects, who are far from
enemies to Catholicism, or to the Irish Hierarchy, and you have no hope,
or rather you absolutely disbelieve, that Education can possibly be
conducted, here and now, on a theological principle, or that youths of
different religions can, under the circumstances of the country, be
educated apart from each other. The more you think over the state of
politics, the position of parties, the feelings of classes, and the
experience of the past, the more chimerical does it seem to you to aim at
a University, of which Catholicity is the fundamental principle. Nay, even
if the attempt could accidentally succeed, would not the mischief exceed
the benefit of it? How great the sacrifices, in how many ways, by which it
would be preceded and followed! how many wounds, open and secret, would it
inflict upon the body politic! And, if it fails, which is to be expected,
then a double mischief will ensue from its recognition of evils which it
has been unable to remedy. These are your deep misgivings; and, in
proportion to the force with which they come to you, is the concern and
anxiety which you feel, that there should be those whom you love, whom you
revere, who from one cause or other refuse to enter into them.
5.
This, I repeat, is what some good Catholics will say to me, and more than
this. They will express themselves better than I can speak for them in
their behalf,—with more earnestness and point, with more force of argument
and fulness of detail; and I will frankly and at once acknowledge, that I
shall insist on the high theological view of a University without
attempting to give a direct answer to their arguments against its present
practicability. I do not say an answer cannot be given; on the contrary, I
have a confident expectation that, in proportion as those objections are
looked in the face, they will fade away. But, however this may be, it
would not become me to argue the matter with those who understand the
circumstances of the problem so much better than myself. What do I know of
the state of things in Ireland, that I should presume to put ideas of
mine, which could not be right except by accident, by the side of theirs,
who speak in the country of their birth and their home? No, Gentlemen, you
are natural judges of the difficulties which beset us, and they are
doubtless greater than I can even fancy or forbode. Let me, for the sake
of argument, admit all you say against our enterprise, and a great deal
more. Your proof of its intrinsic impossibility shall be to me as cogent
as my own of its theological advisableness. Why, then, should I be so rash
and perverse as to involve myself in trouble not properly mine? Why go out
of my own place? Why so headstrong and reckless as to lay up for myself
miscarriage and disappointment, as though I were not sure to have enough
of personal trial anyhow without going about to seek for it?