_INTRODUCTORY NOTE_
_John Henry Newman was born in London, February 21, 1801. Going up to
Oxford at sixteen, he gained a scholarship at Trinity College, and
after graduation became fellow and tutor of Oriel, then the most alive,
intellectually, of the Oxford colleges. He took orders, and in 1828
was appointed vicar of St. Mary's, the university church. In 1832 he
had to resign his tutorship on account of a difference of opinion with
the head of the college as to his duties and responsibilities, Newman
regarding his function as one of a "substantially religious nature."_
_Returning to Oxford the next year from a journey on the Continent, he
began, in cooperation with R. H. Froude and others, the publication of
the "Tracts for the Times," a series of pamphlets which gave a name to
the "Tractarian" or "Oxford" movement for the defence of the "doctrine
of apostolical succession and the integrity of the Prayer-Book." After
several years of agitation, during which Newman came to exercise an
extraordinary influence in Oxford, the movement and its leader fell
under the official ban of the university and of the Anglican bishops,
and Newman withdrew from Oxford, feeling that the Anglican Church had
herself destroyed the defences which he had sought to build for her.
In October, 1845, he was received into the Roman Church._
_The next year he went to Rome, and on his return introduced into
England the institute of the Oratory. In 1854 he went to Dublin for
four years as rector of the new Catholic university, and while there
wrote his volume on the "Idea of a University," in which he expounds
with wonderful clearness of thought and beauty of language his view of
the aim of education. In 1879 he was created cardinal in recognition
of his services to the cause of religion in England, and in 1890 he
died. Of the history of Newman's religious opinions and influence no
hint can be given here. The essays which follow do, indeed, imply
important and fundamental elements of his system of belief; but they
can be taken in detachment as the exposition of a view of the nature
and value of culture by a man who was himself the fine flower of
English university training and a master of English prose._