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| ISBN-13: | 9781555918286 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Fulcrum Publishing |
| Publication date: | 03/01/2009 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 144 |
| File size: | 184 KB |
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Wisdom and the Well-Rounded Life
What is a University?
By Peter Milward
Fulcrum Publishing
Copyright © 2009 Peter MilwardAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-55591-828-6
CHAPTER 1
WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY?
Asked to define university, someone might say, "It is a group of buildings in which students are taught various subjects for several years after graduating from secondary school." This is indeed a practical definition, but it tells us nothing about the nature or purpose of a university.
Then what, we may ask, is a university for? What is the point of having such a group of buildings and sending students there for several years after secondary school when they might be more usefully employed in earning their living?
To begin with, we may consider why we use the word university for such a group of buildings. What does the word mean? It may simply be said that a university is a place for the study of universal knowledge. Ideally, students at a university that is worthy of its name ought to study everything there is to be known under the sun. But of course they can't all be expected to study everything; if they were, such study would be exceedingly superficial. For what one gains in breadth of knowledge one inevitably loses in depth, and vice versa. But when students are all taken together, their separate studies may be expected to add up to everything — up to a point.
There was a time in the early thirteenth century when it could be said of a man like Albert the Great, the teacher of the greater Thomas Aquinas, that he knew everything there was to be known in the world. But that time has long since passed, if it ever existed. Now we have to admit, in the words of Virgil, that "we can't do [or study] everything."
Nowadays indeed we have come to the opposite extreme, with such an abundance of subjects, which are ever being divided and subdivided, that it is difficult for one man to know everything even in his specialized field of study, such as Shakespearean drama. Of the world of science it is said that the tendency today is for the scientist to know more and more about less and less until he comes to know everything about nothing!
Nowadays very few universities can claim to offer courses on every subject, even at a general level. But at least, to deserve the name of "university," they may be expected to offer a wide variety of courses in different fields, in both science and the humanities.
In this sense, a university of economics or a university of music, though such institutions actually exist in not a few modern countries, implies a contradiction. It claims to offer at once both universal knowledge (as a university) and specialized knowledge in one field. So it should rather be called a college or an institute.
It may be further asked what is the point of a university proposing to teach everything and then allowing itself to be divided into different faculties and departments where students study only one subject? One answer to this question, given by many universities in the United States and postwar Japan, is that for the first two years students are encouraged to take a wide variety of courses under the name of general education before proceeding to specialize in one department. Then they may be said to have been exposed at least for a time to the benefits of universal knowledge, though the common effect is rather one of universal confusion.
However, at most universities in Europe and some in the United States, as in prewar Japan, students are expected to specialize from the beginning in their chosen fields. The ideal of general education, then, belongs to secondary schools; at university, one is required to specialize.
Isn't that a contradiction? Not necessarily. All the students are engaged in the study of different subjects, and in their daily interaction they may be expected to communicate something of their special knowledge to one another. This is especially the case at universities where the faculties or departments are not divided from each other in separate buildings and where the students have every opportunity to mix with one another, as when they live together in dormitories.
For example, the University of Oxford consists of independent residential colleges that do not specialize in any one subject but include members engaged in the study of different subjects. So while the students have lectures and tutorials separately from one another, they live together and enjoy discussing matters of common interest.
After all, even when human knowledge is divided and subdivided into many departments, the boundaries can't always be clearly defined. One branch of science or the humanities is ever in need of assistance and enlightenment from others. "No man is an island," said John Donne, and no branch of science or literature is an island either, separated from the mainland of universal knowledge.
What I have said of university students applies no less to their teachers. For a university isn't only for the education of students, who have to grow in mind under the direction of their teachers. It is also for the research of scholars, who have already achieved proficiency in their field, yet whose growth in mind is never completed. There is indeed something about knowledge that is infinite. No man, however far his studies may lead him into any one subject, however limited that subject may seem to be, can ever say he knows all there is to be known about it.
Once I met a Scottish professor whose specialized research was devoted to a certain species of fish chiefly found in the North Sea. He had been engaged in this research for the past fifteen years. I casually remarked that now he must know all there is to be known about it. "No," he protested, there remained much for him to find out. Thus, all knowledge leads to a deepening sense of mystery. As Francis Bacon said in his essay "Of Studies," "O mnia abeunt in mysterium" — all things disappear into mystery. The ideal of university study is to combine a broad knowledge of all kinds of things with a deep understanding of one kind, as in the pattern of a cross. One without the other is defective. Both dimensions, from top to bottom and from one side to the other, are needed for the true formation of the human mind. And then, of course, there remains the further dimension of depth, from outward to inward, not to mention other unknown dimensions.
CHAPTER 2What Is Education?
Looking into a typical classroom while a class is in progress, we may see a teacher teaching from his desk, usually on a platform, while his students sit at their desks below him. They may be listening to what he is saying, or taking notes according to his direction, or asking and answering questions — or even sleeping. That, we assume, is the process we call education. It seems to proceed from the mouth of the teacher to the ears of his students — from his mind to their minds. Thus it may be called a communication from heart to heart, as in John Henry Newman's Latin motto "Cor ad cor loquitur" — heart speaks to heart.
Such a process, however, should be called instruction rather than education. It may be one means of education, but it isn't the only or the most important means at university level. Originally, in its Latin origin, education meant the "drawing out of" something already within the one who receives it. So what is the object of this process of drawing out? What is being drawn out in the process of education?
One theory, going back to Socrates' method of question and answer, is that it is the drawing out of knowledge. Somehow the student is thought to possess the knowledge already, in a kind of hazy, undigested form; it is for the teacher, in whom the knowledge is more fully developed, to draw it out of him and to make it more explicit and fully formed.
Such an explanation may apply very well to philosophy, at least the kind of philosophy Socrates was discussing with his disciples, or rather friends. Most people have, for instance, a vague knowledge of what they mean by such words as culture and nature and love, but it is for an educator like Socrates — who may not have even thought of himself as a teacher — to make them fully aware of their knowledge.
Still, that explanation hardly fits all forms of education, least of all that which goes under the name of instruction. In most classes or lectures, the teacher or professor is telling his students what they don't yet know. He is informing them, or giving form to their vacant minds. In so doing he may well be enlightening them, throwing new light on what they already know in part, but he is also giving them new information.
What, we may further ask in that case, is being drawn out of the students? It is not so much something they possess in a rudimentary form as something deeper within the mind or character or personality. In short, the object of education is the mind of the student, and thereby his character and personality as well.
Here we come to the distinction that has often been drawn, at least since Newman proposed his Idea of a University in Dublin in the early 1850s, between a liberal and a utilitarian (or practical) education. Those were the days of the Industrial Revolution, when many new universities were being founded in the industrial towns of England. At such new universities, in contrast to Oxford and Cambridge, emphasis was placed on knowledge that would be useful for industry and for obtaining jobs in industries — that is to say, on scientific or technical knowledge.
Such an emphasis, however, overlooked the whole purpose of university education as it had been conceived until then. Such a utilitarian education might be appropriate for a scientific or research institute. Or it may more profitably be given to employees once they have entered a particular company. Indeed, all too often the education students have received in the science department of a university isn't quite what is required in such a company, and so the company finds it has to train its new members with a further, more-specialized kind of formation adapted to its special needs.
A liberal education, which means the education of a free man, is that education of the mind of which I have just been speaking. Specialized training for a trade or profession is, Newman held, an education of slaves in a servile state, while true education is the formation of a free man, or a gentleman, whose typical character he proceeds to define in one of the most famous passages in English prose.
All that goes to constitute a gentleman — the carriage, gait, address, gestures, voice; the ease, the self-possession, the courtesy, the power of conversing, the talent of not offending; the lofty principle, the delicacy of thought, the happiness of expression, the taste and propriety, the generosity and forbearance, the candor and consideration, the openness of hand — these qualities, some of them come by nature, some of them may be found in any rank, some of them are a direct precept of Christianity; but the full assemblage of them, bound up in the unity of an individual character, do we expect they can be learned from books? Are they not necessarily acquired, where they are to be found, in high society?
To form such a free man, or rather the son or daughter of such a free man, the imparting or eliciting of knowledge is essential. As the food is to the body, so knowledge is to the mind. By knowing all kinds of things — and not just things scattered here and there in confusion, but arranged in a due order — the human mind grows in stature. These things may be arranged in precise order, as in science, or in a free, personal order, as in literature. In either case they may be said to provide food for the mind.
"Man does not live by bread alone," said Jesus, quoting the words of Moses, "but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." That is so true of the inner spirit of man. But it may also be said, on a secular level, that man must live and grow to mental perfection through the words uttered by wise men both past and present.
We may, however, do well to remember that not every word uttered by a teacher, whether of science or literature, is wise or even factually true. Education, even when it is utilitarian, cannot consist merely of listening to what a teacher says, taking notes, and repeating it in an examination (according to the pattern observed in all too many universities). That is instruction for parrots, not human beings. Whatever the student hears in class has to be reflected upon and applied to himself. It may also need to be sifted in order to extract what is true and valuable from what is otherwise.
We have to bear in mind what the great Aristotle said of his teachers, for all their acknowledged greatness: "Plato is dear to me, but dearer to me is truth." Such is the truth that, according to Jesus, makes us free.
CHAPTER 3What Is Culture?
Art, architecture, sculpture, music, literature, drama, ballet, opera, and so on ... In all these things we find the presence of what we call "culture." But what, we may ask, do they have in common to deserve the name of culture? We may think of another list — soccer, football, skiing, skating, gymnastics ... Do we also find the presence of culture in these? Don't we rather think of them as sport, in contrast to culture? So what is culture?
It may be helpful to return to the original use of the word, which isn't so far back in time. The word acquired its modern meaning only about the middle of the nineteenth century. Before then, if we look for instance in the pages of Dr. Samuel Johnson's great dictionary, first published in the middle of the eighteenth century, we find that culture, like the modern Italian cultura, is defined as "to till soil."
What on earth is there in common between the humble (from the Latin for "soil," humus) task of tilling the soil and the manifestations of human culture mentioned above? Evidently there is a perceived analogy between the lowly task of tilling the soil and the more exalted task of tilling the mind. For, in the development of language from concrete to abstract, we have to proceed by way of analogy.
In this abstract sense of tilling the mind we may recognize another way of defining education. As the farmer tills the soil to bring forth fruit for our bodily needs, so the teacher, whether at a university, a secondary school, or even a kindergarten, tills the soil of his students' minds so that they bring forth intellectual fruit in various forms, recognized as part of what we all call culture.
Genuine cultural manifestations aren't easy to produce without arduous training, which may well be compared to the labor of tilling the soil. One doesn't just sit down and write a symphony. Long training is needed and only practice makes perfect. This is true not only in the composition of original music, but also in the appreciation and performance of the work of others. And so it is with all the arts.
Now let me draw attention to a wider meaning of culture than is commonly implied in the various forms of art mentioned. When we speak, for example, of the culture of the Polynesians, we include almost every expression of art in their daily lives, however crude it may seem when judged by Western standards. So it seems that culture may be used to describe any manifestation of the human mind beyond the merely physical — as in fights or contests in which bodily strength and skill are tested.
In other words, such are the arts of peace as opposed to the arts of war, arts that are produced more abundantly and with greater skill in times of peace than in times of war. So we have the words of John Milton, "Peace hath her victories no less renowned than war."
I propose to hazard a theory about the origin of culture that has to do with the basic difference between man and woman. Although most of the great artists, architects, musicians, and poets of the past have been men — for various historical and social reasons, including the importance of childbearing and child rearing — culture comes primarily from women. Even when women have not produced the masterpieces of culture, in most cases I think they have inspired them.
There is an eternal contrast (and conflict) between the sexes, in spite of what feminists say with their insistence on equality — men have physical strength and women beauty and elegance of form. Men have the traditional function of guarding and protecting the family and providing food, whether meat from the chase or vegetables from the fields. For this they have need of physical strength. So it is natural for men to excel in sport and in war. To women, on the other hand, is assigned the no-less traditional function of looking after the growing family, preparing food, and weaving cloth for clothes. At this stage they have more time than their laboring husbands to elaborate on their cooking and weaving and so produce little works of culinary art and handicraft.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Wisdom and the Well-Rounded Life by Peter Milward. Copyright © 2009 Peter Milward. Excerpted by permission of Fulcrum Publishing.
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Table of Contents
Contents
One,Two: What Is Education?,
Three: What Is Culture?,
Four: What Is Religion?,
Five: What Is Knowledge?,
Six: What Is Wisdom?,
Seven: What Is Philosophy?,
Eight: What Is Science?,
Nine: What Is Literature?,
Ten: What Is Language?,
Eleven: What Is Art?,
Twelve: What Is Nature?,
Thirteen: What Is Law?,
Fourteen: What Is Music?,
Fifteen: What Is the World?,