In its championing of a truly well-rounded education, this is a sympathetic vision, but there are some fundamental problems with Newman's ideas. Somewhat surprisingly, he also espoused the view that universities should be entirely free of religious interference, putting forward a secular, pluralist and inclusive ideal. A restricted, vocational education was out of the question for him. Envisaging a broad, liberal education, which teaches students "to think and to reason and to compare and to discriminate and to analyse", Newman held that narrow minds were born of narrow specialisation and stipulated that students should be given a solid grounding in all areas of study. Newman certainly offers some useful ways to think about what we want out of our university system today.įor Newman, the ideal university is a community of thinkers, engaging in intellectual pursuits not for any external purpose, but as an end in itself. This now classic work is already being turned to for answers in the present crisis, with universities and science minister David Willetts invoking it in a speech to Universities UK, and Liverpool Hope University recently holding a conference on the continuing relevance of the book.
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