The Idea of a University

Rating:
Summary: A beautiful presentation of of a classic work.
Review: A strong case can be made that Englishman John Henry (Cardinal) Newman reinvented the religious univeristy in the 19th century and that most such universities, regardless of their denomination, functioned quite well until the computer age. Now, with all universities being forced to rethink their own identity and mission, the values which Newman enuntiated for them over 100 years ago will return to guide their reinvention in our own day. Or, they can return, if they are given the chance. Yale University is to be commended for putting Newman's ideas on the university back on the table in such a splendid format. Every aspect of this work deserves praise, from the editor's introduction and special footnotes, to the analytical essays which merit a careful reading in their own right. I did a complete review of this excellent work in "National Catholic Register" 9-15 Feb. 1997, p. 6. I recommend this book highly for this who need to understand and apply Newman's vision of the university.

Rating:
Summary: Too many typos in this edition
Review: A wonderful work, too bad that this edition by Regnery is chock full of glaring typographical errors. Detracts from Newman's otherwise brilliant prose.

Rating:
Summary: In Defense of Knowledge
Review: Newman's work is not only an eloquent, erudite, and careful defense of the virtue of knowledge and the value of a liberal education; it is also a brilliantly reasoned and felt argument for the prevention of hubris on the part of any particular branch of knowledge.

Newman's sound warnings against the overreaching of scientific fields and the triumph of smug materialism and positivism are still urgent, of course. Newman is also careful to point out that the liberal arts and even theology may attempt to establish a single, inadequate framework for the discovery of truth.

Newman's complex epistemology does not fall prey to the heresy that truth is not one, but reminds us that in our present state, truth present various aspects and that the tyranny of any particular branch of knowledge is the victory of ignorance.

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Summary: This is NOT Newman's IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY!
Review: Unfortunately, this Yale edition leaves out about half of what Newman himself published in 1873 as the definitive edition of THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY. Published here are only the nine "Dublin Discourses" from Part I on "University Teaching" and but four of the ten chapters of Part II, "University Subjects Discussed in Occasional Lectures and Essays." For the hundred-page displacement of Newman's essays, the editor substitutes five interpretive essays supposedly inquiring into the relevance of Newman's book for today's higher education debates. These interpretive essays have major inconsistencies and repetitions among themselves and are of mixed quality, with inaccuracies and serious misunderstandings of some of Newman's central ideas. As accurate forays of the Newmanian mind into the twentieth- and twenty-first century university, only the engaging and intellectually challenging essays by George Marsden and George Landow succeed. (COMPLETE paperback editions of Newman's IDEA are available from Loyola University Press, 1987, and University of Notre Dame Press, 1982).

Rating:
Summary: This is NOT Newman's IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY!
Review: Unfortunately, this Yale edition leaves out about half of what Newman himself published in 1873 as the definitive edition of THE IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY. Published here are only the nine "Dublin Discourses" from Part I on "University Teaching" and but four of the ten chapters of Part II, "University Subjects Discussed in Occasional Lectures and Essays." For the hundred-page displacement of Newman's essays, the editor substitutes five interpretive essays supposedly inquiring into the relevance of Newman's book for today's higher education debates. These interpretive essays have major inconsistencies and repetitions among themselves and are of mixed quality, with inaccuracies and serious misunderstandings of some of Newman's central ideas. As accurate forays of the Newmanian mind into the twentieth- and twenty-first century university, only the engaging and intellectually challenging essays by George Marsden and George Landow succeed. (COMPLETE paperback editions of Newman's IDEA are available from Loyola University Press, 1987, and University of Notre Dame Press, 1982).