Having already touched on the idea of a well-rounded, liberal arts education in our discussions, but Newman is much more eloquent in identifying what exactly it is we are trying to get at when we say this. What does it mean to be well-rounded, and what is the benefit to attaining this elusive, enigmatic quality? Newman asserts that the result of such a pursuit is a “concert of the intellectual powers.” What exactly is this “concert,” and what benefit does it provide? Simply put, we “don’t discern truth intuitively, or as a whole,” but “by piecemeal and accumulation, by a mental process, by going round an object, by the comparison, the combination, the mutual correction, the continual adaptation, of many partial notions.” This logic is sound, but once this has been established, we must still ask which is more beneficial – this well-formed intellect or the usefulness of the expertise that we choose to cultivate?
In Universities, “education and instruction ‘useful’ and ‘utility’ becomes their watchword,” but Newman states that “a liberal education is truly and fully a useful, though it be not a professional, education” and that we must be careful of what we mean by useful. While some might ask if there can be “any thing more ridiculous. . .than that a father should waste his own money, and his son’s time, in setting him to learn the Roman language, when at the same time he designs him for a trade, wherein he, having no use of latin, fails not to forget that little which he brought from school,” but “if every attainment had been honoured in the mixt ratio of its difficulty and utility, the system of such a University would have been much more valuable, but the splendour of its name something less.” Furthermore, “let us take ‘useful’ to mean, not what is simply good, but what tends to good” and be sure to qualify that while “useful is not always good, the good is always useful.”
A liberal education can render itself useful in the sense of the word that others are intending due to the fact that “the intellect is so excellent a portion of us, and its cultivation so excellent, it is not only beautiful, perfect, admirable, and noble in itself, but in a true and high sense it must be useful to the possessor and to all around him; not useful in any low, mechanical, mercantile sense, but as diffusing good. . .first to the owner, then through him to the world,” hence adding wealth and “utility” from even the study of things such as Latin or Greek. Additionally, a university “teaches all knowledge by teaching all branches of knowledge, and in no other way” and “a cultivated intellect. . .brings with it a power and a grace to every work and occupation which it undertakes, and enables us to be more useful, and to a greater number.”
We must note that “the specific duties of that calling are exalted at the cost of those free and independent tastes and virtues which come in to sustain the common relations of society, and raise the individual in them. . .his virtues, his science, and his ideas are all to be put into. . .the exact mould of his technical character,” if we do not provide the means for a well-rounded character prior to, or in the process of pursuing this or any vocation. Once an individual is “out of a University he is in danger of being absorbed and narrowed by his pursuit,” according to Newman, but I think that many times, even in University, individuals are forced to narrow their pursuit far too early, regardless of being liberal arts or otherwise. It is impossible to know definitively what realm of education you want to follow through to fruition without dabbling in any number of fields to test the waters first.
In the same vein, “we may affirm, that one of the best companions is a man who, to the accuracy and research of a profession, has joined a free excursive acquaintance with various learning, and caught from it the spirit of general observation,” and “whereas the enlargement of his circle gives him increased knowledge and power in a rapidly increasing ration, so much do ideas act, not as solitary units, but by grouping and combination.” This is the concert of ideas and intellect that Newman, and ourselves, have been trying to get at, and what better source to pull on than Classics, where there is a wealth and breadth of knowledge all within a particular frame of focus, from which to connect and extrapolate into our own lives and those of our peers?
According to Newman, Lord Bacon, believes that the study of “history would give fullness, moral philosophy strength, and poetry elevation to the understanding. . .the elements of general reason are not be found fully and truly expressed in any one kind of study” but “if different studies are useful for aiding, they are still more useful for correcting each other.” Lastly, in regards to our responsibility in looking to other intellectuals, such as Mr. Burke, for inspiration, we should note that “if any mind improved like his, is to be our instructor, we must go to the fountain head of things as he did, and study not his works but his method; by the one we may become feeble imitators, by the other arrive at some ability of our own.” – idea of liberal arts, becoming our own intellect and individual with informed, framed opinions in a variety of “concentrated lights” to “correct the false peculiar colouring of each, and show us the truth.”
“It is the education which gives a man a clear conscious view of his own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them, and a force in urging them.”
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