Newman: A Proposal for Lifelong Education

Abstract

John Henry Newman's ideal of education is based on the search for knowledge, sought for itself, in a disinterested manner. So-called liberal education, some say, would be promoted without a thought to society's needs. Newman responds to this objection by showing that intellectual habits, developed in professors and in students, train the mind and make them capable of grasping knowledge at a profound level, and of applying it and their mental abilities to other confines. If neither morality nor politics is the direct object of a liberal education, theoretical intellectual habits, such as science, and the practical intellectual habit called the illative sense are. Thanks to the illative sense, the mind is capable of applying knowledge learned through science to concrete cases. This process is possible thanks to experiences gained throughout the university years. An experience that becomes imprinted on the imagination of both student and teacher is the collaboration among wise individuals, applied to the integrated knowledge of sciences, as well as on a more interpersonal level. This climate provides a premise in the mind of university students: obsequius, which teaches self-command in order to put knowledge at the service of others. In this way, the dynamics of knowledge as power over others becomes knowledge as a power for others.