Education: What's The Point?

 

St. John Henry Newman, 1801-1890

Once again I find myself writing about what education is because, apparently, many do not know.  I don't mind writing about this topic.  In fact, I love writing and talking about it, especially with those whose eyes are opening to the idea that education may be about more than they had realized.  What I do not suffer gladly is having to do so with those who should know better, those who claim some title within that distinctly human enterprise called education.

Another One Bites The Dust

Over the past thirty years, I have written letters to universities and school districts that sought to remove Latin from the curriculum.  I have defended in print and in oral presentation the grand tradition of liberal arts education.  The need to do so was unfortunately understandable as decisions about schools and universities are too often made by those without the perspective and understanding required to make them intelligently.  The latest casualty in the academic wars, however, did not need to happen.

President Irma Becerra of Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia, has submitted a plan to the board of trustees to cut undergraduate majors in theology and religious studies, philosophy, mathematics, art, history, sociology, English, economics, and secondary education.  President Becerra's plan would also cut Master's degrees in English and humanities.  Explanations for the cuts run as follows.

"Universities that will thrive and prosper in the future are those that innovate and focus on what distinguishes them from their competition."

"Digital disruption, economic conditions, and the explosion of low-cost, online course providers have put pressure on universities to reinvent their institutions in order to compete.  Students have more choices than ever for where to earn a college degree, and MU must respond wisely to the demand."

"Over the long term, it would be irresponsible to sustain majors [and] programs with consistently low enrollment, low graduation rates, and lack of potential for growth.  Recommendations and decisions on programs marked for elimination are based on clear evidence of student choices and behavior over time."

Regardless of whether or not these reasons appropriately support such decisions to cut programs at any institution, this line of reasoning fails Marymount University and for one reason.  It is a Catholic university.

The Idea of a University

Marymount University was founded in 1950 as the first Catholic university in Virginia, not quite one hundred years after St. John Henry Newman published his classic collection of discourses titled The Idea of a University.

And what did the great theologian, polymath, and priest have to say was the purpose of a university?  It was not to serve as a mercantile of student choices nor was it to be a source of innovation.  It was to be something of far more value than that.

"The view taken of a University in these Discourses is the following: -- That it is a place of teaching universal knowledge."  (Preface, xxxvii)

"Is the Vicar of Christ bound by office or by vow to be the preacher of the theory of gravitation, or a martyr for electro-magnetism?  Would he be acquitting himself of the dispensation committed to him if he were smitten with an abstract love of these matters, however true, or beautiful, or ingenious, or useful?  Or rather, does he not contemplate such achievements of the intellect, as far as contemplates them, solely and simply in their relation to the interests of Revealed Truth?  He rejoices in the widest and most philosophical systems of intellectual education, from an intimate conviction that Truth is his real ally, as it is his profession; and that Knowledge and Reason are sure ministers to Faith.  [W]hen he suggests...the establishment of a University, his first and chief direct object is, not science, art, professional skill, literature, the discovery of knowledge, but some benefit or other to accrue, by means of literature and science, to his own children....  Nothing short of this can be his aim, if, as becomes the Successor of the Apostles, he is able to say with St. Paul, 'Non judicavi me scire inter vos, nisi Jesum Christum, et hunc crucifixum."  (Preface, xxxviii, xxxix)

"Our desideratum is...the force, the steadiness, the comprehensiveness and the versatility of the intellect, the command over our own powers, the instinctive just estimate of things as they pass before us, which sometimes indeed is a natural gift, but commonly is not gained without much effort and the exercise of years."  (Preface, xlii)

"When the intellect has once been properly trained and formed to have a connected view or grasp of things, it will display its powers with more or less effect according to its particular quality and capacity in the individual.  In all it will be a faculty of entering with comparative ease into any subject of thought, and of taking up with aptitude any science or profession."  (Preface, xliii, xliv)

Birthrights and Pottage

Leaders of any Christian institute of education should not put forth innovation, student choice, or any other market-driven idea as the summum bonum, however valuable those ideas may be.  To draw from St. Newman, such institutions, putting knowledge and reason to work as sure ministers to faith, should teach universal knowledge in relation to the interests of revealed Truth.  In so doing, it will help to develop the force, steadiness, comprehensiveness, and versatility of the intellect, which will in turn endue students with the faculty to enter any profession with comparative ease.  To see a Christian institute of education in any other way and to make decisions about its offerings based on any other standard is to swindle prospective students of their birthright to learn in exchange for a mess of pottage.