Publisher's Synopsis
We need this compelling statement of the classical and Christian educational ideal even more than when it was written in 1852. In The Idea of a University, Blessed John Henry Newman champions a "discipline of mind" that enables its possessor to distinguish essence from accident, means from end, and good from evil. These habits are now all too rare. And that is part of our present poverty, for the person educated according to Newman's prescription gains the "clear, calm, accurate vision" that is a necessary condition for reliable judgment and the exercise of true freedom. The reader of The Idea of a University will delight in the melody of Newman's prose, the sharpness of his insights, and the force of his arguments, but will also rejoice to find something incomparably more valuable, a vast vista of an orderly life of learning with a glimpse of the mind's last end-God. This new edition contains a Introduction by Don J. Briel and an Afterword by Christopher O. Blum as well as a Newman reading list and questions on the text to invite discussion and reflection.
