John Henry Newman and the Idea of a University

Abstract

John Henry Newman and the Idea of a University David Begg In an address to the Pontifical Irish College in Rome on 11 October 2019 to mark the canonisation of John Henry Newman, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin observed: ‘The development of university education in Ireland has lost this dream of Newman. The main universities proclaim themselves to be, by definition, exclusively secular and thus they shun any real place for religion in their culture’.1 No doubt, the archbishop was prompted to make this criticism by an initial decision by University College Dublin not to send a representative to the canonisation on the grounds that, although acknowledging that Newman has been the founder of UCD’s antecedent, the Catholic University of Ireland, UCD itself had been a secular university since 1908. The decision was reversed following an appeal by former UCD Registrar, Professor John Kelly, who described it as as ‘extraordinarily narrow-minded’. The university was eventually represented at the canonisation by Vice-President Professor Orla Feely. The government sent the Minister for Education, Joe McHugh. Britain’s delegation was led by Prince Charles and included thirteen MPs, as well as a number of peers and representatives from Oxford University. To consider this matter in religious versus secular terms is to miss the point somewhat. Newman’s intellectual contribution to the debate about what a university is meant to be has stood the test of time. The archbishop hit the nail on the head when he suggested that Irish universities seem to have lost contact with Newman’s vision. It may be helpful to recall briefly the circumstances in which the newly canonised saint’s perspective on education was first articulated. In his journal for 1863 Newman wrote: ‘From first to last, education [……] has been my line’,2 indicating the importance he attached to education. He spent twenty-nine years in a variety of roles in Oxford University, first as an undergraduate of Trinity College (1817–1820), then as a Fellow of Oriel College (1822–1845), later as Vice-Principal ofAlban Hall (1825–1826), and Studies • volume 109 • number 433 41 Studies_layout_SPRING-2020.indd 41 Studies_layout_SPRING-2020.indd 41 27/02/2020 13:59 27/02/2020 13:59 later again as Vicar of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin (1828– 1843). It had been his expectation, as he wrote in his autobiographical work, Apologia Pro Vita Sua, that he would remain there in ‘perpetual residence even unto death’.3 It was not to be. His conversion to Roman Catholicism on 9 October 1845 meant that he had to leave his Oxford post. Newman’s status in Oxford, his conversion and subsequent ordination as a Catholic priest, made him a person of interest to the Irish bishops, who wanted to establish a Catholic University. The driving force behind this project was Archbishop Paul Cullen who in 1851 invited Newman to come to Dublin to give some lectures on university education. Until this initiative, the only university in Ireland was Trinity College Dublin, which had been founded in 1592. As Oxford and Cambridge had become Anglican institutions, Trinity was Anglican from its establishment. However, by 1845 the government of Robert Peel proposed to establish Queen’s Colleges in Belfast, Cork and Galway, which would provide a secular university education. While the bishops were divided on this plan, the majority view, supported by Pope Pius IX, was that these would be ‘Godless colleges’. Hence the desire to establish a Catholic University modelled on Louvain in Belgium.4 Newman began his lecture series, five in all, in the Assembly Rooms at the Rotunda, starting on Monday 10 May 1852. All the important intellectual figures of Dublin were in attendance, including politicians, clergy, members of the professions and even students of Trinity College. He later wrote five additional lectures that he did not deliver, but they were subsequently published in pamphlet form. In 1852 Newman published these lectures and essays with some other material as Discourses on the Scope and Nature of University Education. In later years he added more material, including a number of lectures for special occasions, publishing ten of these in 1858 as Lectures and Essays on University Subjects. In...