My Campaign in Ireland. Part I:Catholic University Reports and Other Papers ed. by John Henry Newman

Abstract

Reviewed by: My Campaign in Ireland. Part I:Catholic University Reports and Other Papers ed. by John Henry Newman Gerriet Suiter My Campaign in Ireland. Part I:Catholic University Reports and Other Papers BY JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, EDITED, INTRODUCTION, AND NOTES BY PAUL SHRIMPTON Leominster, UK: Gracewing, 2021. 660 pages. Hardback: £35. ISBN: 9780852444092. Though the 2020s have only just begun, Paul Shrimpton's critical edition of Newman's posthumously published My Campaign in Ireland: Part I will almost certainly be one of the greatest contributions in the present decade for students and scholars of Newman's educational thought. As Shrimpton notes in his introduction, the Campaign was edited by William Payne Neville, Newman's literary executor, and privately printed in 1896, but original print copies are "vanishingly rare," and it was never re-issued. The absence, until now, of a widely-available version of My Campaign in Ireland has obscured what is almost certainly the greatest supplement to Newman's three published volumes on education, those being best known in the forms of the two parts of The Idea of a University and Rise and Progress of the Universities. This absence has been partly ameliorated by digitized scans being available through archive.org and the Digital Collections of the National Institute for Newman Studies, as well as many of the individual documents that make up the Campaign being included in the final volume of the collected Letters and Diaries xxxii. Those partial remedies are now in great part eclipsed by this critical edition. Before turning to the features of the critical edition, a few words about the content and significance of the Neville's edition are in order. The central documents of the Campaign are Newman's annual reports to the archbishops for the academic years 1854–1855, 1855–1856, and 1856–1857. These were the first three years of the Catholic University of Ireland in the course of its actual operation. They offer a unique voice, as being especially concerned with the practical implementation of a university, which Newman's published volumes do not do, nor profess to attempt. Shrimpton's introduction is a judicious and valuable piece, running to 28 pages. As he himself notes, his introduction does not need to cover a great deal, as Neville's 64-page advertisement undertook that task—but there are some important exceptions. First, he ably makes the case for why The Idea of a University is incomplete with respect to the totality of Newman's thoughts on university education, yet many are familiar only with the Idea and take it as complete in itself. Most importantly, Shrimpton explains Neville's role and intentions and the historical context in which the Campaign was printed. [End Page 97] The critical notes throughout the text are copious and thorough. Shrimpton demonstrates himself a master of both the primary and secondary literature, weaving in references to Newman's published volumes, to the Letters and Diaries, to the secondary literature on Newman, and to the secondary literature on period matters, such as the London University. At appropriate points, he corrects important misconceptions that have occurred, and which recur, among some scholars and many readers of Newman, as for instance the role of research in the university (220). The reader familiar with Newman scholarship on these points will find no notable omission, and the reader new to the topic can hardly do better than to compile a bibliography from Shrimpton's footnotes. It is one drawback that it must be so compiled, as the end matter does not include a collected bibliography. To return again to the critical notes, they add incalculable value to the Campaign as a document. William Neville's advertisement was always a good introduction to the contents of the volume and the Catholic University of Ireland, but it acquires a new force and unity with the addition of footnotes, and so it truly shines. Shrimpton is able, as well, to add details that Neville was unaware of, like the resolution of the mystery of Newman's bishopric. Other outstanding critical notes include the relationship between the essence and the integrity of a university (142), Newman's conception of the genius loci...