His ideal student has “a cultivated intellect, a delicate taste, a candid, equitable, dispassionate mind”-a specimen one is unlikely to find during spring break in Fort Lauderdale. Indeed, Newman’s vision of the university demands a refinement of taste and delicacy of temperament out of reach to all but the most literate and sensible of undergraduates. In both texts, after all, we are dealing with uncompromising ideals, presented with intense fervor and great pathos, against which any reality would come up short. Perhaps, though, such disorientation is inevitable. Anyone who reads John Henry Newman’s The Idea of a University, published in 1852, and then ventures into the typical college classroom of today will suffer a similar case of mental whiplash. Imagine you’ve just read Plato’s Republic and then-conscientious citizen that you’ve now become-you enter a Chicago voting booth on election day and scan the list of candidates.
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