Educated Man By Henry Norman
John Henry Newman, the author of the essay
entitled "The Educated Man"
begins his essay in a way that was very
contradictory to his times. He opens his
essay boldly declaring that "A
University is not a birthplace to poets or
immortal authors, of founders of
schools, leaders of colonies, or conquerors of
nations." In essence, what he
is saying is that the university is not the
birthplace of an educated man.
This thought helps highlight his purpose for the
remainder of the essay, to
provide a pure definition, untainted by society, of
what a true educated man
is, as opposed to what he was considered in the
Victorian Period. I
strongly agree with his essay, and its function of requiring
the
paper-machier-and-chicken-wire educated man of the Victorian Age to
become
molded of real substance. The essay continues to say " [A university]
does not
promote a generation of Aristotles or Newtons, of Raphaels or
Shakespeares...
Nor is it content on the other hand with forming the
critic or experimentalist,
the economist or engineer". This statement helps
defend Newman’s case. The
names mentioned were all men who in some way
changed the world. Those of them
who did receive a University diploma do not
owe their success or education to
the University they received it from. The
task of the university was minimal,
the true thing that made them become
pinnacles of education was their own love
for knowledge, and the traits they
possessed as described throughout the rest of
the essay. Today, men such as
Martin Luther, Albert Einstein, and Charlie
Chaplin can be added to the
list. Albert Einstein, although considered on of the
most educated men ever,
never even finished middle school. These accounts all
make a case for Newman
in arguing that the general definition of and educated
man- a man who has
received diploma and graduation from a college, as incorrect.
One trait
of Newman’s educated man is that "he is at home with any
society" and "has
common ground with every class." This idea is also
contradictory to the
thought of the time- that an educated man relates only to
other educated men.
I side with Newman on this issue also. A true educated man
knows he may learn
more about the anatomy of a fish from a poor fisherman than a
Harvard
grad. He knows he may gain knowledge from all walks of life, and does
not
limit his knowledge imput to the ideas of just one class. Newman
concludes
his essay by saying, "He has a gift which... without which good
fortune is but
vulgar, and with which failure and disappointment have a
charm." The fictional
character Jay Gatsby, of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
was proof of this. He
was a man who had acquired good fortune without
education, and it was indeed
vulgar, as opposed to the charming life of Van
Gough, whose artwork, although
not rewarded with money during his lifetime,
will forever be appreciated. This
view of Newman’s was also contradictory of
a time who’s men would acquire go
to a university simply because they have
wealth, and who would never see a day
of lack because the good fortune of
inheritance. The good fortune then becomes
unappreciated and vulgar. In
dispelling Society’s definition, Newman took it
upon himself to create a
substitute; an unaffected spiritual definition pulled
from the same well that
the definition of man in the constitution was pulled.
This essay is still
valuable because the idea of an educated man is still a
social title rather
than a task to complete. He is still stereotyped by what
they’ve done, rather
than what he is. Perhaps the beginning of educated men
will remain where it
has always begun, in the small cleft of a rock- such
as
Stratford-upon-Avon or Urbino, Italy, where one learns to ask
questions, in
pursuit of their answers stumble upon new world’s and ideas
alike.