The Idea of a University [b][b]John Henry, Cardinal Newman [b][b]I protest to you, gentlemen, that if I had to choose between a so-called [b]university which dispensed with residence and tutorial superintendence, and [b]giave its degrees to any person who passed an examinationin a wide range of [b]subjects, and a university which had no professors or examinations at all, [b]but merely brought a number of young men together for three or four years, [b]and then sent them away as the University of Oxford is said to have done [b]some sixty years since, if I were asked which of these two methods was the [b]better discipline of the intellect- I do not say which is morally the [b]better, for it is plain that compulsory study must be a good and idleness [b]an intolerable mischief-but if I must determine which of the two courses [b]was themore successful in trainning, molding, enlarging the mind, which [b]sent out men the more fitted for their secular duties, which produced btter [b]public men, men of the world, men whose names would descend to posterity, I [b]have no hesitation in giving the preference to that university which did [b]nothing, over that which exacted of its members an qcquaintance with every [b]science under the sun [b]When a multitude of young persons, keen, open-hearted, sympathetic, and [b]observant, as young persons are, come together and freely mix with each [b]other, they are sure to learn one from another, even if there be no one to [b]teach them; the conversation of all is a series of lectures to each, and [b]they gain for themselves new ideas and views, fresh matter of thought, and [b]distinct principles for judging and acting, day by day. An infant has to [b]learn the meaning of the information which its senses convey to it, and [b]this seems to be its employment. It fancies all that the eye presents to it [b]to be close to it, till it actually learns the contrary, and thus by [b]practice does it ascertain the relations and uses of those first elements [b]of knowledge which are necessary for its animal existence. A parallel [b]teaching is necessary for our social being, and it is secured by a large [b]school or a college, and this effect may be fairly called in its own [b]department of an enlargement of mind. here then is a real teaching, [b]whatever be its standards and principles, true or false; and it at least [b]tends towards cultivation of the intellect; it at least recognizes that [b]knowledge is something more than a sort of passive receptionof scraps and [b]details; it is a something, and it does a something, which never will issue [b]from the most strenuous efforts of a set of teachers, with no mutual [b]sympathies and no interommunion, of a set of examiners with no opinion [b]which they dare profess, and with no common principles, who are teaching or [b]questioning a set of youths who do not know them, and do not know each [b]other, on a large number of subjects, different in kind, and connected by [b]no wide philosophy, three times a week, or three times a year, or once in [b]three years, in chill lecture-rooms or on apompous anniversary. [b]How much more profitable for the independent mind, after the mere rudiments [b]of education, the range through a library at random, taking down books as [b]they meet him, and pursuing the trains of thought which his mother with [b]suggests! How much healthier to wander into the fields, and there with the [b]exiled prince to find"tongues in the trees, books in the running brooks!" [b][b]--------------------------- [b]相关讨论 >> 点击此处参与讨论 [b]--------------------------- [b]== by angeikim [b]大家来讨论一下这个文章吧，这个范围是占了GRE WRITING中比较大的一个比重的 [b][b]在精华区里面有相关的文章。。 [b]个人认为大学是educate 的地方，给你人生目标的地方 [b]至于学术等到是其他附带得来的东西咯。。:p [b][b]另：同意作者的观点。 [b]而且大学里面最重要的还是要学会要质疑权威， to question authority. [b][b]== by paisley [b]我的感觉，如果要讨论大学的职能，是不是从它的历史谈起比较好。以前讲究的贵族式的教 [b]育，因为原本就是对贵族提供的一种高等教育，目的在于培养“绅士”，而非“专家”或者 [b]“匠人”。 OXFORD就是典型代表。 [b][b]而随着商品经济日益繁荣，世俗化的普遍扩散，大学不再是奢侈品了。它的功能，也就发生 [b]了变化。 [b][b]== by lily_chang [b]好好读读这篇文章吧.每个GTER都值得去思索一下,你们现在的大学为你们创造和提供了什 [b]么，我们到底欠缺的是什么.在我个人看来,为什么中国的很多大学，包括大部分90%以上的重 [b]点大学也只是让人感觉一个TRAINING SCHOOL吧.在一个人对于生活和社会,自我都没有全面 [b]了解之时,何以谈在个人学术研究上有所造诣. [b]