WHAT IS A UNIVERSITY?

Asked to define university, someone might say, "It is a group of buildings in which students are taught various subjects for several years after graduating from secondary school." This is indeed a practical definition, but it tells us nothing about the nature or purpose of a university.

Then what, we may ask, is a university for? What is the point of having such a group of buildings and sending students there for several years after secondary school when they might be more usefully employed in earning their living?

To begin with, we may consider why we use the word university for such a group of buildings. What does the word mean? It may simply be said that a university is a place for the study of universal knowledge. Ideally, students at a university that is worthy of its name ought to study everything there is to be known under the sun. But of course they can't all be expected to study everything; if they were, such study would be exceedingly superficial. For what one gains in breadth of knowledge one inevitably loses in depth, and vice versa. But when students are all taken together, their separate studies may be expected to add up to everything — up to a point.

There was a time in the early thirteenth century when it could be said of a man like Albert the Great, the teacher of the greater Thomas Aquinas, that he knew everything there was to be known in the world. But that time has long since passed, if it ever existed. Now we have to admit, in the words of Virgil, that "we can't do [or study] everything."

Nowadays indeed we have come to the opposite extreme, with such an abundance of subjects, which are ever being divided and subdivided, that it is difficult for one man to know everything even in his specialized field of study, such as Shakespearean drama. Of the world of science it is said that the tendency today is for the scientist to know more and more about less and less until he comes to know everything about nothing!

Nowadays very few universities can claim to offer courses on every subject, even at a general level. But at least, to deserve the name of "university," they may be expected to offer a wide variety of courses in different fields, in both science and the humanities.

In this sense, a university of economics or a university of music, though such institutions actually exist in not a few modern countries, implies a contradiction. It claims to offer at once both universal knowledge (as a university) and specialized knowledge in one field. So it should rather be called a college or an institute.

It may be further asked what is the point of a university proposing to teach everything and then allowing itself to be divided into different faculties and departments where students study only one subject? One answer to this question, given by many universities in the United States and postwar Japan, is that for the first two years students are encouraged to take a wide variety of courses under the name of general education before proceeding to specialize in one department. Then they may be said to have been exposed at least for a time to the benefits of universal knowledge, though the common effect is rather one of universal confusion.

However, at most universities in Europe and some in the United States, as in prewar Japan, students are expected to specialize from the beginning in their chosen fields. The ideal of general education, then, belongs to secondary schools; at university, one is required to specialize.

Isn't that a contradiction? Not necessarily. All the students are engaged in the study of different subjects, and in their daily interaction they may be expected to communicate something of their special knowledge to one another. This is especially the case at universities where the faculties or departments are not divided from each other in separate buildings and where the students have every opportunity to mix with one another, as when they live together in dormitories.

For example, the University of Oxford consists of independent residential colleges that do not specialize in any one subject but include members engaged in the study of different subjects. So while the students have lectures and tutorials separately from one another, they live together and enjoy discussing matters of common interest.

After all, even when human knowledge is divided and subdivided into many departments, the boundaries can't always be clearly defined. One branch of science or the humanities is ever in need of assistance and enlightenment from others. "No man is an island," said John Donne, and no branch of science or literature is an island either, separated from the mainland of universal knowledge.

What I have said of university students applies no less to their teachers. For a university isn't only for the education of students, who have to grow in mind under the direction of their teachers. It is also for the research of scholars, who have already achieved proficiency in their field, yet whose growth in mind is never completed. There is indeed something about knowledge that is infinite. No man, however far his studies may lead him into any one subject, however limited that subject may seem to be, can ever say he knows all there is to be known about it.

Once I met a Scottish professor whose specialized research was devoted to a certain species of fish chiefly found in the North Sea. He had been engaged in this research for the past fifteen years. I casually remarked that now he must know all there is to be known about it. "No," he protested, there remained much for him to find out. Thus, all knowledge leads to a deepening sense of mystery. As Francis Bacon said in his essay "Of Studies," "O mnia abeunt in mysterium" — all things disappear into mystery. The ideal of university study is to combine a broad knowledge of all kinds of things with a deep understanding of one kind, as in the pattern of a cross. One without the other is defective. Both dimensions, from top to bottom and from one side to the other, are needed for the true formation of the human mind. And then, of course, there remains the further dimension of depth, from outward to inward, not to mention other unknown dimensions.

What Is Education?

Looking into a typical classroom while a class is in progress, we may see a teacher teaching from his desk, usually on a platform, while his students sit at their desks below him. They may be listening to what he is saying, or taking notes according to his direction, or asking and answering questions — or even sleeping. That, we assume, is the process we call education. It seems to proceed from the mouth of the teacher to the ears of his students — from his mind to their minds. Thus it may be called a communication from heart to heart, as in John Henry Newman's Latin motto "Cor ad cor loquitur" — heart...