Normally, I would not question the wisdom of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, especially when backed by the general disposition of the Church and specific, solid papal bulls. I do not doubt that the founders of the universities at Bologna, Paris, Oxford, Salamanca, and so forth meant well. But in light of the experience of the last nine centuries, were they a good idea?
The modern view is that the question lies beyond asking. But that is one of the problems with the modern view: There are too many questions it can’t or won’t ask. We take it for granted that, even if the scene that greets us in any existing university — from Ivy League down — is an appalling one, still, in principle, universities are a good thing; and if they were returned to their original functions, and various excrescences docked or reformed, everyone could be happy.
Indeed, those who tend to be most “jingo” on the achievements of Western Civilization (like me, on a good day) tend also to advance “the idea of a university” as one of our great gifts to mankind. For the last three centuries or so, these proud expostulations have been tainted by the Enlightenment conceit of “secularism” (really, we need another word). It is specifically claimed that universities put learning at one remove from the authority of the Church, as if that had put us closer to the angels.
The whole history of universities I will not try to review in the very short space of this article; suffice to say it is not coterminous with the history of scholarship, classical or otherwise. Such a standard survey as the old History of Classical Scholarship by John E. Sandys (published in 1903 by Britain’s junior university, Cambridge) made the distinction clear. Its longer title continued, “from the Sixth Century B.C. to the end of the Middle Ages,” relieving the reader of any doubt.
But were that point still clearly taken, the Islamophiles who champion various ninth- and tenth-century foundations in the Arab world as the first universities could drop the idea. Though collegiate in the broad sense, the ancient madrasah at Fez, the medical and philosophical caravanserai at Baghdad, and even so venerable an arguably degree-granting institution as Cairo’s Al-Azhar were something else entirely. Until very, very recent times, those Muslim schools that survived at all had vastly more in common with our own ancient studia generali and scholae monasticae — schools associated with cathedrals and monasteries, designed for the training of clergy.
We might return to ancient Alexandria, or continue back to Athens to find pregnant examples of learning pursued as an end in itself, but even in the expansive Hellenistic age, we find nothing that truly resembles what we mean by “university.” True enough, we find personalities as pretentious, disportive, and irritating as our own tenured dons (in the Library of Alexandria, for example), but this is a better indication of universal frailties in human nature than of an institutional tradition.
From what I can see, though an old thing now, universities were once a new thing, and so much of a kind that we can recognize everything wrong with modern campus life in the earliest models — certainly not excluding the “five-year party” phenomena documented in the recent bestseller by Craig Brandon.
The prototype University of Paris (wandering scholars from which hatched Oxford University and many others) presented something of a law-and-order problem from the start. “Town versus gown” became a riotous commonplace wherever these colleges landed, as their inmates began flexing not only virile young muscles but the arrogance that came with royal and aristocratic connections. You do not put young dogs on very long leashes without expecting bystanders to be bitten.
But what I find more interesting, in reading accounts of the mediaeval universities, is the speed with which they allied themselves with Bishops against Pope, with Court against Church, with Law against Spirit, and, when they were being spiritual, with the spirit of secession in all of its instinctive and demonic forms.
Conversely, they were from their beginnings the flag-bearers of bureaucracy and regulation. Italy’s first universities were themselves the outgrowth of law schools, and other arrangements made by the flourishing city states to provide themselves with educated clerks, to fill metastasizing civic administrations. The association between universities and the “civil service” — and, more broadly, with secular government in all its more intrusive forms — is hardly something new to our age.
More deeply, by freeing students from the oversight and discipline of religious orders, and then creating a class of professors out of former students, the mediaeval universities were formulating a new kind of man — the public intellectual, quite full of himself — the sharp edge of whose intelligence would be honed to serve adolescent dreams of power and control, with endless voyages into “pure theory.”
One hears the echo through the ages of Benedetto Gaetani, papal legate and future Pope Boniface VIII, gone to Paris in 1290 to express the exasperation of the Roman Curia — not only with the intensely meddlesome political posturing of the university, but also with its venal attachments to worldly vested interests. To a professoriate flouncing their reputation for the “higher” education, Gaetani cries: “It is all trivial!”
And to the smug looks on many hundred faces, he declares: “We are called by God not to acquire learning to dazzle mankind, but to save our souls!”
Now — please — I am not against learning, and to some degree, not even against learning as an end in itself. Nor am I actually against universities, in principle; or at least, not yet. But I would like to wonder aloud if the time is not approaching to pull the fiscal plugs on all of them, and start over from the monastery again.
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And a return to the monastery is a good idea, too, especially for theology, done on one’s knees.
We have reached a point, where students and their families are expected to spend $50,000 per year to attend a private university, and perhaps $30,000 for a state university. When the students graduate after four years, they frequently do not know what they should know, and cannot find a job. I wonder if we are getting the “bang for our buck” that we should be getting?
My mentor at Steubenville, Dr. Regis Martin, often said that the abuse of something does not abolish the use. I think that applies here.
Also, I don’t agree with the premise. We dont all take it for granted that the current university scene is an apalling one. There is simply work to be done. And, I do agree that times change and we are seeing a massive shift in things because of the information age.
Yes, I think it is worthwhile to have this discussion, and perhaps it might be useful, though probably not. Regardless, not all is as bleak as so many here constantly make things out to be.
If things keep up, pretty soon, we may well see an article here that says: Bishops, Who Needs ‘em?
Universities per se aren’t really the problem. The problem is with the dumbed down curriculae the kids are getting K-12. Many of the things (The Three R’s actually) that should be nailed down at an early age, aren’t. They then get kicked “upstairs” to be learned at college. We’ve extended childhood out way beyond where it should be.
Because the kids haven’t learned what they should, they must go to college to learn it and be “job ready.”
I think the homeschooling market place may be helping to rein this in. People are learning that they can learn a lot on their own and keep costs down. This will eventually work its way up the ladder to colleges and universities.
As Rich Browner said — abuse indeed does not abolish use. There appears to be nothing wrong in David Warren’s article — but does he prove his point that universities are useless? To answer his question: the Church needs them. They arise, as John Paul II put it so well, “from the heart of the Church” (ex corde Ecclesiae). Instead of abandoning a venerable and overall successful institution that the Church has given to society for the good of the faithful, should we not rather try to save some universities and let the others perish in their own death dance? For surely the business model of the average American college and university is, as Austin points out, no longer sustainable. All our creativity and good will is required to keep some universities Catholic and give them the academic and religious excellence that is their calling. Ex corde is the best guide in this direction.
If I owned a company and was looking to hire a CEO, I would skip graduates of the Ivy League and go with a graduate of the US Military Academy at West Point. I have known a few of them, and they are just as smart as the Ivies, but even more importantly, at USMA they have the Honor System. All the academic huff & puff means nothing if the product of this education lacks morality and honesty. I want someone running my company who is not only smart, but does not lie, cheat or steal, nor tolerates someone who does lie, cheat or steal.
The Ivies have given us a generous supply of weasels. Smart but liars and thieves all too often. There is no substitute for honesty and courage. This is what we need above all else. Abraham Lincoln did not go to Harvard or Yale.
We need men and women of integrity, enough weasels.
I think we should be careful not to judge an entire university, or group, no less, by a few famous, and yet still not really well known individuals in the public eye.
Why are folks so quick at hyper judgement? Why throw the baby out with the bathwater?
“We dont all take it for granted that the current university scene is an apalling one.”
As a university prof of ten years, I do now take it for granted, since it is true. Things are worse, not better, than people would like to think.
This article is important. In the last several decades, universities have become the primary vehicle for undermining true thought in society. True thought interferese with the engine of economic prosperity, and worse yet, it interferes with the perspective of those running universities. The agenda has been to facilitate economic productivity and consumption by producing graduates who are money focused. The educated many has become a producer and a consumer who is defined by what his refined educated tastes can savor. It is an animalistic view of mankind. Because universities shape societal attitudes, our failure to reform universities is one that portends more of the same in terms of a descent into debauchery, greed, and societal self-destruction.
Readers here might be interested in a website I heard of recently: whatwilltheylearn.com
It rates colleges based on the school’s requirements in core subject areas, giving a different picture from the well know US News and World Report rankings. West Point scores 6 out of 7 and is on the “A” list. The only college in the country to score 7 out of 7 is Thomas Aquinas College in California.
We have met the enemy, and they is us. Pogo had it right. The problem is not with universities, but with our culture. Too often, education is the whipping boy for all of America’s ills. If the universities are secular, anti-religious, etc., it’s because the dominant culture of America is secular, anti-religious, etc. No doubt, I would like to see American universities rediscover their soul, but that’s a big job. America will have to rediscover it’s soul.
We have two recent university grads in our fam who are unable to find jobs in their fields of architecture & nursing. Their student loans are rapidly becoming due. They feel like they’ve ‘been had’ & I cannot blame them. Parents: Start encouraging your kids to learn a trade. Not as much status but it pays the bills.
David,
I would also agree that you have a point. Although there is much good within the university, and much potential for growth, good, and service through the commitment to scholarship — as a college student (various universities for various degrees from 2000-present) I have seen and experienced the degeneration of our (global) culture from within.
The university as a microcosm is itself a culture which is generating a new type of society. As George Weigel has pointed out, Pope John Paul II had it right in asserting that culture is the driving force of history. The problem is not the opportunity for knowledge and learning via collaboration; rather it is the increasing separation of these things from religion and belief in God. We are building something apart from God without recourse to God — a very dangerous project!
What should we do? We need the Church and authentic Theology more than ever. (I propose we also need authentic philosophy.) The heart of the original university, as you have alluded to above, is the study of God’s Word, i.e. sacra doctrina, from which Theology flows.
Thanks for your thoughts on this topic!
graduates will be honorable. It only guarantees that they were not caught lying, stealing, etc., and perhaps not even that. I know of cases where students known to have committed crimes were given degrees despite their transgressions to avoid lawsuits. Graduating from a school with an honor code does not guarantee that a person is of good character.