subject shall be studied in such a manner as to afford some general discipline of the mental faculties. In his book on The Idea of a University, Newman says:—
"This process of training, by which the intellect, instead of being formed or sacrificed to some particular or accidental purpose, some specific trade or profession, or study or science, is disciplined for its own sake, for the perception of its own proper object, and for its own highest culture, is called Liberal Education; and though there is no one in whom it is carried as far as is conceivable, or whose intellect would be a pattern of what intellects should be made, yet there is scarcely any one but may gain an idea of what real training is, and at least look towards it, and make its true scope and result, not something else, his standard of excellence; and numbers there are who may submit themselves to it, and secure it to themselves in good measure. And to set forth the right standard, and to train according to it, and to help forward all students towards it according to their various capacities, this I conceive to be the business of a University."
It may be granted that the function of a University, as Newman here describes it, is not always realised; Universities, like other human institutions, have their failures. But his words truly express the aim and tendency of the best University teaching. It belongs to the spirit of such teaching that it should nourish and sustain ideals; and a University can do nothing better
