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Every so often I will ask my literature students to do something, like write a short poem, just for fun. Inevitably, at least one student asks, “is this for credit?” or, “can we have extra credit?” My answer is always no, and I will sometimes tease them by asking if they also want extra credit for playing frisbee, or chess, or basketball, at lunch. There are many things we do—learning, seeking knowledge, and gaining skills included—that are done for no extrinsic reward, but simply because we enjoy them. They are goods in themselves. I don’t blame my students for wanting credit for class activities; I indeed encourage them to strive for excellent grades and performance. But excellence is the fruit of immersing oneself deeply in learning freely. This is, in sum, Newman’s view of liberal learning. Learning is a naturally enjoyable activity that, sadly, modern education tends to stultify and disenchant, leaving our children cynical and traumatized in the very classrooms where they should feel joyful and free. 

Newman largely blames philosopher John Locke for the demise of liberal learning. Locke argued, anticipating the later American John Dewey, that most ordinary and classical subjects in school should be jettisoned in favor of subjects that “might be useful” after school. Locke calls, for example, poetry “a pleasant air, but barren soil,” and thinks preparation for a “trade” is more important than learning Latin. John Locke’s modern philosophy is now pervasive, and tends to denigrate all traditional subjects as abstract ivory towers, scorning any who think it is worthwhile to learn things that are not in immediate marketable demand. This tends to include a priority for the hard sciences and rejection of humanities or classics, and a reduction of those humanities and classics to mere acquisition of variously branded “skills.”

What Locke rejects, Newman calls “the general cultivation of mind,” the liberal and free and expansive development of mind that is not isolated to a narrow demand, but enables excellence in anything, or what he calls “the imperial intellect.” With a “general cultivation of mind,” Newman argues, those who insist on exclusively practical learning will not only lack humane learning, but also ironically contribute to impractical outcomes because they will not enjoy the healthy formation of the whole mind. They might become literate in a subject, but will not have learned to think. A good quarterback exercises his whole body, not just his throwing arm. If he only exercised his throwing arm, he would not be a good quarterback. Just so, the good student must exercise the whole mind, not just one or a few parts of it. Newman insists that this full maturation of the mind is of a “liberal or non-professional” value. It is good in itself, not good because it can be reduced to professional value.

Newman counters Locke with an apt medical analogy. A “healthy body” is an intrinsic good, not an instrumental one. We seek to be healthy for the sake of being healthy, not merely because being healthy allows us to do a few narrow tasks. I might be an electrician by trade, and in my free time like river rafting, painting, gardening, taking my kids on vacation, and writing novels. But when I go to the doctor with an illness, or injury, or broken finger, I seek healing not just because I use various aspects of my body for work or recreation or vacation, but simply because being healthy is a good thing. In other words, even if I had none of these specific applications of my bodily functions, I would still seek healing, because health of the body is intrinsically good for its own sake. How much more, Newman argues, is a “healthy intellect,” a fully formed, fully usable mind, an intrinsic, self-justifying good? This is in fact the definition of sanity. Its Latin root, sanitas, simply means “healthy” or “well.” Mental health, like bodily health, is the flourishing of the whole, not just parts. If “a Liberal Education consists in the culture of the intellect, and if that culture be in itself a good,” then it is likewise intrinsically good to seek full formation of mind in accord with that good. The intrinsic goods of a healthy body and fully-formed mind transcend, but still include, any practical uses of them. Newman argues that this “mental culture” is in fact most supremely useful. Who would seem more useful in any given employment or trade or discipline—the one who is trained to use his whole brain, or the one who is trained to use just parts of it?

         What doctor, when diagnosing his patient, would determine whether or not to operate, or apply a remedy, based on which part of the body his patient would use for his formal employment? If a doctor consented to heal an arm, but refused to heal a foot, because the patient only used his arms and not his feet for his work, the doctor would justifiably be accused of malpractice. Just so, good educators should devote themselves to the full flourishing of each human mind. A poor educator, regardless of his good intentions, would educate a narrow aspect of the mind, rigidly calculating what is useful and confining his pupils’ mental capacities to some pre-determined agenda. No knowledge of God’s good creation should be withheld from our children; they flourish more, are more successful, are more useful, and more gloriously reflect their Creator, in the same degree to which they are free to pursue knowledge just because it is good. May the Holy Spirit inspire our parents and teachers with the grace to foster educational atmospheres that are truly enjoyable for students, first, by being inspired ourselves to truly enjoy the free pursuit of knowledge.

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Aim at ‘seeing the King in His beauty’.  All things that we see are but shadows to us and delusions, unless we enter into what they really mean.

“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as though something strange were happening to you.”

The Psalms, the "voice of the Church," invite us to enter into the sufferings of Christ and His people, and cling to God above all.

Applying Newman's theory, it seems clear that the notion that women's ordination to to the priesthood, would not maintain the type of the early Church.

In 1990, the International Theological Commission, issued a document titled "The Interpretation of Dogma" in which Newman's seven notes are endorsed.

The path forward for us personally and for the Church at large, requires returning to the core truths that Christ Himself has revealed to us.

We are made to be gifts to God and gifts to each other, body and soul; to go against God’s law, which is for our good, is to refuse the gift.

What does John Henry Newman mean by the words: "to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often?"

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About Cardinal John Henry Newman

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A Guide to John Henry Newman will interest educated readers and professors alike, and serve as a text for college seminars for the purpose of studying Newman.

Review by Catherine Maybanks
(Catholic Herald, April 1, 2023)

Review by Serenheed James
(Antiphon, April 2023)

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Fr Peter Conley takes us on an exciting journey into the spirituality and inner life of Saint John Henry Newman.
 

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Endorsement by Neyra Blanco (Amazon)
I bought this book for my son and he loved it, he wrote this review and urged my to submitted: “I think this book has a very beautiful message, because it shows how the young Newman was so determined to achieve his dream of becoming a priest, but even after his dream he continued to work in the church with passion until the day he died, it’s so admirable that even Newman so old and so weak still had that urge to continued his work of being a priest. And the book is well written with words not too complicated with very enjoyable texts and well illustrated pictures. I highly recommend this book for a 5th grader.  

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What is a Classical Liberal Arts Education? Why is it so important for the development of a person?

Fr. Juan R. Vélez answers these and more questions you might have about University Education in the 21st century. This book is aimed for parents, prospective University students, and educators. It will help you discern why adding Liberal Arts electives to your education will help it form it better, and help the student learn to reason, and not just learn.

He also explains how many Universities have changed the true meaning of Liberal Arts, and the subjects, and gives advise on how to choose College Campus, Subjects, and Teachers.

A wonderful book that every parent should also read way before your children are College bound. A Liberal Arts education can start earlier in life, even from home.

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Endorsement by Christopher Moellering (Goodreads, September 14, 2019)
In Passion for Truth Fr. Vélez gave us an outstanding biography of Cardinal Newman. In this work, he provides a concise overview of his thought and his devotion. This is a great work for someone who, perhaps hearing of Newman for the first time because of his beatification 13 October, 2019, wants to know more about this English saint.Vélez is a wonderful writer in his own right, and the frequent quotations from Newman round out the work nicely. I especially appreciated the frequent citing of Newman’s Meditations and Devotions, which show a different side of his spirituality than his more well-known works, Development of Christian Doctrine and the Grammar of Assent.

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Take Five: Meditations with John Henry Newman, endorsement by Illow M. Roque (Amazon, September 3, 2010)
“There is a time to put direct inquiry on hold and give ourselves to prayer and practical duties.” Sound advice from one of the earlier, thought-provoking reminders in this sparkling gem of a book: Take Five | Meditations with John Henry Newman, written by Mike Aquilina and Fr. Juan R. Vélez and published by Our Sunday Visitor. This particular paragraph, referenced above, which begins with a direct quote from soon-to-be canonized priest, cardinal and poet, John Henry Newman: “Study is good, but it gets us only so far . . .” is actually the 15th in a series of 76 concise, logically organized meditations moving from the elementary to the sublime. Each meditation–one per page–is built upon the great man’s writings and remarkably rich spirituality. Whether taken whole in one reading or in part page-by-page over a course of weeks and months, these wonderfully insightful meditations will open up, even to the busiest reader in the midst of the world, a unique pathway into prayer and contemplation. My advice to spiritual inquirers at all levels, from the novice to the spiritually adept, is to follow the authors’ recommendation to use this book as a guide for daily prayer and meditation. The structure of the book itself is ideal: first, the authors introduce us to Cardinal Newman, the man, where we are given the opportunity to get to know him through a brief sketch of his life and spirituality at the beginning of the book. This is something readers will likely find themselves referring to again and again, prompting many, I suspect, to even wider explorations of this most gifted Christian leader. Then comes the meditations, consisting of a short summary of Newman’s thoughts on subjects taken, as the authors explain, from various salient points for which Newman is justly remembered: The pursuit of objective religious truth; Teaching on the Virtues; Defense of the Catholic Church; A devout spiritual and moral life; and Generosity and loyalty in his friendships, which sets the topic and tone for each meditation to follow. Each meditation consists of an excerpt taken from Newman’s thirty-plus volumes of writings and diaries. Next comes three brief and extremely useful sections entitled: “Think About It,” which establishes a prayerfully resonant tone throughout the book; “Just Imagine,” which provides a vivid, prayerful experience of the Scriptures that tie in, and finally, “Remember,” a pithy summation which the authors suggest may be used as a daily aspiration. Each meditation is given its own page, which makes it ideal for daily reflection for readers on the go. This book is a must have for every serious Catholic who wants to take their faith to the next level, which is to respond appropriately to the universal call to holiness and seek interior union with God.
Fr. Peter Conley

Aim at ‘seeing the King in His beauty’.  All things that we see are but shadows to us and delusions, unless we enter into what they really mean.

David Warren

“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as though something strange were happening to you.”

Robert Kirkendall

The Psalms, the "voice of the Church," invite us to enter into the sufferings of Christ and His people, and cling to God above all.

Fr. Juan Velez

Applying Newman's theory, it seems clear that the notion that women's ordination to to the priesthood, would not maintain the type of the early Church.

Fr. Juan Velez

In 1990, the International Theological Commission, issued a document titled "The Interpretation of Dogma" in which Newman's seven notes are endorsed.

David Warren

The path forward for us personally and for the Church at large, requires returning to the core truths that Christ Himself has revealed to us.

Robert Kirkendall

We are made to be gifts to God and gifts to each other, body and soul; to go against God’s law, which is for our good, is to refuse the gift.

Fr. Juan Velez

What does John Henry Newman mean by the words: "to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often?"

Fr. Juan Velez

Listening to God is done keeping in mind the normative value of the whole of Tradition and of the Church’s Teaching.