Cardinal John Newman, as long ago as 1851, gave a series of lectures at Oxford University. He was talking about the “Idea of a University”. A university, he told his audience, is a place where you may gain wisdom; you improve your turn of mind or intellect, as opposed to learning a trade. You learn about ideas and the relationship between them, so that you can become a person who functions easily in public and is respected for the learning that you have. The university is place not of instruction, but rather of education. He quotes Cicero, “We are all drawn to the pursuit of knowledge; in which to excel we consider excellent, whereas to mistake, to err, to be ignorant, to be deceived, is both an evil and a disgrace”.

I would add that university should fire the imagination. It should foster the art of lateral thinking, of connected a host of disconnected dots, making sense of a problem and offering practical ideas about solving it. It should teach you about human nature and motivations, and encourage you to look behind mere words and bluster and understand where people are coming from. This helps you through life to forge compromises and agreements, rather than conflict and misunderstanding.

Nowadays, some people think that university “should contribute directly to a more prosperous society and lead in a straight line to jobs which aid material progress”. This attitude is particularly pervasive in the United States. Studies have shown that, unfortunately, this habit looking at education as a sort of job training program doesn’t even help graduates keep a job when they get one. There is a good reason for that.