I am going to do something I do not usually do: I am going to organize my thoughts. I know: it scares me too. But this was a pretty heavy reading, and it struck me in a few too many places just to smash it all together and attempt to simply use paragraph transitions (which I am not very good at anyway) to divide all of my ideas. If you read no further (which I don't blame you because I know you are busy children) know this: Newman, however thick his writing may be to read, knew what he was talking about.
Why, might you ask, am I so sure that Newman's idea that “knowledge... is desirable, though nothing come of it” (pg 167) is so enlightened?
Sue Monk Kidd put it perfectly in The Secret Life of Bees , saying “There is nothing perfect. There is only life.” Guess what? Life is complicated. And we can plan and plan for one thing our entire lives, and study like never before and be SO SURE that it's all going to work out and then WHOOSH, before you know it you realize that everything you thought was “the right thing” to know is useless and you're up a certain creek without a paddle.
http://idleminutes.com/wp-content/uploads/waiting_for_a_row.jpg
And yeah, that is going to not be the funnest thing you have ever experienced. However, at least with a liberal education you'll be well rounded enough that even if you lose your paddle, or the boat turns over, or some other horrible thing happens to you, you'll have some kind of a backup plan. Even if you have to swim, at least you'll still be headed somewhere.
Newman's Garden (or, An Array of Deliciousness)
“May I suggest that you all read? And often. Believe me, it's nice to have something to talk about other than the weather and the Queen's health. Your mind is not a cage. It is a garden. And it requires cultivating.” (A Great and Terrible Beauty, pg 128)
Let's say, in light of the wonderful quote at the beginning of this section, that our minds really are Gardens. And let's say, just because if we don't say it this metaphor won't make any sense, that this garden is the only thing that we have to live off of. We can't go to the grocery store and buy bananas: we have to pick them off our banana tree.
How are we going to make sure we don't starve? Or become malnutritioned? We're going to have to start planting a bunch of stuff, that's how. And we're going to have to take care of our baby vegetables and fruits, and make sure they grow big and strong and provide us with something delicious.
Newman had a pretty healthy Garden. I can tell: he had a Garden he could live off of. He didn't just plant Carrots. Carrots are only good for making carrot cake, which, granted, is absolutely DELCIOUS, but can get old after awhile. No, Newman had LOTS of different things in his Garden. Probably some Onions, some Cabbage, some Tomatoes... you name it, Newman had it. And if he didn't have it? He was trying to get it. Busy kid, that Newman. But here's the thing: in the end, he realized that all of these different vegetables were “connected together” (Idea of a University, pg 165), and that since they were connected, they could make something delicious: AN ENTIRE MEAL!
See how appealing this diverse garden is? You could definitely make a meal out of the stuff growing here!
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3045/2706395442_45422dac90.jpg?v=0
Do you get it? If our minds are a Garden, and if the only mind that we can reliably have access to (unless you're a psychic in which case I am very impressed) is our own, then we need to make sure that our mind is filled with a variety of different kinds of knowledge that will be useful in a variety of different circumstances. More important than this, however, is the fact that, as Newman professes, “all branches of knowledge are connected together” (pg 165). You need ALL of those different types of vegetables to make an entire meal, and you need all those different disciplines of knowledge to function at your full capacity in the world.
I think the doctor article is a great example of this. Gail Morrison points out that “It doesn't make you a better doctor to know how fast a mass falls from a tree” (173H). Yeah, the hard science majors are geniuses: WE GET IT. YOU ARE AMAZING AT SCIENCE. But it's the Science and History and Music and whatever else majors that make the best doctors because they have the most well rounded knowledge base and are better prepared to deal with the variety of problems that present themselves in the medical field.
I can attest to this. I had this dentist once who like... ripped out my tooth without warning me. As in, I was 8 years old, sitting quietly in the dentist chair, minding my own business, and he came over and was like “Oh, this one looks loose” and BAM there goes my tooth.
Look. I get that the tooth needed to come out sometime, OK? And it's great that he was a capable dentist who was able to recognize that. BRAVO! But, really, did he have to rip it out like that? Maybe, if my dentist had taken some history classes in college, he would have realized that people don't like it when things are taken from them without their permission. Ever heard of the American Revolution? The colonies weren't exactly thrilled that the British government was taking their money through taxes without them having any say in it, were they? And then they revolted and now there is a country where the colonies used to be.
I guess you could say I did something similar to the colonies. I threw up on Dr. N (not on purpose, OBVIOUSLY, but the yanking of the tooth apparently started some kind of a chain reaction...) and got a new dentist.
The red guy is Dr. Nelson, but no worries! I got him in the end.http://lehrman.isi.org/media/images/cache/George_Washington_in_the_American_Revolution.jpg/360px-George_Washington_in_the_American_Revolution.jpg
He could have avoided a lot of trouble if he'd had a more liberal education, don't you think?
The How to Guide to Cultivating Your Garden (or, Plan 2 is AWESOME)
Newman says the a University is THE PLACE to figure out how to cultivate your Garden. But he describes a university as something that offers you a specific thing: an education, which “implies an action upon our mental nature and the formation of a character”.
I have my doubts that any college can live up to Newman's words. I think whether the university you go to is actually Newman's University almost depends more on the who you are then the university itself. I mean, if you're not trying to cultivate you're garden, having the tools to do so isn't going to make it any healthier. But the thing about Plan 2, and UT in general, is that at least they are actually trying to be close to Newman's University. Dean Parlin said that Plan 2 stresses “liberal culture rather than vocational training”. In this place, in this program. I know that people are hoping that I take the tools they are giving me and don't just go out and become an Employed Person. They want me to cultivate my garden, and they hope that through this they can “transform [my] life for the benefit of society” (pg 183A). They want me to "[connect] information to the 'real world'" (pg 184).
Purpose in Education (or, MY PURPOSE???????)
“Purpose is:
Who you touch
How you change the world
The good you leave behind.” (A Heart Divided)
Purpose is GREAT. Or it would be great if I could figure out what the heck my purpose is. I'm 19, and even though all these random adult people KEEP FREAKING ASKING ME, I have no idea. What am I supposed to do here? And how am I supposed to know how to do it?
What I like about Newman is that he's not all about the specific purpose. What he wants us to do is PREPARE for our purpose through “Universal Knowledge” and through the cultivation of our Garden, which we can learn how to do at his University.
I like that idea. And I'm ready for that idea, you know? I'm ready to prepare for my purpose.
Bring it on :)
Bring on the rest of my pilgrimage! (as represented by this shell)
http://www.freeclipartnow.com/d/7151-1/scallop-shell.jpg
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