The Educated Man
John Henry Newman, the author of the essay entitled "The Educated Man" begins his essay in a way that was very contradictory to his times. He opens his essay boldly declaring that "A University is not a birthplace to poets or immortal authors, of founders of schools, leaders of colonies, or conquerors of nations." In essence, what he is saying is that the university is not the birthplace of an educated man. This thought helps highlight his purpose for the remainder of the essay, to provide a pure definition, untainted by society, of what a true educated man is, as opposed to what he was considered in the Victorian Period. I strongly agree with his essay, and its function of requiring the paper-machier-and-chicken-wire educated man of the Victorian Age to become molded of real substance. The essay continues to say " [A university] does not promote a generation of Aristotles or Newtons, of Raphaels or Shakespeares... Nor is it content on the other hand with formi
" This idea is also contradictory to the thought of the time- that an educated man relates only to other educated men. " The fictional character Jay Gatsby, of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was proof of this. Albert Einstein, although considered on of the most educated men ever, never even finished middle school. He is still stereotyped by what they've done, rather than what he is. This statement helps defend Newman's case. In dispelling Society's definition, Newman took it upon himself to create a substitute; an unaffected spiritual definition pulled from the same well that the definition of man in the constitution was pulled. The names mentioned were all men who in some way changed the world. Newman concludes his essay by saying, "He has a gift which. One trait of Newman's educated man is that "he is at home with any society" and "has common ground with every class. without which good fortune is but vulgar, and with which failure and disappointment have a charm. The task of the university was minimal, the true thing that made them become pinnacles of education was their own love for knowledge, and the traits they possessed as described throughout the rest of the essay. I side with Newman on this issue also. This view of Newman's was also contradictory of a time who's men would acquire go to a university simply because they have wealth, and who would never see a day of lack because the good fortune of inheritance. The good fortune then becomes unappreciated and vulgar. A true educated man knows he may learn more about the anatomy of a fish from a poor fisherman than a Harvard grad.
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Acceptance Essays
