The Old and the New Liberal Education Paradigms ( Newman, Mill, Arnold,

Huxley)

I.
Old Liberal Paradigm
In addition to the domestic education of individuals engaged in the battles of private experience,
which proposed the models of man fictionally developed in realistic novels, the Victorians also
theorized about the general education of mankind (see Matthew Arnolds Discourses in America,
1883) and were concerned with the purpose and aims of systematic education in universities and
through debates about what books should be included in circulating/lending libraries.
One can understand Jane Eyres triumph in terms of the synthesis she achieved. Her acquisitions
led her from the Enlightenment faculties to what Matthew Arnold called powers (in Discourses in

America). She transformed her naturally rational disposition into the power of the intellect and
she transformed her sense of justice, when applied to herself, into the power of conduct and she
set models of irreproachable behavior, illustrating the power of social life and manners. Her
sensitive, dreamy nature were turned into the power of beauty, the capacity to respond to beauty
and turn it into a priority in life.
The battle between the old and the new liberal paradigms (conceptions) is an important aspect of
Victorian education in so far as it outlines quite clearly the aims and means of modern humanism.
We have already seen the model of man and cultural man of letters proposed by Carlyle, the first
humanist of the Victorian Age, who we saw returning to the 12th century for a monastic model of
man and community. We also witnessed his disdain for society at large and its institutions and his
fear of mass politics.
The next representative humanist of the Victorian Age, John Henry Newman was a brilliant
promoter of the old liberal paradigm.
The old liberal paradigm had been set up in the first universities of the Middle Ages, where liberal
education was another name for classical humanism (humanism inspired by the classics), as distinct
from the other and main subject taught in the universities of the Middle Ages, theology. Whereas
theology regarded man in his relationship to the God-created universe, humanism was meant to
develop mans inherent capacities in a liberal, free manner, by practicing the seven liberal arts
(grammar, rhetoric, and logic, which represented the Trivium, a sine qua non core of knowledge, on
the one hand, and, on the other hand, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy, which included
the study of astrology, too (the so called Quadrivium ()
The essence of the old system of education was that it saw education as being pursued for its own
sake, free from practical purposes. The aim of liberal education was to produce a virtuous,
knowledgeable, and articulate person.

The distinction between instruction and disinterested or pure knowledge

Pure knowledge is capable of being its own end, not a preliminary of certain arts
() because that alone is liberal knowledge which stands on its own pretensions,
which is independent of sequel, expects no complement, refuses to be informed (as
it is called) by an end, or absorbed into any end, or in order to present itself to our
contemplation. The most ordinary pursuits have this specific character, if they are
self-sufficient and complete; the highest lose it, when they minister to something
beyond them (PEV I, p. 342)
See below the example of theology when it becomes mere instruction (also, see todays distinction
between research and the didactic pursuit of knowledge in faculties)

Theology, instead of being cultivated as a contemplation, be[ing] limited to the purposes of the
pulpit or be[ing] represented by the catechism, it loses, - not its usefulness, not its divine
character, not its meritoriousness, - but it does lose the particular attribute which I am
illustrating; just as a face worn by tears and fasting loses its beauty, or a labourers hand loses its
delicateness; - for Theology thus exercised is not simple knowledge, but rather is an art or busines
making use of Theology (our underlining). And in like manner the Baconian Philosophy, by using its
physical sciences in the service of man, does thereby transfer them from the order of Liberal
Pursuits to, I do not say inferior, but the distinct class of the Useful. (PEV I pp. 342-3).
For Newman, a University is a place of education rather than instruction

It is more correct, as well as more usual, to speak of a University as a place of education, than of
instruction, though, when knowledge is concerned , instruction would at first sight have seemed the
more appropriate word. We are instructed, for instance, in manual exercises, in the fine and useful
arts, in trades, and in ways of business; for these are methods, which have little or no effect upon
the mind itself, are confined in rules committed to memory, to tradition or to use, and bear upon an
end external to themselves. But education is a higher word; it implies an action upon our mental
nature, and the formation of a character; it is something individual and permanent, and is commonly
spoken of in connection with religion and virtue.
A unversity is where one can gain access to knowledge in this liberal sense, because a university is

a seat of learning, considered as a place of education. An assemblage of learned men, zealous for
their own sciences, and rivals of each other, are brought, by familiar intercourse and for the sake

of intellectual peace to adjust together the claims and relations of their respective subjects of
investigation. Thus is created a pure and clear atmosphere of thought, which each student also
breathes, though in his own case he can only pursue a few sciences out of the multitude. He profits
by an intellectual tradition, which is independent of particular teachers, which guides him in his
choice of subjects. () He apprehends the great outlines of knowledge, the principles on which it
rests, the scale of its parts, its lights and its shades, its great points and its little as he otherwise
cannot apprehend them. Hence it is that his education is called liberal. A habit of mind is formed
which lasts throughout life, of which the attributes are, freedom, equitableness, calmness,
moderation, and wisdom. (PEV I, p. 337)
Newmans model for the general education of mankind was that or religion (see The Tamworth

Reading Room)
Faith [was] once the soul of social union Once, indeed, it was a living power, kindling hearts,
leavening them with one idea, moulding them on one model, developing them into one polity (PEV II,
p. 320)
Why, we are so constituted that Faith not Knowledge or Argument is our principle of action ( PEV
II, p. 327) and independent of all other considerations, the greatest difference in practical light,
between the object of Christianity and of heathen belief, is this that glory, science, knowledge,
and whatever other fine names we use, never healed a wounded heart, nor changed a sinful one; but
the Divine Word is with power (PEV II, p. 313).: The old bond, continues Newman, was Religion;
Lord Broughams is Knowledge.
As a Catholic cardinal, John Henry Newman was sanctified in Britain in 2010, by the Pope Benedict
XVI.