The Mind of a by Dr. D. T. Sheffler
Gentleman
In
his book The Idea of a University, John Henry Newman argues that the goal of education in a university should be the cultivation of a "liberal" type of mind. In Latin, liber means a "free man" as opposed to a slave, and the education appropriate for such a man is an education in the "liberal arts." In this way, students might be lured away from the servile and toward the gentlemanly. Newman uses the term "gentleman" in the way it was commonly used in his time: to refer to the free man who uses his freedom wisely by becoming a man of broad culture, taste, and learning. An educated gentleman should live with a confident bearing toward the world. He should be able to look upon the variety of human life and the vastness of the cosmos with an eye that takes it all in. He may not be an expert, but he knows how to think about any of the things he sees, and more importantly, he knows how to think about them all together as a unified whole. The servile man, by contrast, sits with hunched shoulders and head down, toiling at his one assigned task. Being a slave to a particular kind of work, he Dr. D. T. Sheffler is a professor of philosophy with Memoria College and has taught philosophy, logic, Latin, and history at the University of Kentucky, Georgetown College, and Asbury College.
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The Mind of a Gentleman
will naturally become knowledgeable about one very specific subject. He knows exactly how to stack Widget A on top of Widget B, and he can tell you anything you want to know about these two specific widgets—but no more. He does not share the gentleman's flexibility and liberality of mind, capable of approaching the whole of life with intelligence and dignity. Newman specifies the ultimate aim of such cultivation thus: Our desideratum [desired thing] is, not the manners and habits of gentlemen … but the force, the steadiness, the comprehensiveness and the versatility of intellect, the command over our own powers, the instinctive just estimate of things as they pass before us, which sometimes indeed is a natural gift, but commonly is not gained without much effort and the exercise of years.
Newman does not conceive of this as a simple ability exercised in discrete mental acts but rather as a broad "habit of mind," an attitude toward reality that colors all one's thoughts, words, and actions: "A habit of mind is formed which lasts through life, of which the attributes are freedom, equitableness, calmness, moderation, and wisdom …." If only we could reliably expect such a habit of mind to come out of our universities today. The distinction between the gentleman and the servile man is not at all a class distinction. MemoriaPress.com
