“Today I have confined myself to saying that the training of the intellect, which is best for the individual himself, best enables him to discharge his duties to society. The philosopher, indeed, and the man of the world differ in their very notion, but the methods by which they are respectively formed are pretty much the same. The Philosopher has the same command of matters of thought which the true citizen and gentleman has of business and conduct.If then a practical end must be assigned to a university course, I say it is that of training good members of society. Its art is the art of social life and its end is fitness for the world. It neither confines its views to particular professions on one hand, nor creates heroes or inspires genius on the other. Works indeed of genius fall under no art; heroic minds come under no rule; a university is not a birthplace of poets or of immortal authors, founders of schools, leaders of colonies or conquerors of nations. It does not promise a generation of Aristotles, Newtons, Napoleons or Washingtons, Raphaels or Shakespears though such miracles of nature it has before now contained within its precincts. Nor is it content on the other hand with forming the critic or the experimentalist, the economist or the engineer, though such too, it includes within its scope. But a university training is the great ordinary means to a great but ordinary end; it aims to raise the intellectual tone of society; at cultivating the public mind; at purifying the national taste; at supplying true principles to popular enthusiasm, and fixed aims to popular aspiration. It is the education which gives a man a clear conscious view of his own opinions and judgements, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them and a force in urging them. It teaches him to see things as they are, to go right to the point, to disentangle a skin of thought to detect what is sophistical and to discard what is irrelevant. It prepares him to fill any post with credit and to master any subject with facility. It shows him how to accommodate himself to others, how to throw himself into their state of mind, how to bring before them his own, how to influence them, how to bear with them. He is at home in any society; he has common ground with every class. He knows when to speak and when to be silent. He is able to converse; he is able to listen; he is a pleasant companion and a comrade you can depend on; he knows when to be serious and when to trifle and he has a sure tact which enables him to trifle gracefulness and to be serious with effect. The art which tends to make a man all this is, in the object which it pursues, as useful as the art of wealth or the art of health, though it is less susceptible of method, less tangible, less certain, less complete in its result.”
Can someone explain what the heck this is talking about ..
Can someone explain what the heck this is talking about ..