FREE ESSAY ON THE EDUCATED MAN

THE EDUCATED MAN

"The Educated Man" Period 2
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
forming the critic or experimentalist, the economist or engineer". This statement helps
defend Newman's case. The names mentioned were all men who in some way changed the world.
Those of them who did receive a University diploma do not owe their success or education
to the University they received it from. 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. Today, men such
as Martin Luther, Albert Einstein, and Charlie Chaplin can be added to the list. Albert
Einstein, although considered on of the most educated men ever, never even finished
middle school. These accounts all make a case for Newman in arguing that the general
definition of and educated man- a man who has received diploma and graduation from a
college, as incorrect.
One trait of Newman's educated man is that "he is at home with any society" and "has
common ground with every class." This idea is also contradictory to the thought of the
time- that an educated man relates only to other educated men. I side with Newman on this
issue also. A true educated man knows he may learn more about the anatomy of a fish from
a poor fisherman than a Harvard grad. He knows he may gain knowledge from all walks of
life, and does not limit his knowledge imput to the ideas of just one class. 
Newman concludes his essay by saying, "He has a gift which... without which good fortune
is but vulgar, and with which failure and disappointment have a charm." The fictional
character Jay Gatsby, of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was proof of this. He was a man
who had acquired good fortune without education, and it was indeed vulgar, as opposed to
the charming life of Van Gough, whose artwork, although not rewarded with money during
his lifetime, will forever be appreciated. 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.
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. This essay is still valuable because the idea of an
educated man is still a social title rather than a task to complete. He is still
stereotyped by what they've done, rather than what he is. Perhaps the beginning of
educated men will remain where it has always begun, in the small cleft of a rock- such as
Stratford-upon-Avon or Urbino, Italy, where one learns to ask questions, in pursuit of
their answers stumble upon new world's and ideas alike.