John Henry Newman’s Idea of a University remains a primer for thinking about the purpose of a university and the value of a liberal education for Christian and secularist alike; his silky prose and lofty visions continue to inspire those seeking to shape their own educational institutions today, and this is no less true for the author of this book: Paul Shrimpton, an Oxford historian devoted to the ‘making of men’ (and, indeed, women) at Magdalen College School, where he teaches. The ‘Making of Men’ is a worthwhile undertaking, asking what Newman’s Idea looked like in practice during the foundation and early years of the Catholic University in Dublin. The title suggests a more significant study and comparison with Oxford, but essentially this is an account of the challenges – constitutional, political, financial and pastoral – that faced Newman as he struggled to establish a collegiate university in mid-century Dublin as its first rector (1854–58). The Oriel College of Newman’s early years certainly overshadows proceedings, not least in Newman’s commitment to the pastoral duties of a tutor and a college but, as Shrimpton demonstrates, the complex political and religious environment made the reproduction of the Oxonian ideal extremely hard in Dublin. Apart from the absence of any significant endowments, the young institution evidently struggled with its lack of autonomy; Newman found himself in constant tension with the Irish bishops (not least, Archbishop Paul Cullen), whose own education in seminaries was far more constrained than that which Newman had benefited from at Oxford.
Despite such constraints, Shrimpton nonetheless reveals Newman’s ambition, practical engagement with the institution (for example, carving meat for students in St Mary’s Hall), and entrepreneurialism. Having engaged with the royal commission’s report on Oxford – the so-called ‘Blue Book’, published in 1852 – Newman was, by comparison with the Tractarians who had remained at Oxford, audacious; it was his hope, for instance, that the Catholic University would become the pre-eminent centre of physical science in the United Kingdom, and he even tried to establish an astronomical observatory. In this respect, Shrimpton presents Newman as championing a via media between the German research university and the collegiate university he knew from his youth.
Particularly in these earlier chapters, Shrimpton has used a range of sources to shape an interesting narrative and offers some valuable reflections upon Newman’s philosophy of education. However, later chapters give detailed information on daily life in the halls that adds little to the study and, by comparison, scant analysis of the university’s failure. Given Colin Barr’s impressive account of Newman’s Dublin years in Paul Cullen, John Henry Newman, and the Catholic University of Ireland (Notre Dame, 2003), a seminal book hardly referenced in this study, The ‘Making of Men’ sadly contributes relatively little to our understanding of the Catholic University and to a critical appreciation of Newman as an educationalist.
