The idea and purpose of the university has always been subject to dispute. In his classic monograph The Idea of a University, Cardinal Henry Newman put the case for an institution of higher learning that would support research and publication free from the censorship of the Church but in which the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church was respected. “It educates the intellect to reason well”, wrote Newman, “in all matters, to reach out towards truth, and to grasp it.”
The modern university has been loaded with a lot more burdens than that. These days universities are at the centre of the cash nexus. As well as disinterested intellectual inquiry, they have been dragooned by politicians for commercial purpose. Business parks have sprung up,