THE P RTAL
November 2013
Page 14
Thoughts on Newman
Newman and Schools
by Stephen Morgan
Reflecting
on his position within
the Roman Catholic Church in 1863, Newman
wrote, “. . . now from first to last, education . . . has
been my line”, and it is certainly true that at the time
he was writing, he had been, more or less, involved in
the business of education for over four decades.
a practical educator
His professional involvement in
education, from his life as a fellow
at Oriel College—and especially as
a tutor—to his work in establishing
both the Catholic University in
Ireland and the Oratory School in
Birmingham, gave him a very serious
claim to be both a practical educator
and what might today be called an
educational theorist.
had been appointed to the living, in 1828, he had been
solicitous in his care of souls there. In addition to
raising funds for a Church, he also established a school
for the children of the locality: church and school
were completed in 1835 and, until his conversion
in 1845 (and especially after his withdrawal from
University life in 1843) Newman
was assiduous in his responsibilities
to the young of Littlemore: teaching
not only religious instruction and the
catechism in the school but also the
three Rs.
He subscribed to the leading
educational journals and it is possible,
by seeing which pages he had cut in the
copies at the Birmingham Oratory, to
view the articles that commanded his
attention. For a Victorian for whom
cleanliness was next to Godliness,
He was, and had been, a teacher by
perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised
both instinct and training, by both
Littlemore St Mary
that these included not only articles
appetite and necessity. Newman’s
involvement in education was lifelong but we usually on how and what to teach but also those concerning
think of it as being concentrated on his work and the necessity of proper hygiene, particularly for girls!
writings regarding university-level learning.
It is true that his teaching at Oxford, the developments
in the tutorial system that he initiated at Oriel, under
and in spite of its then Provost, Edward Hawkins,
together with his, ultimately, doomed attempts
to establish a University in Ireland left a legacy of
educational thinking that ought to be required reading
for all educators down to the present. There is, however,
a less well known story: that of his involvement with
the establishment of schools.
church and school
The village of Littlemore, three miles distant from
the University Church of St Mary, on the High in
Oxford, was one of those little anomalies, hallowed by
centuries of custom and practice, that had survived in
the English Church from medieval times, despite the
upheavals and unpleasantness of the sixteenth century.
This collection of agricultural hovels had long been
pastoral care of the Vicar of St Mary’s, as a detached
part of the parish. Indeed one had to travel through
two other parishes to get to it. From the moment he
Newman’s principle
educational monument
The Oratory School established in Edgbaston in
1859 and, since 1942 at Woodcote in Oxfordshire, will
always be Newman’s principle educational monument.
Paul Shrimpton’s history of the school, ‘A Catholic
Eton?’, is certainly worth its modest cover price.
Newman’s involvement in the school was not merely
as its founder: as with the school at Littlemore, he was
active in its daily operation.
At the Oratory School, he very much enjoyed taking
lessons as a supply teacher if the scheduled master was
absent. Writing on one such occasion, he recorded: ‘…
if I could believe it to be God’s will, [I] would turn away
my thoughts from ever writing anything, and should
see, in the superintendence of these boys, the nearest
return to my Oxford life . . . .’. I was browsing through a
second-hand bookseller’s in Oxford only this week and
found a three volume set of Milton’s poetical works.
On the fly-leaf was the following dedication: ‘Henry V.
Pope, First Prize for Debating, Midsummer 1888’ and
signed ‘J.H.Card. N.’