Reviews for New Music Matters: Age 11-14 Bk.1 (New music matters 11-14)

The average rating for New Music Matters: Age 11-14 Bk.1 (New music matters 11-14) based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-08-11 00:00:00 Daniel Callahan All the while I was listening to, reading along with, and contemplating Newman’s The Idea of a University I’ve been fighting this overwhelming sense of inadequacy. I can’t remember when I’ve encountered an author who’s challenged me so. While an excellent discipline and one to which I do not see myself equal, I shall nevertheless attempt to present a portrait of this great man and his phenomenal work, fully recognizing myself in his description of youthful males, though I am neither young nor male:‘all boys are more or less inaccurate, because they are boys; boyishness of mind means inaccuracy. Boys cannot deliver a message, or execute an order, or relate an occurrence, without a blunder. They do not rouse up their attention and reflect: they do not like the trouble of it: they cannot look at anything steadily; and, when they attempt to write, off they go in a rigmarole of words, which does them no good, and never would, though they scribbled themes till they wrote their fingers off.’ Bearing this in mind, reader, proceed at your own risk. What follows is an interview between myself and the illustrious author of The Idea of a University, Cardinal John Henry Newman, all quotes taken from the text. Although this method doesn’t give a complete overview of the book, it has the benefit of allowing you to hear the Cardinal’s words firsthand. BOOKLADY: ‘Good Sir, will you please tell us, what is your ‘Idea of a University’?’ CARDINAL NEWMAN: ‘The view taken of a University in these Discourses is the following:—That it is a place of teaching universal knowledge. But, practically speaking, it cannot fulfill its object duly, such as I have described it, without the Church's assistance; or, to use the theological term, the Church is necessary for its integrity.’ BL: ‘Who have you written this book for?’ CN: ‘To Catholics of course this Volume is primarily addressed ... BL: ‘And to what purpose?’ CN: ‘I have formed a probable conception of the sort of benefit which the Holy See has intended to confer on Catholics who speak the English tongue by recommending to the Irish Hierarchy the establishment of a University; and this I now proceed to consider. Here, then, it is natural to ask those who are interested in the question, whether any better interpretation of the recommendation of the Holy See can be given than that which I have suggested in this Volume.’ BL: ‘Do tell us some of the advantages you see accruing from a university education?’ CN: ‘Certainly a liberal education does manifest itself in a courtesy, propriety, and polish of word and action, which is beautiful in itself, and acceptable to others; but it does much more. It brings the mind into form,—for the mind is like the body. When the intellect has once been properly trained and formed to have a connected view or grasp of things, it will display its powers with more or less effect according to its particular quality and capacity in the individual. In the case of most men it makes itself felt in the good sense, sobriety of thought, reasonableness, candour, self-command, and steadiness of view, which characterize it. In some it will have developed habits of business, power of influencing others, and sagacity.’ BL: ‘How important is Theology to the overall functioning of the university?’ CN: ‘Theology is surely a branch of knowledge: how then is it possible for it to profess all branches of knowledge, and yet to exclude from the subjects of its teaching one which, to say the least, is as important and as large as any of them? Furthermore, if a University be, from the nature of the case, a place of instruction, where universal knowledge is professed, and if in a certain University, so called, the subject of Religion is excluded, one of two conclusions is inevitable,—either, little or nothing is known about the Supreme Being, or that his seat of learning calls itself what it is not.’ BL: ‘You have very strong beliefs about this Your Eminence. Would it surprise you to know that many Catholic Universities today do not even teach the Catholic religion, much less practice it?’ CN: ‘Religious doctrine is knowledge; in as full a sense as Newton's doctrine is knowledge. University Teaching without Theology is simply unphilosophical. Theology has at least as good a right to claim a place there as Astronomy. BL: ‘Yes, indeed. If only we could get more universities which call themselves ‘Catholic’ to read your book. Moving on... How do you envision non-Catholics interfacing with or in a Catholic university?’ CN: ‘Is there any reason why we should not study the Great Newton’s Principia, or avail ourselves of the wonderful analysis which he, Protestant as he was, originated, and which French infidels have developed? We are glad, for their own sakes, that anti-Catholic writers should, in their posthumous influence, do as much real service to the human race as ever they can, and we have no wish to interfere with it.’ BL: ‘Yes, well, you could get away with writing like that back in the 1800s. Today, we have to engage in a sort of doublespeak, also known as political correctness. But never mind, moving on... As I’m particularly fond of reading and books, I couldn’t help noticing your comments on literature were often less than complimentary.’ CN: ‘First-rate excellence in literature, as in other matters, is either an accident or the outcome of a process; and in either case demands a course of years to secure. We cannot reckon on a Plato, we cannot force an Aristotle, any more than we can command a fine harvest, or create a coal field. If a literature be, as I have said, the voice of a particular nation, it requires a territory and a period, as large as that nation's extent and history, to mature in. The literature of England is no longer a mere letter, printed in books, and shut up in libraries, but it is a living voice, which has gone forth in its expressions and its sentiments into the world of men, which daily thrills upon our ears and syllables our thoughts, which speaks to us through our correspondents, and dictates when we put pen to paper. BL: ‘How does English Literature compare to that found in other countries?’ CN: ‘We should not much mend matters if we were to exchange literatures with the French, Italians, or Germans.’ BL: ‘Really?’ CN: ‘One literature may be better than another, but bad will be the best, when weighed in the balance of truth and morality. It cannot be otherwise; human nature is in all ages and all countries the same; and its literature, therefore, will ever and everywhere be one and the same also. Man's work will savour of man; in his elements and powers excellent and admirable, but prone to disorder and excess, to error and to sin. Such too will be his literature. “It is said of the holy Sturme,” says an Oxford writer, “that, in passing a horde of unconverted Germans, as they were bathing and gambolling in the stream, he was so overpowered by the intolerable scent which arose from them that he nearly fainted away.” National Literature is, in a parallel way, the untutored movements of the reason, imagination, passions, and affections of the natural man, the leapings and the friskings, the plungings and the snortings, the sportings and the buffoonings, the clumsy play and the aimless toil, of the noble, lawless savage of God's intellectual creation. It is well that we should clearly apprehend a truth so simple and elementary as this, and not expect from the nature of man, or the literature of the world, what they never held out to us.’ BL: ‘I suppose there’s nothing new under the sun? Does this at least give moral weight to those who would advocate a steady diet of classics?’ CN: ‘The influence of a great classic upon the nation which he represents is twofold; on the one hand he advances his native language towards its perfection; but on the other hand he discourages in some measure any advance beyond his own. On the whole, the influence of a Classic acts in the way of discouraging anything new, rather than in that of exciting rivalry or provoking re-action.’ BL: ‘Worser and worser...’ CN: ‘As a nation declines in patriotism, so does its language in purity.’ BL: ‘Please forgive my little joke Your Eminence. We have certainly seen evidence of such a decline in our own country I'm sorry to say. You were very clear in your book about the importance of a classical education based on the seven Liberal Arts, arranged in two groups, the first (trivium) embracing grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, in other words, the sciences of language, of oratory, and of logic, or language studies; the second group (quadrivium) comprises arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. Can you tell us about any of your experiences with early education?’ CN: ‘The great moral I would impress upon you is this, that in learning to write Latin, as in all learning, you must not trust to books, but only make use of them; not hang like a dead weight upon your teacher, but catch some of his life; handle what is given you, not as a formula, but as a pattern to copy and as a capital to improve; throw your heart and mind into what you are about, and thus unite the separate advantages of being tutored and of being self-taught,—self-taught, yet without oddities, and tutorized, yet without conventionalities.’ BL: ‘Thank you so much for your time Cardinal. Your book has been such an inspiration to me these past weeks. I cannot begin to tell you how much I have learned! Do you have any last words for young people today, their parents and their teachers?’ CN: ‘Half the controversies which go on in the world arise from ignorance of the facts of the case; half the prejudices against Catholicity lie in the misinformation of the prejudiced parties. Candid persons are set right, and enemies silenced, by the mere statement of what it is that we believe. It will not answer the purpose for a Catholic to say, “I leave it to theologians,” “I will ask my priest;” but it will commonly give him a triumph, as easy as it is complete, if he can gratify their curiosity by giving them information. Generally what is given as information will really be an argument as well as information. I recollect some twenty-five years ago, three friends of my own, as they then were, clergymen of the Establishment, making a tour through Ireland. In the West or South they had occasion to become pedestrians for the day; and they took a boy of thirteen to be their guide. They amused themselves with putting questions to him on the subject of his religion; and one of them confessed to me on his return that that poor child put them all to silence. How? Not, of course, by any train of arguments, or refined theological disquisition, but merely by knowing and understanding the answers in his catechism.’ ‘A little child shall guide them...’ Isaiah 11:6 ================================== I started this back in 2007, read 3/4 of the way through and then set it aside due to having so many other books going at the same time. In The 'One Thing' Is ­Three: How the Most Holy Trinity Explains Everything, Fr. Michael Gaitley mentions the importance of Newman's thought to Catholic theology, but it seems to me this book has an even broader appeal, having something important to say about university education in general. That plus the recent movie, God's Not Dead, about an American college student who dares to stand up for his belief in God, and the commencement speaker controversies has made me want to go back to the original. Newman defended the study of God this way: Religious doctrine is knowledge, in as full a sense as Newton's doctrine is knowledge. University Teaching without Theology is simply unphilosophical. Theology has at least as good a right to claim a place there as Astronomy.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-06-22 00:00:00 Kevin Lansing This is perhaps the classic work on the question of "what is a university for?" The book consists of two sections. The first is a series of nine "discourses" on University Teaching given on the inauguration of the Catholic University of Ireland, of which he was its first Rector. The second part is a collection of occasional lectures gathered under the theme "University Subjects". Newman's summary in the last of his nine lectures on University Teaching summarizes the argument he pursues in these lectures: I have accordingly laid down first, that all branches of knowledge are, at least implicitly, the subject matter of its teaching; that these branches are not isolated and independent one of another, but form together a whole or system, that they run into each other, and complete each other, and that, in proportion to our view of them, as a whole, is the exactness and trustworthiness of the knowledge which they separately convey; that the process of imparting knowledge to the intellect in this philosophical way is its true culture; that such culture is a good in itself, that the knowledge which is both its instrument and result is called Liberal Knowledge; that such culture, together with the knowledge which effects it, may fitly be sought for its own sake; that it is, however, in addition, of great secular utility, as constituting the best and highest formation of the intellect for social and political life; and lastly, that considered in a religious aspect, it concurs with Christianity a certain way, and then diverges from it; and consequently proves in the event, sometimes its serviceable ally, sometimes, from its very resemblance to it, an insidious and dangerous foe. (pp 162-163) There is so much one could talk about in this summary (and Newman does so at length!) that I will simply observe that he gives what is probably the classic defense of liberal education, articulates a Christian vision for the unity of knowledge, and also articulates the friend/foe relationship in which the Church has often found itself with regard to higher learning. The second part includes lectures on Christianity and letters, English Catholic literature, Elementary studies (the groundwork he sees as necessary for the perfection of the intellect), a lecture on Infidelity, University Preaching, several lectures on Christianity and the sciences, and a lecture on the Discipline of the Mind. Two things stood out to me in these lectures. One was Newman's wisdom as he explore what we call the intersection or integration of faith and discipline. Newman was all for letting each discipline pursue its own modes of inquiry so long as none of these presumed to intrude upon either other disciplines nor the theological enterprise of the church (and vice versa!). On the whole he believes that truth will out in the end and that we don't have to force reconciliations at the expense of theology or other academic disciplines--better to work with mystery and ambiguity. The second thing was his telling comments on how easy it is to know much about many things but in a disordered way rather than to discipline the mind through grammar, composition, the classic languages and foundational beliefs. This might be a telling criticism for our day when university students and even "educated" adults have opinions about everything but cannot write clearly or develop a logical argument. That said, while Newman writes with a mastery of language and argument, he writes as a Victorian, with dense and compound sentences. I found that I often had to read him allow to capture a sense of the flow of his ideas. In other words, there is much rich thinking in this work but it is heavy going that requires the reader's full attention.