Two Books, Two Presses

Some years ago, I bought a copy of The Idea of a University, edited by Frank M. Turner for Yale University Press. Within the last year, having read Ian Ker's biography of Newman, I looked into it for some of the lectures on university subjects: Newman first published the Lectures and Essays on University Subjects as a separate volume, but then incorporated them in later editions of The Idea of a University. I found that the volume had four of the ten, with the remark that

Publication of the entire text of the Lectures and Essays on University Subjects would have been economically prohibitive.

A bit of looking about showed that Notre Dame Press still has available Martin J. Svaglic's edition of The Idea of a University, which gives all ten of the lectures. The series in which the volume came out is I believe discontinued, but Notre Dame Press will still sell you the book.

Having bought Notre Dame's edition, I have to say that Yale's made a judicious choice among the lectures on university subjects. Among those it omits, the essay on University Preaching, taken to heart, might much improve Roman Catholic homiletics in the United States; but it is far more about preaching than about the university.  The essay on Christianity and Medical Science is worth reading; but again, hardly bearing on the university. Though the essays on Elementary Studies are amusing, they aren't ones that I'm likely to reread. "Discipline of Mind: An Address to the Evening Classes" is worth reading, yet the meat of its argument is found in "Knowledge Viewed in Relation to Learning" in The Idea of a University proper.

On the other hand, Yale does give one a good hundred pages of "interpretive essays" of varying interest. One or two I could happily spare for one of the omitted lectures or essays by Newman.

It it to Yale's credit that it carries its end notes through to the end of the essays. Notre Dame Press pleads want of space in ending the notes after The Idea of a University proper.  If you want a translation of

nova frondes, et non sua poma

a line from Virgil that appears in the second lecture on English Catholic Literature, you will need the notes of Yale's edition ("strange leaves and fruits not their own").