The Self-Taught Man

A person does not need a university education in order to be successful. The only thing that is required for success, and by success I mean lifelong happiness and satisfaction, is passion. Many people, however, lack the initiative to go out and seek their passion. This is where a university becomes a useful tool. The tool only becomes useful with the will to use it, and use it correctly.

A university can offer courses in every field on earth and those not of this earth—fields ranging from basket weaving to philosophy and maybe even philosophy of basket-weaving. A university can provide massive quantities of resources--books and articles, scholars and experts, lectures and demonstrations. A university can even make it seem like we have to attend these courses on a regular basis, read these books and witness these demonstrations, even write an essay or a blog every now and again (and again and again…) by making us pay in advance for something as abstract as an education. And it’s true; by doing these things we stand a better chance of discovering a passion for something or some things (“things” are not necessarily tangible objects in this case). In this sense, a university can be the hammer that drives us into the diverse media of Academia, forcing our exposure to and making connections between multiplicities of subjects. However, mere exposure is only half the distance. John Henry Newman expresses these same sentiments:

“…It is not mere application, however exemplary, which introduces the mind to truth, not the reading many books, nor the getting up many subjects, not the witnessing many experiments, not the attending many lectures. All this is short of enough; a man may have done it all, yet be lingering in the vestibule of knowledge….”

Like Newman, I also feel that a cultivated mind is key to understanding the truth and real value of our world. However, I believe that this cultivation is only attainable through passion. That is why my idea of an ideal university is a place like Christminster--the side of the wall where Jude lives and spends his life as a mason, with only dreams of becoming a student at the university. Hardy gives those in the town an air of dissatisfaction and exclusion. But I see the town as a place where people have passion in performing their various crafts and trades. Jude has a passion for learning and if not for his lack of initiative and resourcefulness he could learn truths about life and the world just as well if not better than a college student. He is going nowhere by dreaming of the education he will never have. The self-taught man is superior to the man who goes to classes, reads books, and attends lectures but never uses his knowledge in his day-to-day life. The self-taught man learns through trial and error, which may be inefficient and primitive, but is the only true way to satisfy one’s passions. By surrounding one's self with people like this, I think one can more easily find his or her own way and passion.