what a university is really for well the
main thing is to teach people how to
make a living
educating the young to be engineers
biochemists or economists but there's
another stranger bigger ambition lurking
away there somewhere in the background
and it sometimes comes out during
commencement addresses or at the lyrical
moments of graduation ceremonies and
that's the idea that universities might
teach us how to live that is that these
might be places to go and study in order
to work out what really matters who we
are where our societies should be headed
and how we can be happier and more
fulfilled not coincidentally
a great many universities were founded
in the mid 19th century at exactly the
time when belief in religion was
undergoing a severe and in the eyes of
many alarming decline at that time a lot
of questions were asked about where
people were going to go and find meaning
consolation wisdom and a sense of
community all the things they'd once
found in a church and to certain
educationalists there was one answer
above all others what people had once
found in churches they would now be able
to discover in things like the dialogues
of Plato the plays of Shakespeare the
novels of Jane Austen the paintings of
Botticelli or Titian in other words in a
secularizing Age culture would replace
Scripture that's a beautiful moving idea
and it's been responsible for the
construction of so many universities as
well as museums concert halls and
libraries but there's a problem
pitch up at any actual university more
or less anywhere in the world and start
asking big questions like where should I
go with my life where is meaning to be
found how can we change things in this
troubled world and the stunt teaching
staff will either call for the police or
an insane asylum it's just not what
you're allowed to ask the really big
questions and inner dramas that people
used to take to religion seem strangely
out of place in the average university
setting where the mood is far cooler
more abstract and oddly removed from
anything too practical urgent big
questions that many students in the
humanities have like how can I learn
about relationships what should I do
with my life how can i reconcile my
demand for money with my
choir man for meaning how does power
work out there in the world such
questions aren't necessarily very well
addressed or answered currently
universities have departments named
after big academic disciplines like
history or literature or philosophy but
such titles really just reflect pretty
arcane priorities rather than accurately
picking up on issues that actually
trouble people in their lives in the
ideal University of the future that
original dream that culture could
replace scripture would be taken so
seriously the departments would be
reorganized to reflect the actual
priorities of our lives so for example
there might be a department for
relationships and another for death a
center for anxiety and an academy for
career self-knowledge you wouldn't study
18th century history or the picaresque
novel you'd study how to be less anxious
or how to be more compassionate
complaining about how many universities
are today isn't a way of giving up on
them it's an attempt to get them to live
up to their original promise which is in
a busy world where most of us are just
scrambling around full-time trying to
make a living to act at centers which
can generate those ideas that will truly
help us to live and to die well
you