The Concept of a university / Kenneth R. Minogue

Includes index.

Introduction. Of heels and hammers -- Part One. The problem of identification -- 1. The beginning of universities -- 2. Religion and academic freedom -- 3. Lectures, dons and undergraduate: institutional resilience -- 4. The academic and the practical world --Part two. Imitations of the academic -- 5. The battle of beliefs -- 6. Journalism: nutshell truths for the breakfast table -- 7. The ideological imitation: the dangers of a little learning -- 8. Is the academic world itself ideological? -- Part three. The siege of academe -- 9. The doctrine of social adaptation -- 10. The doctrine of social transformation -- 11. The secret university.

The theme of this book first appeared at the very dawn of theoretical inquiry, in the famous story about Thales, who fell down a well because he was so busy looking at the stars. Theory and practice, in other words, diverge: whoever genuinely contemplates is unworldly, whilst the vision of the practical man is limited by his ends. Europe's theoretical impulse has largely been cultivated in institutions we refer to either as 'universities' (by virtue of their medieval roots) or as 'academic' (in reference to their Greek inspiration). But with the spread of education in recent times, the original divergence between theory and practice seems to have fallen away.