John Henry Newman's The Idea of a University is an attempt to define a liberal arts education. Newman describes liberal education as all around useful knowledge, "In one case it is called Useful Knowledge, in the other Liberal" (1121). Another definition about higher learning liberal arts at a university is for someone to learn who he or she really is or really wants to be in life through a liberal education. That person is also responsible for forming some kind of lifestyle according to what he or she has grasped onto from the university way of living, "It neither confines its views to particular professions on the one hand, nor creates heroes or inspires genius on the other" (1126). Many people also consider that a university is a place to receive a proof that he or she is qualified to work in a particular field of study as a professional. Newman believes this too when he says, "be a lawyer, or a pleader, or an orator, or a statesman, or a physician, or a good landlord, or a man of business, or a soldier, or an engineer, or a chemist, or a geologist, or an antiquarian," (1125), but he believes they should also know about other things outside of their own profession. .
I agree that each person should have the right to attend an educational institution seeking their own understanding of higher learning. There are some people that have the resources, whether it is wealth or academically, to access higher learning at a university, but for those who do not, they have to be content with what they have learned through earlier years of school to succeed in life, which we know is not much anymore. Another picture of how life at a university should be is presented when Newman states, "He is at home in any society, he has common ground with every class;" (1122) to express that there aren't any barriers between fellow students, faculty, or anyone at the university. There wouldn't be people asking what your major is then and snickering or laughing when you say psychology or anthropology.