Recently I came across a review of the book entitled, "What are Universities For?" By Stefan Collini (Penguin Group). I found the following points very interesting:
1) In the book Professor Collini says that universities, "provide a home for attempts to extend and deepen human understanding in ways which are, simultaneously, disciplined and illuminable."
2) The author's position is in concert with that held by Cardinal Newman who once said, "A university training is the great ordinary means to a great but ordinary end; it aims at raising the intellectual tone of society…It is the education which gives a man a clear conscious view of his own opinions and judgments, a truth in developing them, an eloquence in expressing them and a force in urging them."
3) Professor Collini emphasizes that a liberal education is not about what students learn or what skills they acquire but "the perspective they have on the place of their knowledge in a wider map of human understanding".