When I said earlier that all the education in the world does not make someone a morally good person, I expect that no teacher was offended. In the same way, when I say that all the computer skills in the world do not make a person educated, I expect that no computer science professor is offended. And no one can accuse me of pridefully and prejudicially looking down on other disciplines, for I myself am a computer science major. Computer programming knowledge and skills are very important, as the Y2K problem more than amply demonstrates. They are much more useful than a liberal arts education for a great deal of things, but they are not good for their own sake.
Computer skills are good only for working with computers.
Education, on the other hand, is good in itself, for it is perfecting and fulfilling of the human person in a way that technical knowledge and training can never be. A university is dedicated to educating its students, so let us put first things first without excluding the proper and important place of all the other disciplines. The Idea of a University, Preface. For a fuller explanation, I direct the reader to Newman himself, as I do not have space to elaborate. Thinking the readers might benefit from it as I had, I asked for and received his permission to publish it.