TABLE OF CONTENTS The development and transmission of knowledge has traditionally been seen as a central governing role and responsibility of universities. German education reformer Wilhelm von Humboldt advocated the idea of akademische freiheit (academic freedom) as the traditional ideal of the German university. He believed that the freedom to pursue knowledge is a fundamental principle of democracy that defines the existence of universities. A university's pursuit of knowledge, according to Humboldt, is inexhaustible and tireless: "One unique feature of higher intellectual institutions is that they conceive of science and scholarship as dealing with ultimately inexhaustible tasks: this means that they are engaged in an unceasing process of inquiry" (Humboldt, 1970:243). Similarly in John Henry Newman's classic The Idea of a University on the philosophy of higher education, he argued that the pursuit of knowledge is an end in itself, and that the university is a community of scholars, teachers and students devoted to the pursuit of truth. The "idea" which Newman referred to in his title work in 1851 was used in the sense of "ideal" a focal point of how universities treated knowledge as an entity pursued for its own sake, regardless of cost or consequence. This ideal is most frequently exemplified by the university's role as the "critic and conscience of society".
While universities today still retain their role as the "critic and conscience of society", the...
