Knowledge is power. The immortal adage of Francis Bacon, etched deeply into the surface, graced the middle step of a stone amphitheater that descended some thirty feet to the entrance of a university library. Ascending and descending were translations of Bacon’s phrase in the languages of the world: wissen ist macht; savoir, c’est pouvoir; und so weiter.

This amphitheater posed to those who beheld it fundamental questions concerning the meaning of knowledge and its relationship to the human mind. It seemed to promise that answers to such questions could be found in the library’s hallowed halls.

The young man mounted the stairs and climbed this amphitheater of stone to the second level. Paces away, emblazoned on the wall, were words of T.S. Eliot: “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge,” Eliot asked, “where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” The placement of Eliot’s question, its proximity to the saying of Bacon, seemed to suggest an irony that rose above the expressions of joy and excitement sounding from the lips of undergraduates. Many of these young persons stood in awe, nursing their autumnal, pumpkin-spiced lattes, and marveled at the wonders and the luxuriousness of their new study space.

Man, Great and Small

Next to the words of T.S. Eliot were writings and sayings of the Bard. The man was transported back to his school days, to his sophomore literature class—to Hamlet, to the great Prince of Denmark: “What a piece of work is man!” marveled the Prince. “How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god!”

The man thought then of the Psalmist, who took a smaller view of mankind and his place in the universe to emphasize the holiness and vastness of God. What is man, that thou art mindful of him? Yet, in his very deference, in the act of acknowledging his smallness, the Psalmist also seemed to convey a proper understanding of his relation to the order of things, of his place in the universe, and of his relationship to God. He assessed rightfully and in proper measure the order of the cosmos.

The young man thought on Josef Pieper who, channeling St. Thomas Aquinas, wrote that man’s “existence as a spiritual being involves being and remaining oneself and at the same time admitting and transforming oneself into the reality of the world. … But where there is mind, the totality of things has room; it is ‘possible that in a single being the comprehensiveness of the whole universe may dwell.’”

His mind crystallized. What was this man of whom Shakespeare and the Psalmist wrote? What was his knowledge for? This seemed a plausible reason for the existence of libraries: to safeguard and preserve, in the form of books, wisdom of the ages. Such knowledge teaches man to himself. It reveals to him, as James V. Schall writes, what he himself lacks, and illuminates for him those permanent things that are not himself yet to which he must conform.

The young man explored in search of those “long corridors, empty sunlit rooms, upstairs indoor silences.” He sought, in the spirit of C. S. Lewis, great and “endless books.” Through the book—its typeface, its spine, the scent of its paper, and its crisp or worn pages—one might engage in conversation with the greatest minds, come into genuine relationship with the Great Tradition, all through the wisdom and guidance of teachers long gone, yet endlessly present.

Wisdom and Knowledge

He moved upward to the third level to take stock of the new space set aside for those of his kind: aspiring academic professionals committed to research and teaching. His new professional space bore the plaque, “Graduate Reading Room.” It was beautiful, well illumined with light artificial and natural, meticulously furnished, and spacious. Stainless steel appliances graced the kitchenette. Expansive glass windows enabled the distracted reader who sat to study to see beyond his monograph and out into the world—or the cafe.

Here he and his fellow graduate colleagues would do the necessary reading. They would become well versed in theory, historiographical argument, and methodology. They would learn to package their commitments to advantageous political causes in ways that promoted progress and openness and inclusiveness in the university. They would formulate popular critiques of tradition and tear down its lampposts. The young man left the space and returned downstairs. In a nearby lounge, a student ate pizza while listening to music on his noise-cancelling headphones.

Many of the library’s holdings had been removed to a warehouse on the other end of the city. To be sure, the library boasted a capable, efficient, and friendly staff that could retrieve these books in a matter of hours. They were not gone, as such. But they were not present. In their place were sleek PCs and iMacs with twenty-one-and-a-half-inch LCD displays, from which students might view a treasure trove of information, data, periodicals, and e-books.

The young man thought on Eliot’s words that graced the entry to this space: “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?” A will to believe in the glittering illusion of technology in the library, and a will to enact that belief in the ensuing removal of its books, did not result merely in spatial emptiness. Something deeper seemed lost in the transaction.

Schall writes in a fine essay on the joys of learning from teachers he never met, yet with whom he inquired into timeless knowledge, into the nature of things, through books. The act of handling and coming into relationship with the book was itself a sacramental form, an act of participation in a divine mystery.

No church in which the Eucharist is absent is rightfully called a church, the young man reasoned. He wondered how a library empty of its books might be known by those who congregated in its halls. The books were banished, but not the books only. So, too, were the teachers—the minds that conceived the books.

Timeless Knowledge

Universities, New York Times columnist David Brooks observed recently, once stood as repositories of timeless knowledge where students came to seek, and ultimately to embrace, a fuller meaning of life, their humanity, and the universe. Universities now, Brooks writes, “are more professional and glittering than ever, but there is emptiness deep down.”

In front of their laptops, their iPads, engaged in conversations over coffee and music, sat students in every nook and corner of this beautiful—and startlingly empty—space. For these students, thought the young man, the joys of knowledge and discovery were still before them, hidden in books, as yet undiscovered. There, in that moment, and in that space, students had access to a vast sea of information, and even to some Great Books.

Perhaps they would begin the lifelong journey of piecing together that knowledge, slowly, with great joy, care, and delight, into some comprehensive and meaningful whole. But to do this they would need the writings of John Henry Newman. And Newman’s book was nowhere to be found.

Mitchell G. Klingenberg is a doctoral candidate in American history at Texas Christian University. He lives and writes in Texas.