from The Idea of a University, Cardinal Newman (John Henry Newman)

“It is a case of contract:—’I will speak, if you will listen:’—’I will come here to learn, if you have any thing worth teaching me.’ In an oratorical display, all the effort is on one side; in a lecture, it is shared between two parties, who co-operate towards a common end.”

“The result is a formation of mind,—that is, a habit of order and system, a habit of referring every accession of knowledge to what we already know, and of adjusting the one with the other; and, moreover, as such a habit implies, the actual acceptance and use of certain principles as centres of thought, around which our knowledge grows and is located. Where this critical faculty exists, history is no longer a mere story-book, or biography a romance; orators and publications of the day are no longer infallible authorities; eloquent diction is no longer a substitute for matter, nor bold statements, or lively descriptions, a substitute for proof. This is that faculty of perception in intellectual matters, which, as I have said so often, is analogous to the capacity we all have of mastering the multitude of lines and colours which pour in upon our eyes, and of deciding what every one of them is worth.”

[Source: http://www.newmanreader.org/works/idea/article9.html ]