Newman was all for a smoother transition into what he called the ‘dangerous season’ of undergraduate life as he realised that ‘nothing is more perilous to the soul than the sudden transition from restraint to liberty’. (Scheme of Rules and Regulations’, 1856)

Above all, he was concerned with how best the student should live and how the university should be structured so as to make such living possible; he aimed at optimising the conditions for the flourishing of the individual by allowing for the development of intellectual and moral qualities in a community that functioned like a second home.

On one occasion Newman underscored his wish for harmony between collegiate house and home by pointing out to the secretary of the Catholic University, ‘Father and Mother have a voice in such [residential] arrangements as my letter implied’. (Newman to Scratton, 21 October 1857)