SPANNING THE GREAT DIVIDE
SlR,--The correspondence on 'Spanning the Great Divide' has certainly touched some widely separated Points. One or two of the latest remark's seem to call for comments from me.
(1) Dr. Hemmings quotes what I had intended to he an unexceptionally cautious remark : 'The fact that an undergraduate wants to study this only and none of that is not a sufficient and overriding reason for saying he should be allowed to study only this.' He comments: 'I am sorry : my concept of academic freedom extends to the undergraduate level.' This is tendentious. For, first, the usual concept of academic freedom is concerned with freedom to study and to Publish without interference by religious or political authorities. And, second, I do not believe that in fact Dr. Hemmings is any more prepared than I or any other university teacher to allow every undergraduate to study those and only those things which most appeal to him. For I notice from the University of Leicester Handbook (p. 26) that there is provision for a Special (i.e., single honours) Degree in French for Which the undergraduate is required to take in his Part I examination three papers (i) History of the French Language, (ii) Medieval Literature, and (iii) Outlines of French Civilisation.. He is also (worse still!) required to do a supplementary subject (English, Latin, German, History or Philosophy). Yet there seems to be no provision for the man who wants to do only French Mediwval Literature, and to have none of the rest of it. Perhaps Dr. Hemmings is out of sympathy with the whole idea of syllabuses and such like, as violations of his concept of academic freedom? But I guess not.
(2) Dr. Hemmings also comments: 'He adds that of course the would-be specialist is free to go else-, where. This is a little disingenuous. May one quote Sartre to a professional philosopher? "Rien no pent i3tre bon pour nous sans l' etre pour tons." If Professor Flew's admiration for the Keck system is as genuine as it appears, he would be illogical if be did not hope to see it universally adopted, in one form or another.' Certainly I should like to see something like the Keefe system very much commoner than it is, or seems likely to become. Dr. Hemmings was not in the least 'mistaken in detecting a shade of proselytising zeal' in my original article. But that, surely, in no way commits me ta saying, what I assuredly do not believe, that ideally there should be no alternatives to Keele? Zola was an excellent novelist and should perhaps be much more widely read. But that is not to say or to imply that everyone should read Zola; much less that there should be no other novels available for anyope.
(3) Mr. Page alleges that the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics school 'at Oxford is regarded, at least by undergraduates, as a course to read when one wants to devote an unusual amount of time to extra- curricular activity.' This may or may not be true. I don't think that in, my time at Oxford it was. But of course times change. Yet even if it were true of PPE, surely no one would say the same of Litene Humantore.s. ('Greats')? And it would be a very rash, man indeed who dared to apply Mr. Page's more general remarks to that particular joint honours
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