F ',it: Jack Longland, Thomas W. Gadd, ,V,vt W. Rogers,
Henry Jones. John Biggs-.
i3on, MP, David Meredith. Alfred Kazin, M ft. Thompson. E. W. I. Palamountain, L. G. Pine, Charles Hamblett.
In Defence of Oxbridge
Sts.-1 find it odd that Dr Bryan Wilson. who tells us that he taught at Redbrick for longer than he has been at All Souls, should make so little attempt to answer the question that matters most in trying to determine the place of Oxbridge in the future pattern of British universities.
This is. quite simply. whether it is sensible that we should continue to support two super-universities, whose undergraduates are selected either on evidence of intellectual distinction or because they come from a relatively narrow social belt, or—to the hippy confusion of statisticians—because they get in by a marriage of both sets of qualifications. Although the percentages vary as between Oxford , and Cambridge, and shift perceptibly from decade to decade, these are the only two universities in the country which go on betting on a combined Intel- lectual and social elite. And the sixty-four-dollar. question is whether this is a good thing for the development of full-time higher education, or not.
So most of Dr Wilson's arguments in favour of dons having a 1 : 1 or a 1 :2 tutorial ratio beg the .1 much larger question. If you inherit a system in which, in addition to the university receiving the usual subvention from the University Grants Com-. , mittee. the colleges enjoy endowments for which Redbrick would give its eyes. you can afford better , teaching and learning conditions than other univer- sities can afford. The question still remains whether such a disposition of resources in manpower and money is sensible.
In so far as I could understand Dr Wilson's in- volved argument about methods of selecting students. . he seemed in favour of picking those who were already more than half-civilised, because then Ox- bridge could the more easily complete the process., of civilisation. This must surely be the most des- perate rationalisation of Oxbridge's habit of select- ing such a high proportion of ex-public schoolboysi yet invented.
JACK LONGLAND
County Education Office. Matlock. Derbyshire
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