Sir, - Brian Arkins, in his support of continued institutional investments in the increasingly unpopular study of ancient societies (June 26th), seems to ask us to accept that what has always been must always be. I would ask readers to consider the view from the other end of the telescope. Departments that are successful in both teaching and research all too often find that they cannot enhance their strengths, cannot replace retiring staff, and must generally continue to make bricks without much straw so that departments that can neither generate high quality, internationally recognised research, nor attract students, domestic or foreign, can remain inviolate. And try setting up an Irish Studies programme when a university prefers the safe option of staying with the department it already has, rather than risk moving forward to what could be.
Queen's has at least taken difficult decisions. I would probably have disagreed with each and every one, had I been on their Senate, but at least Queen's is considering options for its future rather than relying upon the future being merely more of the same. To accuse anyone willing to make difficult decisions of being merely a Thatcherite philistine does not give these vital issues the seriousness they deserve. To sneer at those trying to move a university forwards does no-one any favours, and may expose little more than the snobbishness of those who argue in such a vein.
Defend the study of classical languages by all means, but do us the honour of recognising that reformers can just sometimes have legitimate positions. And given the power of the classics within European universities for so many years, I am less than sympathetic when classicists believe that quoting Plato confirms rather than merely asserts a newly acquired status as victims. - Yours, etc., Stephen F. Mills
Senior Lecturer in American Studies, Keele University, Staffordshire ST5 5BG