Sir, - Stephen F Mills (July 9th) seems to have missed at least two points in his defence of Queen's. Firstly, governments which decide on the amount of university funding and businesses which give money to research, are not always altogether disinterested. Secondly, some subjects are intrinsically more worthwhile than others. This is a novel idea, as we are living in an age when the value of everything is decided by how much money it can produce, at the end of the day.
The devaluing of certain subjects and the promotion of others merely on (largely undefined) practical grounds, has already had effect on second level education. Having decided against subjects that promote literacy and objective thought, we are now teaching classes that are less literate, less well read, have an impoverished vocabulary and in general have less mental curiosity than previously.
Trivia have replaced general knowledge and we have a generation the range of whose intellectual stimuli has been set by what is called popular culture. To go against this or to question the commercial values of our age is, as your correspondent shows, to attract the accusation of snobbishness.
Sallust complained that in Rome everything was for sale if a buyer could be found. Queen's, it seems, has found one. - Yours, etc., David Keogh,
Bray, Co Wicklow.