18 SEPTEMBER 1999, Page 29

Sweet smell of learning

From Professor Norman Stone Sir: Mr John Carr, taking a swipe at me for my nasty remarks about his father, E.H. Carr, says that I had to creep conspue out of Oxford and could only find a bolt-hole in Turkey (Letters, 11 September). No. I took early retirement, as a great many of us do, from the British higher education system in its present condition: the Warden of New College, Alan Ryan, has written well about this in the latest issue of Prospect. My trans- ferring to Turkey only appears weird if you know nothing about modern Turkey. It is an extremely interesting country, my university spends more on books than ten universities in England today, and the students wash. Norman Stone

Turkey