ENGLISH CULTURE
" A Spectator's Notebook " last week you referred to the phenomenal sales of Dr. Trevelyan's English Social History and to the 83} tons of paper devoted to this publication by the Board of Track. With some complacency, you argue that those facts prove that England cannot be dismissed as " totally devoid of culture." No doubt you are right—though whether Government-directed culture of this kind is desir- ab'e you do not argue. Following the example of a foolish question in Parliament, you contrast Dr. Trevelyan's tome. with its bountiful backinc of Government paper, with that lively political squib Your MP., which sold very well in spite of not having won the approval'of some scholarly civil servant in the Board of Trade and of having to fight its way to the bookstalls without one ream or quire of Government paper. No doubt Your M.P. was not a genteel book and startled some deeply entrenched placemen much as did the Letters of 7unius of an earlier tradition. Nonetheless, Macaulay's yet unborn may point to the large independent sales of that book as a portent more truly indicative of English " culture " than the fact that Dr. Trevelyan's book has been made the choice of the
Reform Club, Pall Mall, S.W. 1.
Previous page
