3 JULY 1947, Page 19

SIR,-Mr. W. N. Leak rightly indicts the shocking practice of

degrading the great human tradition of writing to the status of a punishment. But is not his alternative equally destructive of any real love for literature? Surely the majority of pupils for whom its study is associated with a penal sanction will tend to dislike it? It is this failure to take into account the emotional, as distinct from the intellectual, factors of learning which reduces its long-term value and, in after life, produces both emotional and intellectual frustrations in so-called " educated " people.—

Yours faithfully, W. M. A. JONES. c/o Hatherop Castle, Fairford, Glos.