Tribune of the people

TABLE TALK DENIS BROGAN

1 see that the bold attempt to storm the Bastille, not so much of the Paris lycies as

of the French family system which still

treasures the bachot, seems to have failed. Even in the 'bliss was it in that dawn to be alive' atmosphere of the ear:), summer, the !yawns and their professors were defeated by the rallying round of the parents, insisting some- times en masse that the children should resume learning—and that the professeurs had better

resume teaching.

Much more serious, however, are the claims and ambitions of the students in 'higher edu- cation.' What seems to be happening, or threatened, at the LSE is, on the one hand, a natural exploitation of genuine irritations (I don't prejudice the issue by saying grievances) combined in an uneasy mixture with small groups of real or pseudo-revolutionaries who see the Ise not as the new Winter Palace, but as the New Smolny. There are, no doubt, many aspiring Lenins in and around Houghton Street and some very silly members of the teaching body who see themselves as the coun- sellors of the Lenins, the Platos of the new Dionysiuses, and may be as disillusioned as was Plato. But non ragionam di !or use guarda e passa. (I'm on my way to Italy and have been getting up a few impressive phrases.) More serious is the role in which the new Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh, Mr Kenneth Allsop, has cast himself. It seems to me to be an extremely proper role: the role of Students' Ombudsman which, in form, the office was meant to be a long time ago. It must be remembered that all the old Scottish uni- versities were modelled not on Paris but on Bologna, to which famous city I am en route. That is, St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen were supposed to be universities ruled by students, not by masters. There was a lot of fiction in this picture, but the rectorship was—and is—an institution for the tires of the university. Only undergraduates can vote and. as far as I know, the Rector has no imposed duties except to the university in an ideal sense and to the students in a pattern brought down to earth, with more or less success, depending on the industry, capacity and sense of the academic equivalent of the Tribune of the People. So Lord Rector Allsop is promising to carry out the chief of his duties.

True, for a long time, rectors neglected their constituents. They were elected on party politi- cal lines. Peel, Dizzy, Gladstone, Asquith, Birrell down to Bonar Law were among the Glasgow • political rectors. Some were distin- guished alumni like Carlyle or distinguished professors like Sir Herbert Grierson in Edin- burgh. Some were distinguished men of letters or public servants like Barrie in St Andrews and Sir Compton Mackenzie in Glasgow who were not alumni. In more recent years, all the Scottish universities, except Glasgow, have elected 'public faces' like actors (Edinburgh and Aberdeen) or censores moruni like Rector All- sop's predecessor, Dr Malcolm Muggeridge. The only publicly recognised duty was to give a rectorial address, an excuse for a saturnalia of which the most disgraceful was Glasgow's treatment of Lord Butler. The Rector appointed an assessor to the governing body, the Uni- versity Court, who cast his vote more or less as he thought fit.

But the pioneer in restoring the rectorship to its primary function has been Lord Reith in Glasgow, and we may hope that Lord Macleod will imitate him. Lord Reith took a flat in the professors' quadrangle and kept what is now called a 'consulting room.' He was ready to hear complaints well or ill founded, to make representations. but, I am sure, also ready to give advice. (I hope Lord Reith will forgive me if I say he has melted a good deal since he left the Bac.) But a Rector like Lord Reith can, by precept and example, serve not only particular students but the general body.

The young have many virtues; they notice the absence of clothes on the emperor and, today at any rate, they rejoice in having no clothes, material or spiritual, to clothe their own boasted nakedness. But age has some ad- vantages. It is not only that old people like Lord Reith and myself have 'known four-and-

twenty leaders of revolt,' but that they know that although 'the days of our youth are the days of our glory,' most of the lives of the

students will be spent in a not necessarily appre- ciative world which may think that the univer- sities do not prepare the students for regular, disagreeable, frustrating work—as so much work is.

Of course. if you are a 'flower child,' especi- ally with a family income in the background, the failure to learn work habits that are wel-

comed and rewarded will not matter. If the revolution is round the corner, if you cast your- self as Che Guevara or Trotsky, you might

contemplate their fate or even ask what kind of effective lead you will get from Herr Pro- fessor Marcuse. Even if you cast yourself as Lenin (as I found a rather silly young man cast himself and his 'cohorts' at Princeton last

spring), you might ask whether it is certain that Stalin will not follow Lenin. But above all, remember that what is important is not that you are young only once, but that you are young for only a few brief years. Youth is 'a garland briefer than a girl's.' Remember that the most celebrated celebrator of 'bright college years' was Justice Shallow. These are depressing truths that the world teaches faster and harder than even the most arid don.

I don't expect Rector Allsop to live in Edin- burgh as Lord Rector Reith did in Glasgow. That would be almost as absurd as expecting Rector Ustinov to live in Dundee. But he may find real grievances that can be remedied, the survival of old and bad traditions that have not been challenged. He might recall a great Edinburgh medical dynasty of the eighteenth century : it was said that in the old age of David Hume, the third professor of the dynasty was using the notes his grandfather had taken at Leiden when Swift was just about to be exiled to Ireland. And because Rector Allsop is associated with the press (from the SPECTATOR down) and (I believe) with the telly, he is sure to be besieged by would-be performers on the little box or in the public prints. Let him say, 'Here is the address of someone who may help you,' and discover how many would-be en- lighteners of the public mind have to borrow a piece of paper and a pencil to take it down. Let him remark, tactfully, that whatever may be the case in 'the Town's College of Edin- burgh,' lateness for appointments is frowned on in the real world (ask Lord Thomson's employees not very far from 'the College'). Let him suggest the uses of consulting Who's Who when granted an interview by a busy man. Students may express nothing but contempt for the brains of their instructors, but they should remember that Rector Allsop—and other old men- are likely to think that teachers know more, though what they know may not be worth knowing. Remember, Rector Allsop might tell them. the dictum of a famous Master of Trinity a century ago, 'We arc none of us infallible, not even the youngest of us.'

But, students m:;y object to Lord Rector Allsop or possibly even to Lord Rector Ustinov, 'That's the old establishment rot.' So it is. And I speak with feeling as one of the eighty cives of the University of Glasgow who voted for Bertrand Russell against Andrew Bonar Law's thousand in 1919. Today, nobody remembers Bonar Law save Provost Robert Blake and Lord Coleraine, but neither Lord Russell nor myself has moulded the world, or the universities, according to our heart's desire.