Taken as read
Sir: I suppose we can only gain from know- ing about the opinions and nrejudices of our Secretary of State for Education; and therefore you are to be commended for finding space for him (`Mast think harder', 2 October); but how depressing it is to read such intellectual posturing in a man with so
LETTERS
much power. I remember Sir Peter Tizard once telling me of a railway journey with just such a man, and of how by the end of it he had found himself forced to repudiate his deepest convictions in order to escape association with someone so glib, so vain and so shallow. Mr Patten is a master of all the jargon of the now slightly passé Right with his talk of rigour (of which his asser- tions bear little evidence), pseudo-religions (ask Dawkins and Lucretius about which are not), his approving citation of French educational methods (have 150 years of a National Curriculum done them so much good?), his reference to 'Canons of beauty' (which beholder's eye are we to regard as beamless?), his crass misunderstanding of Leavis' quarrel with Snow (the man who rose between two stools), his jejune tone of voice (teacher — or rather minister knows best), his misuse of your columns not to argue his case but to print a political speech. Why didn't he resign after making a mess of things and let someone better equipped intellectually and in character (even in the present set of Conservatives there must be someone) take over what should be our most important ministry?
But what need have Ito point all this out to your supposedly intelligent readership? Homo ipsis loquitur.
John A. Davis
1 Cambridge Road, Great Shelford, Cambridge
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