From Dr Peter T. King Sir: Every year I attempt
to reassure the undergraduates I teach, especially those in their first year, by explaining that no one expects them to produce original philo- sophical ideas and arguments. Rather, they should work on understanding the works and the issues that they're studying, letting their own ideas come at their own pace.
It is disturbing that George Baily and Catharine Gulick, when first-year under- graduates, should have so badly misunder- stood this as to take me to have ordered them not to be original. I can assure you that I shall learn from this. In future, when offering such reassurances to undergradu- ates of their calibre, I shall remember to speak more slowly and to use shorter words.
It is also disturbing that your journal should publish false and possibly libellous claims without making any attempt to check their truth. I understand that you might have considered that the article, con- sisting as it did largely of vague gossip, sec- ond- and third-hand stories, and the aca- demic equivalent of urban myths, was unlikely to be taken seriously by your read- ers; if so, perhaps you could have indicated its status more clearly.
Peter.!. King
Oxford
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