THE IMPORTANCE OF SAVING DURHAM CASTLE [To the Editor of
the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—The great Castle at Durham is in imminent danger of falling into irreparable ruin. This fact, recently revealed, should be a matter of grave public concern, but it will not become so until the public at large has been not merely apprised of the fact, but has also been awakened to the magni- tude of the calamity that is threatened.
It would, indeed, be tragedy enough .if this mighty citadel and splendid palace of the Prince Bishops should now fall headlong down in ruins to the river. Yet it is not merely as a dead monument of antiquity, however venerable, that Durham Castle claims urgently to be saved for future gener- ations. For nigh on a hundred years it has been the living home of the first college in a great University, and a visible incarnation of its peculiar ethos.
There can be no doubt that in the past the potentialities of this University have been imperfectly realized, except perhaps by those who were concerned in its foundation. These worthies saw clearly that the key to its future greatness and its efficient service to the nation lay in its strategic position in what was destined to become the great industrial centre of the country.
It is significant that the University was established at a time when the agitation connected with the Reform Bill of 1832 seemed about to overthrow the State in a welter of anarchy and revolution. In the midst of these troubles the Founders of Durham set up there a university which by its organization, traditions, and essential character was explicitly intended to implant in the heart of the North those powerful stabilizing influences of liberal culture and sound learning which Oxford and Cambridge had for so many centuries exerted in the South.
It is my purpose here to remind all those who are convinced of the vital importance in education of tradition, of conscious contact with antiquity, and of all those beneficent influences which flow from the college system in the senior universities, that in the University of Durham there exists a singularly efficient instrument -which, if properly used; can bring that section of the people who need it most within the' reach of a type of education which is rightly regarded as' the finest that has so far been- evolved In 'this 'or- any other country.: - -Thatthe very existence of the-University-his been practically ignored in the recent appeal for the' preservation of the Castle is not only an affront- to some 12,000 people who are, by all
the ties of loyalty and love, most bound to be interested in its success, but it is an inexcusable neglect of the most powerful reason for enlisting the support of the public at large.—I am,
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