29 MAY 1959, Page 7

THERE ARE—as correspondents have been telling me—illogicalities about the Master

of Arts degree: Oxbridge is not the only culprit. But I still do not like a system which gives what is widely thought to be a higher degree for money, not for merit. True, at Oxbridge the degree is incidental; the graduate is paying for certain privileges, not simply for the right to put MA after his name. Why, then, is the degree retained if it has no academic meaning? Simply because many gradu- ates—schoolmasters, in particular—would not bother to pay for the privileges if they did not also have 'MA' to show prospective employers for it; and one source of university revenue would be lost. So the MA is kept as a form of academic bfackmail.