ARTS AND SCIENCES SIR.—I think it would help your readers
to know that Sir George Thomson's very interesting article on the proposed 'Principles of Science Tripos for art undergraduates' does not command quite such universal acceptance as he perhaps suggests. Reac- tions have varied from the favourable, through modi- fied rapture and reluctant acceptance of what in itself is regarded as unsatisfactory, to downright opposition in principle. Nearly all the remarks in the public discussion, to which the Master of Corpus briefly alluded, were critical and many hostile; one wonders if he can possibly be right in supposing that the ultimate proposals will nevertheless simply em- body those originally put forward. For myself, I credit the General Board of the Faculties with a more sensitive ear.
Those of us who cannot accept what for brevity's sake I may perhaps call the Ratcliffe proposal in- clude both scientists and arts men like myself. The reasons which move me are simple : I cannot see that the proposal rests upon a sound diagnosis of the problem and is capable of providing a remedy for either the imagined or the real problem. The proposal postulates that there is a serious lack of contact (at university level) between those trained respectively in the arts and the sciences : I will accept this, for argument's sake and because I may be alone in doubting whether the lack is as marked as convention supposes. The proposal argues that the lack consists largely in the arts man's failure to understand . how the scientist's mind works : this I deny, and I know very well that I am not alone in questioning a bland distinction which in effect abstracts reasoning power from the arts man and imagination from the scientist. Lastly, the proposal intends to teach about the mental processes of the scientist by leaving out the mental processes of the particular subject chosen. This is the point of the objection based , on the question of mathematics— not, as your readers may have understood, some mystical or snooty attachment to that discipline. Indeed, the mysticism is all on the other side. This curious tripos would neither teach a subject for itself, nor enable its pupils to understand the practitioners of the subject; it would merely give them the illu- sion of understanding by conveying selected facts and generalisations.
I have before this tried to maintain that what is needed is simply knowledge of a particular craft— acquaintance with the special language of a specialised study—and not an introduction into an alien type of intelligence. Another Cambridge physicist, Dr. J. Ziman, has now suggested that arts men desirous of learning about science as a part of their university education could well be put through a course of basic science. He would, in fact, actually teach them science, not about it. The science in question may not be very advanced, but what of that? The Ratcliffe proposals are so unsatisfactory because they try to teach something essentially very difficult to people unequipped even to see the diffi- culties. The Ziman proposals start at the beginning, not somewhere in the empyrean. The difference is that between an interesting but unrigorous course of public lectures, say on the BBC, and a course of university lectures leading to a degree. Mr. Ratcliffe would use BBC methods for university purposes. I hope the Master of Corpus's confident use of the future tense may yet prove premature.—Yours faith-
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