The New English Weekly, 20 (27 Nov 1941) 52
Sir, – The author of the contribution on “Educational Idealism” in your issue of November 6, in attempting to notice two unrelated publications in the space of three paragraphs, has I think given a false impression of the aims of the President of Corpus Christi (Sir Richard Livingstone) as expressed in his Address to the Classical Association. 1 The question there raised was not whether more children could be taught the Greek language: Sir Richard Livingstone was chiefly concerned with the possibility of conveying some understanding of Greek literature, philosophy and history to those who do not study the language. The real issue is between those who agree with Sir Richard Livingstone that some acquaintance with the intellectual and literary achievements of Greece is an essential element in a liberal education, and those who do not. Your contributor has not revealed his own opinions as to the value of Greek, or the value of a “liberal education”: but perhaps his last sentence throws some light upon his attitude. It reads: Is it possible even to the President of the Classical Association to believe that the national mind and national policy are or can ever be shaped by the infinitesimal fraction of the privileged few who can be taught the significance of Greek letters and Greek civilisation?
The effect of this question – that is to say, the answer which it tends to provoke – is due to the use of the terms “national policy,” “shaped” and “privileged few.” Am I mistaken in interpreting this question to imply that those who have studied Greek are not only few but futile, clinging to quasisocial pretensions rather than standing for anything valuable? It is indeed a “privilege” to know even a little Greek; but the term “privileged few” has connotations, of which your contributor can hardly be unaware. If we decontaminate the question from the implication that there is something undemocratic about people who know Greek having any influence because there are so few of them, the answer to the question is simply “Why not?” For if we answer the question as your contributor seems to expect, we are not only affirming that Greek letters and Greek civilisation 191are insignificant, but denying the value to society of all those values which can only be realized by an “infinitesimal fraction.”
t. s. eliot
