Come clean on school backgrounds

Those who advocate concentrating research in fewer institutions and fewer departments should ask themselves whether they really wish an increasing proportion of the talented youth of this country to be educated as undergraduates in a research-free environment, by teachers who handle only that which is known already, and who are discouraged or prevented from being alert and active in discovery. Can this be the role model we want to put before our brightest and best?

Trevor Saunders

Department of classics University of Newcastle