Two additions to yesterday's post on Collini

One is a photograph of the cover of the hb edition ofThe New Idea of a University (just in case anyone thinking of taking up my offer of free copies should wonder what he would be getting for his £5 p&p). The publisher of this edition was Haven Books, an imprint of Dexter Haven Ltd., founded, owned and run by an ex-student and friend of mine, Robert Hastings. (I did the typesetting, acquired the skill under Robert's tutelage and lost it as soon as the book was done.) But Robert died while still a young man and Dexter Haven died with him. Why he should have named his business after the hero ofThe Philadelphia StoryI don't know. I suppose he liked the film (I do myself) but I can't imagine that it had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that he was (if it can be believed) even better looking than Cary Grant, in the same style, and with all, and more, of Cary Grant's on-screen charm. Anyone who wants the book can send me his address and I'll let him have my bank account details in return. The other addition is something that I intended to say in yesterday's piece but, finishing it late at night, forgot to: that perhaps it might be better for what Leavis called 'the essential university function' and what he associated with it, 'an educated public' and 'cultural continuity', if all our universities did go bankrupt, and academics became as rare as coalminers. It would be a pity if someone like David McGrogan of the Northumbria Law Department lost his job and the pulpit it gives him but perhaps, if he did, he could expand hisNews from Uncibalsubstack and, without the subsidised competition of Law Departments all over the country, attract even more subscribers than the 3000 he already has, make a good living from it and have an even wider influence. Unlike Leavis, Ian Robinson thought we didn't need universities in order to be an educated people and that 'the essential university function' was something that might be dispersed more widely — amongst the 'learned professions' certainly but elsewhere too. 'The true university, the true clash of minds in the common pursuit of true judgement,' Robinson says, 'can be found anywhere where minds meet.' (The English Prophets, p. 222) But that the university can be found elsewhere than in Universities isn't the same as Universities being unnecessary. Leavis and Robinson had a serious disagreement over the need for them (not good tempered on Leavis's part, called 'lively' by Robinson). Leavis's side can be found in''Believing in' the University' inThe Human Worldno.15-16, May-August 1974, reprinted inThe Critic as Anti-Philosopher, ed. G. Singh; Robinson's on pp. 220-3 ofThe English Prophetsand also (as interpreted by Leavis) in Leavis's own essay. Given what the universities have become, do they do more harm to the nation's intelligence than good? Do we want thought centralised in institutions devoted to it and divided up into specialisms, overseen by gatekeepers … or not? Mightn't it be best to close them down and rewild with substacks the heaps of slurry they leave behind? The university has been so important in my own life — friendships formed in it, in some respects a life formed in it, and still being formed, 37 years after I left it — that, despite the slurry, I can't confidently and happily say, 'Yes'. Shrink the universities, cut them down to size, even savagely?Yes,yes,yes.But get rid of them altogether? I don't have the courage to say so. I find it difficult to imagine, for instance, that what is perhaps Robinson's best book (one he always referred to as 'the book with the long title'),The Establishment of Modern English Prose in the Reformation and the Enlightenment, CUP (renamedCranmer's Sentenceswhen republished by his own Press, Brynmill) could be written and published outside a university. (But perhaps that's just a want of imagination on my part and that such books were once published outside them.) And Leavis's contention that except based in a University there couldn't aScrutinyor aHuman World(or, it might be added, aHaltwhistle Quarterly)seems to me to have force. Though I doubt that Leavis would, I think Ian Robinson might have taken to Substack publishing enthusiastically. If I say his series of books calledComing to Judgement(The English Prophets,Who Killed the Bible?,Holding the CentreandUntied Kingdom) might have made a series of substacks, I hope that wouldn't be taken as a slight. Substack, after all, is a place where minds can meet. Thank you for readingReactionary Essays.To receive new posts free subscribe below.