D J Black's excoriating critique of the Philistinism all too dominant among Scotland's powers-that-be will rouse the ire as well as the fervent Amen of many ("Building blocks of our heritage are being systematically demolished," The Herald, December 19).
His devastating picture is merely symbolic, however, of the subtle, tragic rot at the heart of the nation: education. The recent torrent of correspondence in The Herald about collapsed standards of language mastery in schools confirms the suspicion of a cancer in Scotland's cultural life.
A recent TV drama-documentary on the King James Bible has shown the all-potent influence upon James I of his titanic, Scots tutor George Buchanan, the greatest Latinist of his age by international consent. Until the 1960s Scotland's renowned educational system boasted as one of its pillars an advanced competence in Latin language, both translation and composition, expertly developed by the textbooks of two eminent Scots rectors, Paterson and MacNaughton, of Hillhead High School and Hamilton Academy.
A typical clutch of five Highers in the 1950s was English, maths, science, French and Latin – an incomparable foundation for any career. But since that golden era, successive administrations have connived at the abolition of Latin ("humanity", as it was proudly called in the Scottish universities) in state schools and rested content with the extinction of teachers of the Graeco-Roman classics.
The impoverishment of Scotland's schools' academically abler youth as a result is incalculable. The resuscitation and retrenchment of Latin in the secondary curriculum should be an urgent priority, far above, dare I suggest, Gaelic, to which the nation's cultural history owes far less.
Yet occasionally, unexpectedly, something happens to fire the hopes of a Classical renaissance. Glasgow University is to be heartily congratulated for accepting (as intimated in the latest issue of its alumni magazine) the late great Professor Douglas MacDowell's £2.4 million bequest for a Chair of Greek in the College of Arts.
A quote from Horace seems apposite: "Non omnis moriar," I shall not wholly die.
Stuart J Mitchell,
29 Windyedge Crescent,
Glasgow.
In response to Andrew McKie's assertion, I would take his overview even farther back in history than King James VI/I to Christian origins in Judaism ("Moral judgment has its roots in religious faith", The Herald, December 19).
Translating the Bible from Latin to English was the first momentous step in handing rights to the common weal to form their own moral judgments since the Jewish founder of Christianity was given short shrift in his message that the church authorities of the time were wrong in preaching a vengeful, wrathful God.
There has aye been conflict between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law and I agree that tolerance implies judgment. Compassion, though difficult to live by, leads to right judgment in my opinion but we don't seem to delve deeply enough into our spiritual/philosophical inheritance to be able to discern authentic leadership on these matters.
As a society, we have been forced into an attitude of cynicism by corruption in high places and I don't think David Cameron has the necessary clout to change things as yet.
Janet Cunningham,
1 Cedar Avenue,
Stirling.
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