LETTER:Commercialism vs academia at university

From Mr Peter Mann and

Mrs Sheila Mann

Sir: It is depressing to find throughout Douglas Hague's article the notion of "knowledge" diminished to that of "information". Depressing, too, to find the role of the universities of the future described as and virtually identified with that of the "knowledge businesses", whose role is "to acquire, handle and transmit knowledge", (in Douglas Hague's sense of the word). It is not the "commercialism" underlying these words that repels, but their impoverished view of what properly constitutes the life of a university and the role of intelligence, reasoning, imagination and inventiveness in the creation of knowledge.

Yours sincerely,

Peter Mann

Sheila Mann

Leeds, West Yorkshire