Letter: Future knowledge

Letter: Future knowledge

Sir: General Knowledge (important enough to be capitalised!) is, as Philip Hensher correctly points out, "cultural trivia" and will naturally change from culture to culture (Comment, 21 May). The people he mocks for not knowing who wrote Don Giovanni are failing only his test of what they should know. Who cares? Not I.

We are in a world of ever-increasing information. The general knowledge of the future isn't a set of facts and figures, whys and wherefores; it's a knowledge of where to look to find these facts, what book to pick up, or what web site to visit. Since there is too much to remember, we can remember how to find it instead.

I know where Portugal is too, and Ascension Island, and Ibiza. Did you know it has a population of around 80,500. (I found that on the Web - see what I mean?) But I don't look down on the person who thought Portugal was a Balearic island. And unless they wanted to go to university to study Mediterranean cultures I'd let them in. I'd tell them to brush up on their geography mind. Education is about pointing the way, not laughing at what others don't know.

Dr STEPHEN MARSH

Ottawa, Canada