The Guardian from London, Greater London, England • 7

7 Father Aefaed nd Brother Stephen-pictures by Frank Martin THE GUARDIAN Saturday January 4 im Battery universities Waiting for the Word to go round by Qeoffrey Moorhouse They have a tithebarn for a church, in this weather emptier and colder than charity a range of apartments which could quarter a platoon, but which tends instead to rising damp by MARY SCRUTTON VTEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY has lately had an. interesting row about an apparent proposal to Jose some of its small departments. It's new Vice-Chancellor appeared in print as saying that he would like to see it concentrated into about eight departments those, namely, in which it could do best. The students' indignation seems to have astonished him. They questioned him at length in a meeting which, while perfectly good-humoured, left no doubt of their convictions.

As it has turned out, the axe is not leaving the cupboard the University Senate has not even been asked to demolish anything. But it is worth thinking about, because suggestions of this kind have been floated in some eminent quarters lately. It is known as Rationalisation, or the Creation of Centres of Excellence. The idea is to have an absolutely first-rate school of modern languages, say, at Newhaven, history at Barchesier, chemistry at Middlesbrough, and mechanical engineering at Sorewe. Is it a good idea Would it increase cost-efficiency In the first place, of course, it is not an economy at all unless you get rid of something.

Small departments are cheaper per student to run than large ones, because they have lower administrative oosts. The only exception to this is in scientific departments with expensive equipment there universities must specialise, and of course, they already do. Then there is the contention that small departments cannot teach properly because they cannot include enough specialists, Below a certain level of course this is true. But the expansion of universities has now put nearly all departments above this level. Ah, says the Rationaliser, maybe they scrape up to the minimum, but they can never be Distinguished.

Now this again may be true in science, where equipment is so important (though even there one thinks of tiny outfits like the group that discovered penicillin) but in the arts it is nonsense. Cambridge philosophy in the first half of this century was about six times as distinguished as Oxford philosophy, and less than a sixth of the size. In any case and this was a central point with the students, which the Vice-Chancellor never seemed to grasp it is better to be taught a subject you really want to learn in a quite ordinary department than a subject you do not care about in a department of world experts. Well now, says the Rationaliser, you cannot have every subject taught everywheie. No, vou cannot.

But it is a terrible pity that you cannot. You should never lose a chance of getting as near it as possible, because the effect of isolation on any subject is so bad. i Small departments This is another point which the students could see and the Vice Chancellor could not. He clearly thought that the defence of small departments came only from members of those departments who liked their cosiness, whereas those in the audience could see that it came just as much from outsiders. It is absolutely necessary that linguists should talk to historians, historians to biologists, biologists to philosophers.

They need to attend each others meetings, borrow each others' hooks, argue over meals, and confute each other at midnight. They need this, not only for the sake of their own salvation, which was what chiefly interested students, but also for the sake of their studies. People who know only their own subject are trained, not educated, and professional people need to be something more than trained. Italian engineering is outstandingly good, but then an Italian engineer's education includes many other subjects besides engineering. So does a German engineer's he commonly does some philosophy.

We all know doctors who are bad as doctors 9imply because they have never learnt or thought about anything but medicine. Having a library that includes specialised books on other subjects is basic necessity for doing any subject properly. As an economy, then, this scheme seems to be just another of those which, at a reduced price, would give us an inferior product always supposing the price did get reduced after all the reorganisation which would be needed. But it is plain that another motive is at work besides economy namely the view that arts subjects are a luxury anyway, and that this would be a convenient way-of eroding them. The departments threatened here and elsewhere would mainly be arts subjects divinity, politics, psychology, philosophy, classics.

The money spent on such subjects is peanuts anyway; the objection lies deeper. The attack is on the arts, and it is conceived either as an attack on inexactness, as opposed to the exactness of science, or on flselessness, as opposed to the usefulness of technology. Different directions These lines lead in totally different directions. The first, insisting on exactness, would leave us with nothing but logic, pure mathematics and' physics, some astronomy and theoretical chemistry, and perhaps some very dull geography and history. The second, insisting on the useful, would give us medicine, engineering, and other branches, of technology, modern languages, economics and psychology, and enough English to train us in writing prose.

The overlap is small very little useful knowledge is really exact. To get snobbish about exactness is gross folly scientific method does not mean the method of a particular science; it means whatever method in a particular field brings home the bacon. An historian or an economist is scientific if he uses the methods which, give historical or economic knowledge, unscientific if he does not. And it is true that the social sciences are confused because they are still evolving their methods, but this is a reason for giving them more attention, not less. If you take the other horn of the dilemma, and try to confine yourself to the useful, you are done for, because it is quite impossible to know what is going to prove useful next In all the sciences, dark horses come home Darwin's scientific contemporaries mostly thought his work either idle or downright pernicious.

Nor ejn you properly teach applied mathematics and science unless there are people around, and preferably as near as possible, doing the subjects pure. You' cannot do modern languages without ancient languages, nor economics without history. You cannot do any subject without philosophy, which deals in defining your most general concepts and marking off your -frontiers from bther subjects. You can, of course, just do this unconsciously and badly, but many people prefer to get it right. The real point is that people are people, not -performing rats; they need to he taught to think, not trained to go through a routine.

The world at present changes so fast that there is no set of routines that anyone can put their money on hut learning to think systematically os something which comes in handy in all circumstances, not only for the person concerned hut for his society. Training is not just a bad substitute for education. It is no substitute at all, and we are grateful to our students for having made the point so clearly. rPHE MONKS OF EWELL are waiting patiently for that intangible force they call the Holy Spirit to move others in the same direction. They do not presume to expect anything of the future.

Nor do they live in regret for what might have been. They have submitted themselves to the will of God and that is enough. But they dare to hope. That goes for both of them. For two years now Father Aelred and Brother Stephen have been professing something that a faithless world can but dimly understand alongside a small stream of Kentish springwater.

They have a fifteenth-century tithebarn for a church which in this weather is much emptier and colder than charity. They have a range of apartments which could quarter at least a platoon but which tends instead to rising damp. They have a market garden which helps to feed them and fulfil their vocation, for monks must labour with their hands as well as prav. And all of it locked up behind a wall, broken only by a bleak black door with a bell which the small boys of the village keep ringing just for the hell of it. There are still people in the Church of England, to which the two monks belong, who would call them a papistical fifth column planted in their midst For Father Aelred and Brother Stephen have vowed themselves to the Cistercian life, which the Church of Rome has worn like a sombre pendant for nine hundred years, but which smells too much of incense and sacrifice for-those evangelical souls on the low side tf Canterbury.

It means prayer and contemplation, remoteness and penance, getting up at four o'clock in the morning, and much -else that is unnatural to man and beast. There is so usefulness at all in the monastic life. It is a monk of Ewell who says that. Yet Father Aelred says that he felt it was for him way back in 1947, when he was at Cambridge. Unfortunately there were no Cistercians in the Church of England for him to join, so he became a Franciscan instead.

Then he was chaplain to a convent of Poor Clares, living like a hermit for five years, which was a test of a man's vocation if ever there was one. Vou have to fight, says Father Aelred, day by day and hour by hour with the voice inside you that tells you quit, when you are a hermit. Sometimes the voice Decomes: very loud indeed. Aelred's inner voice eventually made him quit. If it hadn't he would never have become the founder of.

what he hopes will one day be a flourishing order. is. tiiat voice, together with a great deal of other people's charity, and the benevolence of the Benedictine nuns of West Mailing, who 'found him five acres on the far side of their own domain, which put Father Aelred into his enclosure. God knows what it was that brought five others to join him within the past two years and took them away again or what it was that brought Brother Stephen from his Norwich curacy and enabled him to stick it out or what it is that keeps Father Aelred going. For monks are no better at explaining themselves than other men.

They talk in what anyone but a theologian can properly call obscure conundrums. The monk, they say. us redeeming the world inside himself. He is there in order that God may do something through him. The nearest thing to a clue they can offer at Ewell is to say that the monk is a witness to the world's ultimate aim, which is the priority of God.

But they can rationalise, like the rest of us. It is a curious thing, says Father Aelred, that at every point in his progress to this vocation from Cambridge onwards others have always decided his future for him which he takes to be the movement of the Holy Spirit. Well, yes, but wouldn't this be after some suggestive initiative from him It probably would, says Father Aelred. "One has an inner certainty," says Brother Stephen, "that one is called to found a community." Called by God, and not just fancying the idea?" "It may," says Father Aelred, "be pride that is hanging on It may nave been pride that sent Saint Bruno and two companions into the Dauphine Alps to raise the first Charterhouse or which pressed Stephen Harding into the beginnings of Citeaux itself; or which drove Benedict from Some to the heights of Monte Cassino. It may also have been something beyond a man's control.

Whatever it is, this has now put two men to a test of patience and much else by a freezing stream in Kent. On their market garden, by which they hope to live, they had a glut of cauliflower this year, and it ended up as manure because of poor market prices. Even in a Cistercian house which will not make prayers of intercession for the world because these will come 'between the two monks and their God, the world makes itself felt and makes you wonder whether they can survive. Down the snowbound path and out through the bleak Mack gate they seem the loneliest men in Britain. They know that they are not.

They are not even troubled by the thought. HERE'S MUD IN YOUR EYE Michael Whincup on the hazards of being sociable Chess King of the tournaments trates admirably both the customer's responsibility for self-control and the -nature of the occupier's duty to provide all reasonable facilities. The plaintiff had slipped on a steep and narrow stairway down to the toilet. Was it partly his fault because he had been drinking His Lordship was satisfied that the plaintiff had drunk what was for him, and for people who habitually go to public-houses, a reasonably small amount. At any rate it is doubtful whether it would be of jny assistance to the defendants to rely oi' a position which they as the occupiers' of the public-house had helped to bring about." Or wa the structure of the stairway which hau made him slip "I have considered whether in a public-house where the occupiers sell wares to people who might go down to the lavatory while under the influence of such wares, the steps were so steep that the defendants have not properly discharged their duty of care.

Under the Occupiers' Liability Act, 1957, the occupier must exercise such care as is reasonable in the circumstances. This staircase has been in use for many years without accidents occurring, and the people who used the staircase with all degrees of urgency and in various conditions of sobriety have negotiated the stairs safely." Once again, therefore, the claim was lost. "Bottoms up," then, but whether the landlord or brewery is liable is another matter altogether. almost impossible." The judge accordingly held that neither Shandy's owners nor the licensee who let them in were liable. As the evening wears on and politeness wears off, almost inevitably a certain amount of beer will be spilled on the floor.

Because this is so inevitable, and because in the crush it is well-nigh impossible to do anything about it, a claim for injuries incurred through slipping on the floor at closing time was rejected by the Court of Appeal some years ago. Still greater hazards seem to arise as one goes out into the cold world again, particularly if in search of the lavatory. In one case the plaintiff slipped on someone else's vomit in liie pub yard a mud in your eye case, as it were. The yard was not lit, but had been swept out a little while earlier, and as the law report virtuously remarks during the two previous years only one customer had vomited." On these facts the licensee was held to have taken reasonable care so was not liable. But a failure to provide adequate lighting may be a more substantial ground of complaint, as can be seen in a more recent case.

Here a woman who was looking lor the Ladies opened a door without Ladies on it, found it was dark inside, took a few steps forward feeling for the light switch and then fell in the dark down a flight of steps into the cellar. The landlord was held to blame for the inadequate lighting. A final case in the early sixties illus often his wife as well will be found on any evening," as his Lordship whimsically remarked. While Shandy's owners were talking with a husband and wife who were friends of theirs, Shandy, who was normally a very quiet animal, was moved to get up and he down again in a different position just behind the wife. The resulting accident (which was in 1961 a mere seven years before the trial) led to an interesting judicial review of the rights and duties ol sociable dogs and their owners.

His Lordship recognised that "There are some people who will not go into a saloon bar when out with a dog unless they can take the dog in with them." He could see no reason why the law should forbid them to do so, provided the dog was well-behaved. Nor could lie see any principle of law under which the licensee should insist that dogs be kept on a lead when in a bar. "Indeed, a dog on a lead may well present more dangers than a quiet dog not on a lead. It is, I suppose, common experience that tripping over leads is a cause of many accidents." Having avoided this kind ol multiple misfortune, what duty remains upon the owner I think liability really hinges on whether or not there is a duty to keep a constant eye on one's dog if one brings a dog into a public-house. One has to be practical.

It seems to me to be too great a burden to put on a customer that at all times his eyes must be on the dog, provided the dog has shown no tendency to get into mischief. It would render conversation at the bar DUBS can be pretty perilous places several legal battles fought over the past few years serve as timely reminders of the hazards of conviviality. It seems wiser, for example, to wait until the place is properly open before seeking refuge there. A case in the fifties concerned a lady who tried to get in a little before opening time. A metal gate was partially drawn across the door.

She thought it was opening time, and so went to step round the gate. She tripped over an iron bar which lay across the doorway two inches from the ground, fell and injured herself. The judge said she was not entitled to compensation because the partial drawing of the gate ought to have put her on her guard. Broadly speaking, as this decision indicates, the landlord's duty is to guard his customers against hidden dangers dangers which he knows or ought to know about, and which the customer cannot be expected to see for himself. This is the effect both of the judges' rulings the common law and of the Occupiers' Liability Act of 1957 which regulates the rights of visitors on all kinds of premises.

The most recent example of what may go wrong even though one is apparently safely inside is in November's dispute in the High Court over a Boxer bitch called Shandy, which its owner had taken out for the evening to the Load of Hay. The Load of Hay is a friendly house in which a man and his dog with, I hasten to add. By LEONARD BAROEN NO, 1018 iil iM tmt Jy Larsen and Spassky (who both lost their individual games to Korchnoi) 13. Petrosian Hi, Ghgoric 10, and five other grandmasters. Korchnoi one of the few top players who genuinely prefers defence to attack.

His defence is not passive but the flexible. psychological kind which lures the opponent to over-extend himself ana to be unprepared for Korchnoi'6 fast counters. Korchnoi's models are Lasker and Nimzoviteh. The occasional criticism that, like Lasker. he is a lucky nlaver.

reflects how finery Korchnoi, like Lasker, assesses his opponent's psyche; this week's game well illustrates his style. -A -2- ssa U-i-j The euphorbia cult Gardening by Margery Fish I'ltphorbia characui picture by 7. K. Downward innocent cottage name of Ploughman's mignonette." Where it can do no harm it ii attractively successful. A hot, dry bank suits E.

myrsi-nites, which has pale, glaucous, fleshy leaves and is often taken for a sedum. Its many stems come from a central crown and show up well sprawling on hot horizontal stones. The bright, acid green of the flowers contests well with its blue foliage. The spurge that grows on Portland Bill, E. portlandica, is a real miniature and suitable for a sunny rock garden.

It grows readily from seed (sometimes almost too well), as does the biennial E. stricta, which has red stems and clouds of tiny yellow-green leaves For low autumn colour I use (he little-known E. dulcis. I suppose it has flowers, though I have never noticed them but no one could miss the dazzling crimson of the whole plant at the turn of the year. or four with greegold flowers, and like E.

grifSthii tends to run a litttle. Our native woodland s-purge, E. amygdaloides, is seldom more than 18 inches high, and with its green flowers and neat foliage is excellent under trees. It has two interesting variations, E. a.

rubra, with bronzed leaves, and E. a. variegala. which needs constant propagation to ensure its survival. I do not know how the smaller torm ot E.

hiberna behaves in other parts country, but with me in Somerset it blooms thoughout the year. In autumn I trim off the longer flowering stems to reveal a fresh crop of tiny bright-green flowers, which last in beauty throughout the winter. One of the best plants I know for shady ground cover is E. lobbke; this has very dark foliage and green flowers which persist throughout the year. I can forgivo its running roots for Ms architectural beauty.

An uncluttered patch looks almost Bent Larsen (Denmark)-Victor Korchnoi (Soviet Union). I P-QB4 P.QB4 2 N-QB3 M-KBI! 3 N-BS P-Q4, 4 PxP NxP 5 P-K3 P-K3 P-Q4 N-QB3 7 B-QS B-K2 8 O-O O-O 9 P-QB3 9 R-Kl PxP 10 PxP Q-Q3 equalised for Black in the Spassky v. Korchnoi match. 9 NxN 10 PxN B-B3 11 R-Jfl If 11 PxP Q-Q4 12 P-QR4 R-Ql regains the pawn with good play. II P-KN3 12 B-K4 Q-B2 13 P-QR4 P3 14 P-R5.

Stronger is 14 Q-K2 in order to keep Black's QB restricted White then has slightly the better game because of his solid pawn centre. 14 B-R3 15 RPxP RPxP 16 R-Kl R-R2 17 P-R4? This attack is unjustified; there are too few white pieces in support. But Larsen had just turned down a draw and so was looking for an active plan. There is more scope in chess than is generally realised for provocative draw suggestions, particularly with the black pieces. 17 N-R4 18 P-R5 R-Ql 19 N-Q2 B-KN2 20 RPxP RPxP 21 Q-B3 N-BS 22 NxN BxN 23 R-Ql P-QN4 24 B-Q2 R-R7 25 B-B6 Q.R4 20 Q-N4 B4JS 27 QR-B1 B-B7 28 R-Kl PxP 29 KPxP BxP! 30 Q-N5 BxP ch! The elegant final attack is one of the most dramatic finishes to a grandmaster game in recent years.

31 KxB RxB ch! 32 K-Nl Or 32 QxR B-KS wins. 32 QxP 33 QxQNP Q-Q5 ch 34 K-Rl Q-R5 ch 35 K-Nl B-K5! 36 Q-N8 ch K-R2 37 BxB RxP ch! 38 BxR Q-B7 ch 39 K-R2 QxB mate. Whit, has sacrificed material to reach this position. His king is in check and must move. Which of three possible alternatives, K-Q2, K-K2, and K-B2 is the right way to continue the attack? Solution No.

1018 1 N-Q7(waiting). ff 1 K-M 2 PxN(B8)Q, or if KxR 2 P-N8Q, or if K-K3 2 PxN(B8)N, or if 1 K-KI 2 PxN(B8)Q, or if 1 either NxR(N3) 2 N-Q6, or if N(B1) elsewhere 2 P-N8Q. PETEOSIAN'S lack of impact as world champion and Spassky's superiority in challenge matches have increased the struggle among leading grandmasters for recognition as the best tournament player on the international circuit. In 19B7 Larsen dominated his opponents with four successes in a row in strong events but this year tie has become more erratic and less confident since his defeat by Spassky, Many would consider Bobby Fischer the world tournament champion, but his successes in the last four years have all been in tournaments below the highest class with the exception of his second to Spassky at Santa Monica 13(18. On the evidence of the play in 1968, the king of the tournaments is victor Korchnol of Russia.

In Beverwijk at the start of the year he finished easing up three points ahead of a field of grandmasters: tn Majorca in December his score of 14 out of 17 was ahead of rpHE first euphorbia planted in the garden is usually the forerunner of many more. For there is something about these strange green-flowered plants that appeals to one's collecting instincts. Luckily there are many of them, and it is safe to say that for every position in the garden, there is a suitable euphorbia sometimes more than one. They need no special soil or position in the wild they are usually found in poor, dry soil, but they do well in completely different conditions in English gardens, i My undoing was to take the advice of a friend to plant E. wulfenii (veneta) in a paved terrace, I needed something to give beauty and interest throughout the year and also to help to screen a new boundary.

I was entranced by the blue-green leaves which clothe the long steins and by the antics of the plants that were about to flower. The tips of the stems start to bend over in November and December and eventually have the shape and rigidity of a shepherd's crook. I suppose this protects the buds ai, they mature, for at flowering time which may bo in January, February, Ilarch, or even April they straighten out to make large cylindrical heads of love-bird green. Each individual flower has a conspicuous eye, which should be orange in the case of E. wulfeniii.

E. sibthorpM, which is a similar plant, is distinguished by a brown eye, while in E. chara-cias, a neater plant with bluer foliage, the eye should be black. But as all species seed without discrimination or restraint, the seedlings are very variable. One of the glories of the April bolder is the dome of green-gold made by E.

polychroma (epithy-moidesK It is so dazzling that it stands out from a great distance for several weeks before it slowly goes back to green. pi'losa major is similar hut taller it produces stray blooms again in the autumn and has touches of crimson on the leaves. For woodland planting we can choose from several types. The most showy is of tairly recent introduction and its name, E. griffitihii "Fireglow," describes it admirably.

The flower bracts glow like live embers, and if one chances on it when it is caught in the rays of the lale afternoon sun its brilliance is dazzling. The foliage is also very bright in the autumn, whereas that of E. sikkimensis is best in spring, when leaves and stems are shot with crimson. It grows to three like a collection ot DtiiKiings, with sturdy spikes at different levels. The other ground-cover spurge (which is definitely invasive and should never be allowed to creep under paving or get between the stones of a rock garden) is E.

cyparissias. It looks like a little cypress and has the BRITAIN'S BEST SEED BOOK. Dobics Serd Bod's offers ou fiiifst selection or Gn-den seeds trie nepf the unusual ind tile proen favourites, all at moRey-satfrjs prices 150 paces packed llle-lUie colour illustrations detailed descriptions, practical advice on culture una details ot Dobles' proltthaxlnc bonus otr. Send lor yotir FRSZ coot noir. SAMUEL DOBIE SON LTD, IDtpt, L402).

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