Factual Basis

Salient's comment was based on fact. Letters associated with it were not. This puts us on dangerous ground for several reasons. In first place, very few facts have been put forward. Secondly, no attempt was made to get the opinions of members of the staff before the comment was published. In the third place the criticism has been largely destructive.

Some of the lecturing in Stage I is not all it could be. Few people would deny this. In particular, students have objected to badly organised presentation, rambling stations that stray further and further from the point, and little effort to be original or controversial.

It is neither necessary nor proper to make sweeping generalizations; some of the lectures — not to be read as some of the lecturers — are inferior. A lot of them are up to standard, and some of them are stimulating.

At the risk of trying to kick out a pebble and uncovering a boulder, it might be said that this question of standards in lecturing is relevant to the whole system of teaching in this University.