Barzun's influence.(Letter to the editor)

SIR: While Rafe Champion (April 2007) can reasonably argue that Jacques Barzun's work on higher education seems to have been "in vain so far as our academics and intellectuals are concerned", his name is not altogether "missing from the debates". George Shipp, regional secretary of the NSW Workers' Educational Association, reviewed The House of Intellect in the WEA journal, The Australian Highway, in February 1960. The Association organised a conference in Easter 1960 under the title "The House of Intellect". The theme centred on "Barzun's controversial book" and C.P. Snow's pamphlet Two Cultures. Owen Harries, senior staff tutor of the Department of Tutorial Classes, University of Sydney, was director of the school and gave the opening paper. Tom Brennan, Director of Social Studies at the same university, spoke on "The Philanthropic Attitude", John Mackie, Professor of Philosophy at ...