MICHAEL ALLEN,
Sir, - In a letter to the Belfast Telegraph of June 24th, Dr Maureen Alden showed the numbers interested in classics both in the schools and at Queen's to be rising dramatically. Correspondents to your page have made the same point and Dr Alden amplifies her account to your reporter (The Irish Times, August 24th).
The figures given by Mr Tom Collins in the same report tell us nothing about this. When were they compiled? Who provided them to the agency concerned? What were the figures for the year before and the year(s) after?
Dr Alden's figures correspond to those cited in The Economist, August 31st, which details the extraordinary upsurge of interest in the classics in the UK. I gather this is also true in the Republic.
If the university administrators had consulted the people most immediately concerned before issuing their fiat, the members of the Department could have told them this. - Yours, etc.,
MICHAEL ALLEN,
Marlborough Park Central,
Belfast 9.