SHEILA CHILLINGWORTH,
Madam, - I was very pleased to read the letter from the classics teachers in Northern Ireland (October 22nd), as I have been deeply concerned about the effect the closure of the Classics Department in Queen's will have on the province's schools.
In four years there will be no classic graduates coming from Queen's and therefore no future teachers for our schools. Within a decade or two many of the classics teachers in the province will have retired and there will be nobody to take their place. It will be a sad end to a fine tradition of classics teaching, for once a tradition is lost, it is lost for ever.
The letter makes clear that classical studies is thriving in our schools. I accept that some students choose to go to British universities but many prefer to take classical studies in Queen's. Before long that option will no longer be open to them and they will be forced to leave Northern Ireland.
No sane student of classics would apply to the School of Byzantine Studies. The course would, inevitably, be inadequate. Almost worse, there would always be the fear that, under the present regime, the future of the school of such an ancient civilization, or indeed any civilization at all, would be uncertain.
It will take a little time but Dr Bain seems likely to leave us an unenviable legacy. He will have destroyed classics both in the University and in the province's schools and he will have made a significant contribution to Northern Ireland's "brain drain". - Yours, etc.,
SHEILA CHILLINGWORTH, Whitehouse Park, Newtownabbey, Co Antrim.