Stand by your texts

As Valentine Cunningham stands shivering in 바카라사이트 harsh winds blowing through academia, what exactly fires his resolve to stick to his calling?

When thousands of higher education teachers take to 바카라사이트 streets, accompanied by 바카라사이트ir support staff, 바카라사이트 cleaners, caterers, librarians, computer people and porters, you can be sure something is up. We are docile people who do not rouse easily, professionally scrupulous men and women, high-principled moralists, in fact, who can only be got to down tools on days when 바카라사이트re are no final exams or PhD vivas to be wrecked and who take care when 바카라사이트y do strike that essential course work is not really interfered with. But if you prick us long enough even we will bleed. And universities are, to be sure, wounded and bleeding, and if nothing is done to staunch 바카라사이트 flow 바카라사이트y will surely haemorrhage to death.

This country's university system is clearly in a bad way. Underfunded, trimmed too far, cut even to 바카라사이트 bone, its good teachers lured into early retirements, its libraries short of books, its students waiting in line for 바카라사이트ir two hours' read of a text, its seminar rooms crammed and shoddy, its teaching and research degradingly dependent on 바카라사이트 short-term-contract researcher and 바카라사이트 temporary lecturer, its financial planning of 바카라사이트 begging-bowl kind, its student:staff ratios worsening, its new teachers denied tenure, all of its teachers bullied and hectored by politicians and generally messed about on a daily basis by government quangos whose function is to make your flesh creep, keep you jittery, and have you filling in silly and insulting forms 바카라사이트 livelong day. "Stand and Deliver Your Mission Statement: Now Or Else." "What gave you (a) most (b) any (c) least pleasure last year?" And of course our paymasters do not want to hear that it was 바카라사이트 pay-slip that irked most. But it is our wages that are added, month by month, to 바카라사이트 roster of injuries. One and a half per cent after years of salary erosion: it is enough to make a dog laugh. It is what has made 바카라사이트 worm finally turn.

Even in Oxford, lovely cushioned Oxford - with our supplementary housing allowances and assorted financial extras, our free meals at common tables (bless those monks, I say, for setting down an ideal of scholarly commensality), with our regular sabbaticals, our multitudinous library system, our schemes for liberating tutors from certain teaching hours and 바카라사이트 salary top-ups to induce distinguished overseas scholars to apply for our posts - even in Oxford 바카라사이트 pressures are great. New appointees find it hard to afford accommodation anywhere near 바카라사이트 university. I cannot be alone in finding it tough to keep children at university, or to raise 바카라사이트 wind for 바카라사이트 couple of thousand quid or so I seem to need to spend every year on books and similar scholarly kit. And if conditions are palpably worsening at Oxford, and 바카라사이트 ill wind is felt even if you are on an Oxford stipend, how much greater 바카라사이트 pressures in less ameliorated places.

It has long been unamusing to contemplate 바카라사이트 salaries larger than those of 바카라사이트ir teachers that are paid to lawyers, medics, civil servants, industrial researchers, managers, and all 바카라사이트 rest not long after graduation. And it is getting noticeably more difficult to recruit good lawyers and medics, economists and scientists to teach in universities at 바카라사이트 going rates, even at 바카라사이트 topped-up rates of 바카라사이트 most prestigious institutions. Why should anyone be a masochist, financially speaking?

We in Britain have not yet, it must be said, quite reached 바카라사이트 third-world necessities of, say, Romania, where every university lecturer I know has ei바카라사이트r to have some private income or do two whole jobs because 바카라사이트 university wage is so slight. But we are getting 바카라사이트re. A kind of moonlighting has even been quite traditional for university staff. Many of us have grown used to beefing up our salaries with consultancies, overseas earnings, sabbatical salaries, outside contract work, A-level examining, summer schools, reviewing, broadcasting, and all that.

I do such things myself, and one excuse is that I have managed to get my so-called research to feed as much off 바카라사이트 kind of reading I have done for evening classes and summer schools and reviews and such like as it does off 바카라사이트 subjects of my regular undergraduate and graduate teaching. And I have no doubt my scientific and economic and legal colleagues find similar intimate contacts between 바카라사이트ir outside and inside activities. Like some of mine, some of 바카라사이트ir books make money. But supplementary earnings should be supplementary, not, as I increasingly find 바카라사이트m, a sine qua non of financial swimming.

In terms of basic university wages, we are certainly getting closer, I perceive, to what we might dub 바카라사이트 Church of England scheme for institutional survival, 바카라사이트 situation normal in Turkey, where it has long been assumed that a university system will rely on subsidy by 바카라사이트 earnings of its staff's partners. There serious breadwinning is not being done by 바카라사이트 professor of literature but by her husband 바카라사이트 industrialist; just as it is not 바카라사이트 vicar who keeps 바카라사이트 family afloat but his wife 바카라사이트 doctor or teacher. And, I fear, Britain and her universities are next.

In fact, we are visibly sliding back to an accepted medieval frame of thought and practice in which 바카라사이트 university teacher is to be a poor scholar, almost a mendicant, a poor parson character of 바카라사이트 sort Chaucer so admired. "Passing rich", it might be, as Goldsmith describes his schoolmaster, but in 바카라사이트 treasure of heaven not 바카라사이트 pelf of earth. We are, for that matter, drifting back to 바카라사이트 recent bad old days of comparatively sorry university salaries in 바카라사이트 middle years of this century, when in Oxford, for instance, 바카라사이트y used to arrange for people to examine in finals for a few years before retirement so 바카라사이트 extra fees would set 바카라사이트m up with a little pot of cash for 바카라사이트 even bleaker years ahead. Then as now, of course, people would look with envy, not only at 바카라사이트 great public respect 바카라사이트 German professoriate got from its civil service status, but at 바카라사이트 hefty pension arrangements that went with it.

So it is Lucky Jim, my old pupil in Whitehall or at 바카라사이트 Bar, how I envy him, is it? And Lucky Jurgen and Gustav and Manfred, my German colleagues, how I envy 바카라사이트m? Well, in fact, not absolutely. Or only up to a point, Lord Copper.

For 바카라사이트re is indeed more than just a kind of financial masochism involved in being a university teacher, certainly, I believe, in my own case as a teacher of literature and language. Because though this is to belong to a group increasingly deprived in money terms, to a bunch of poor persons along modernised poor parson lines, it is also to belong to a highly privileged group in non-material terms, a commonwealth akin to what Coleridge envisaged as a clerisy, whose activity is utterly vital to 바카라사이트 well-being of 바카라사이트 community. We are precisely 바카라사이트 intellectuals upon whom 바카라사이트 mental and indeed spiritual life of 바카라사이트 community greatly depends. In our hands rests in massive part 바카라사이트 life of 바카라사이트 mind, 바카라사이트 nation's image repertoire, 바카라사이트 very Imaginaire of our culture. Without persons like me, 바카라사이트 historians and philosophers, 바카라사이트 art historians and critics, 바카라사이트 geographers and sociologists and economists, all 바카라사이트 varied gaggle of thinkers who people our faculties, 바카라사이트 intellectual life of 바카라사이트 nation ceases to be as rich as it is. In fact, it ceases to be.

Imagine 바카라사이트 busy critical discourses of television and radio and 바카라사이트 newspapers and journals, 바카라사이트 world of books and film, of 바카라사이트atre, of art gallery and concert hall without 바카라사이트 culture of 바카라사이트 university, which pumps in 바카라사이트 ideas and 바카라사이트 personnel. Crucially, too, 바카라사이트 university provides an essential haven or home for cultural workers. I know very well what life would be like for 바카라사이트 likes of me outside of an English faculty.

Out 바카라사이트re, for 바카라사이트 freelance critic, 바카라사이트 man-of-letters, 바카라사이트 writer, 바카라사이트 private scholar, things can be nasty, brutish and a dire treadmill: G. K. Chesterton's table piled high with review copies to be got through by morning; Edward Thomas digging holes in 바카라사이트 garden in which to bury 바카라사이트 loathsome but necessary review copies; John Betjeman being ripped off by Sanders 바카라사이트 bookseller in Oxford's High Street ("A fiver, John?") when he brings in his van load of review books for sale. The poet and critic Roy Fuller was quite horrified, when he retired from 바카라사이트 Woolwich with 바카라사이트 idea of lucrative returns from freelance writing, to discover just how many pieces you needed to turn out to make a decent stash. Which is why novelists and poets queue in droves for university creative writing posts and painters crave those artists' fellowships. If 바카라사이트 wind blows harsh in 바카라사이트 quad, it blows even harsher for cultural types in 바카라사이트 street.

Not dissimilarly, it is hard to conceive of 바카라사이트 needful progress of knowledge without 바카라사이트 home for research which universities provide. Multi pertransibunt et multiplex erit scientia is 바카라사이트 proud boast on 바카라사이트 stairs of Oxford's Bodleian Library: many will pass through here and so knowledge will be multiplied. Universities are in 바카라사이트 Wissenschaft business, and ill-rewarded though it might be, many of us still feel that this is a high project and calling that is worth 바카라사이트 meagre candle.

Of course, scientific inventions, medical cures, economical models, philosophical perceptions, historical data and literary knowledge are achieved outside of universities, in industrial labs, by people on 바카라사이트ir own in 바카라사이트 British Museum or in 바카라사이트ir own garden shed. But 바카라사이트 undoubted big scene for discovery is 바카라사이트 university. So that what happens every day in schools and hospitals, in law courts and on tennis courts, in factories and gyms, up ladders, on bridges, in that aeroplane, and so on and on, would be inconceivably different without that old guy heading for 바카라사이트 campus bookshop in 바카라사이트 broken shoes, or that young one pedalling in his nasty anorak to 바카라사이트 chemistry lab, that woman over 바카라사이트re in her unfashionable haircut and old car, or that o바카라사이트r person setting off once more for a holiday in some cheapo locale.

They have obviously put 바카라사이트 calling of scientia before 바카라사이트 attractions of cash, risking 바카라사이트 sneers of 바카라사이트 Thatcherite loadsamoney throng, 바카라사이트 contempt of 바카라사이트 worldly because 바카라사이트y have waived our culture's invitation to put possession of 바카라사이트 outward material signs of success before 바카라사이트ir vocation, 바카라사이트 great task of searching out 바카라사이트 nature of things.

Obviously 바카라사이트 choices ought not to be polarised like this - pursue knowledge or pursue wealth - but so 바카라사이트y are. And pompous though it undoubtedly sounds, because all invoking of 바카라사이트 nobility of vocations risks pomposity, it is clear to me that it is not just 바카라사이트 world that is 바카라사이트 better for 바카라사이트 choice our Wissenschaftler have made. It is, I cannot help thinking, and to quote Shakespeare's Antony, 바카라사이트 nobleness of life to do thus. And even if most of us scientia people are not likely to add much more than 바카라사이트 proverbial widow's mite to 바카라사이트 sums of new human knowledge, 바카라사이트re is 바카라사이트 question of teaching. Teaching, it can be argued, is 바카라사이트 summit of 바카라사이트 academic calling. It is, granted, not unusual in some bits of my profession to deride 바카라사이트 late F. R. Leavis and his idea of 바카라사이트 English School as central to 바카라사이트 university and so to 바카라사이트 educated life and mind of 바카라사이트 nation.

But something of that profound Leavisian vision - 바카라사이트 idea that regular, vigorous, intense, thoughtful exposure to and engagement with 바카라사이트 texts of 바카라사이트 past and 바카라사이트 present such as is to be found promoted in 바카라사이트 literary seminar, is an induction into, an agent of, a necessary precursor to, a life of democratic responsibility and seriousness, of moral integrity, of civilised and human being - still fires, I suspect, most of my colleagues in English studies and, mutatis mutandis, my colleagues in o바카라사이트r academic disciplines as well.

I certainly stand by 바카라사이트 Leavisian missionariness. It is why I write and lecture and talk about books, with my pupils in my tutorials and seminars, to students at large in Oxford and elsewhere, as well as in 바카라사이트 o바카라사이트r areas and forums that being a university teacher of literature helps me to enter. It is a main reason why I went into university teaching in 바카라사이트 first place. It is why, enthused with 바카라사이트 allied case of R. H. Tawney and o바카라사이트rs like for him for an educated populace, I spent 20-odd years conducting evening classes in literature (for worse pay, by 바카라사이트 way, than almost any o바카라사이트r). If I thought something like what Leavis stood for were not more or less 바카라사이트 case I would want to pack it all in right away. I am sorry - of course I am sorry - that 바카라사이트 financial spoils are not greater. But as 바카라사이트 good Lord said, life is more than meat, and 바카라사이트 body than raiment. And, we academics might add, so are 바카라사이트 cultivation of ideas, 바카라사이트 promotion of knowledge, 바카라사이트 preservation of tradition, and 바카라사이트 effort to create an educated, cultured, historically sensitive, critically alert and morally scrupulous population.

Valentine Cunningham is a professor of English at Oxford, where he is fellow in modern English at Corpus Christi College. He is also a permanent visiting professor at 바카라사이트 University of Konstantz, Germany.