T. S. ELIOT
531
How much is implied by the word Alliance? Is the alliance
anything more than for the purposes of the manifesto? Of course I
don't know the work of any of these men myself, but that doesn't
matter. But I should like to know in what way this is to be pro–
mulgated and how followed up.
I have made only
-efte
two comment
<
s> in the text, and it they
can be easily erased. As to the rest, I should have liked a more
crystallised statement of the function of the university and the need
for an intellectual capital. The reference to the war does strike me as
platitudinous, and I wonder if one could not get the thing said more
concretely and immediately, without the use of such generalisations.
It
would be more irritating, too. I mean, I like the mention ofStend–
hal,
J
ames, etc., and again in your article "The Renaissance"9 you
succeed.
If
you pointed out the need to have our universities situated
in and their life merged in the life of a metropolis; the pernicious in–
fluence of athletics, social helpfulness and sermons; if it could be
mentioned that a university is not the same thing as a school of
agriculture, but that America has schools of agriculture which are
better and honester places than its universities; because they have a
work to do which they can take seriously; and that the function of the
university is not to turn out Culcher and Civic Pageants . At present,
you see, I am more alarmed at the Americanisation than at the
Prussianisation of our universities. The Germans have at least a few
facts, and we have only words; they have Archaeologie and we have
How to Appreciate the Hundred Best Paintings, the Maiden Aunt
and the Social Worker. Something might be said (at another time)
about the Evil Influence of Virginity on American Civilisation.
It might be pointed out again and again that literature has
rights of its own which extend beyond Uplift and Recreation. Of
course it is imprudent to sneer at the monopolisation of literature by
women .
The Degradation of Women in American Society.
Yours ever
Th . Eliot
9. The second of three articles under this title published in
Poetry
in February,
March and May respectively. TSE included them in his choice of the
Literary Essays
of Ezra Pound (1954) .
