ABSTRACT
The late 1950s and early 1960s were the golden age of the don. One of the most irritating things about being a modern don is the pompous leading articles on university disorders. Dons, not students, were of course the subject – and why not? they are much more interesting. The public was fed with visions of Byzantine intrigue at the office, with couplings of Murdochian complexity to round out the full life. The Vice-Chancellor elect of Essex even made them the subject of the Reith lectures, as if a combined common room were on a par with the discovery of D. N. A. or the liberation of Africa. Reverting to quality, decline is even more evident among graduate students. They are not only less clever but also less dedicated, indeed hardly intellectuals at all. The student revolt did not start these misgivings, indeed has somewhat diminished them.
