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Reading your article on the relative merits of the traditional lecture versus the new rival ¡°active learning spaces¡± (¡°?Has the death of the lecture been greatly exaggerated??¡±, News, 19 July), I was reminded of the passage in?Pride and Prejudice?where Mr Bingley is talking to his sister Caroline about his intention to have a ball at Netherfield Park. Caroline Bingley, who is trying to impress Mr Darcy, says: ¡°I should like balls infinitely better¡­if they were carried on in a different manner; but there is something insufferably tedious in the usual process of such a meeting. It would surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing made the order of the day.¡± To which Mr Bingley replies: ¡°Much more rational, my dear Caroline, I dare say, but it would not be near so like a ball.¡±

¡°Active learning spaces¡± ¨C which, incidentally, I have always been used to calling ¡°classrooms¡± ¨C might well be much better from the point of view of teaching and learning, but a university without any lectures or lecture theatres would be much less like a university.

Kenneth Smith
Reader in criminology and sociology
Bucks New University

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