Dublin Core
Title
Barnes Letter to BBC, 15 March 1963
Description
Barnes wrote to Canon Mackay in the BBC Religion Department a few days later and mentioned that he has received more positive than negative responses to the February 17 Meeting Point programme.
Source
Kenneth Barnes Collection, PETT Archive & Study Centre, Cheltenham
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
15th March 1963
Canon R. Mackay,
Religious Broadcasting Department,
Broadcasting House,
London, W.1.
Dear Canon Mackay,
I was very grateful for your letter about the broadcast. On the whole the correspondence that I received here was encouraging, there being rather more approval than disapproval.
One thing that worries me is that I tend to get an reputation for being an "authority on sex"--almost on that only, and the fact that I'm to give a further broadcast--with Professor Carstairs--will tend further to establish this idea. In fact my interests are primarily and broadly education--especially in the area where Christianity impinges on education. I'm wondering whether the B.B.C. would consider the idea of a broadcast--perhaps more than one--to put a point of view about education and the future of Britain considerably different from what is usually said. (I haven't much to time to listen to broadcasts, so I may be wrong about this). One get's sick of the continual harping on education as a means of "survival"--of continual pushing forward in the technological and business sense as though our future as people really depended on this, as though this were the only way to retain or regain our greatness, the only way we can continue to be a "power" in the world.
What I would like to say--in terms that both the Christian and humanist would accept--would be to encourage an entirely different idea of national significance and power: education away from the rat-race and a yet, more affluent society, towards quality of life and relationship, towards depth and imagination in thinking--an education that might make possible the beginning of a break-through to the new world that every intelligent person seems to want yet is obstinately unwilling to prepare for.
Perhaps this is a proposition that should be directed to a different department, but I'm sure it is one that is near to your heart--and that's why I am first putting it to you.
A lecture that I gave to the Leeds Institute of Education has some of the ideas that I would want to present and develop, so I'm sending it with this letter--with apologies for landing you with such a massive-looking document.
Yours sincerely,
Kenneth Barnes
Canon R. Mackay,
Religious Broadcasting Department,
Broadcasting House,
London, W.1.
Dear Canon Mackay,
I was very grateful for your letter about the broadcast. On the whole the correspondence that I received here was encouraging, there being rather more approval than disapproval.
One thing that worries me is that I tend to get an reputation for being an "authority on sex"--almost on that only, and the fact that I'm to give a further broadcast--with Professor Carstairs--will tend further to establish this idea. In fact my interests are primarily and broadly education--especially in the area where Christianity impinges on education. I'm wondering whether the B.B.C. would consider the idea of a broadcast--perhaps more than one--to put a point of view about education and the future of Britain considerably different from what is usually said. (I haven't much to time to listen to broadcasts, so I may be wrong about this). One get's sick of the continual harping on education as a means of "survival"--of continual pushing forward in the technological and business sense as though our future as people really depended on this, as though this were the only way to retain or regain our greatness, the only way we can continue to be a "power" in the world.
What I would like to say--in terms that both the Christian and humanist would accept--would be to encourage an entirely different idea of national significance and power: education away from the rat-race and a yet, more affluent society, towards quality of life and relationship, towards depth and imagination in thinking--an education that might make possible the beginning of a break-through to the new world that every intelligent person seems to want yet is obstinately unwilling to prepare for.
Perhaps this is a proposition that should be directed to a different department, but I'm sure it is one that is near to your heart--and that's why I am first putting it to you.
A lecture that I gave to the Leeds Institute of Education has some of the ideas that I would want to present and develop, so I'm sending it with this letter--with apologies for landing you with such a massive-looking document.
Yours sincerely,
Kenneth Barnes