Subject: [he-forum 2199] ゴンブリッチ教授のメッセージ

From: [email-masked] (TOYOSHIMA Kouichi)
Date: Wed, 27 Jun 2001 09:50:26 +0900

佐賀大学の豊島です．

英オックスフォード大学教授で同大学ベイリオル・カレッジ上級フェロー，
ゴンブリッチ氏のメッセージです．同氏は岩波「世界」2001年5月号の，
「大学人の大量虐殺」の筆者です．

なお，この文書は数日前から次の場所に掲示していますが，本日改訂されま
したので，9時半以前にダウンロードされたものは廃棄していただくようお願い
します．翻訳もでき次第掲載します．
http://pegasus.phys.saga-u.ac.jp/znet/gombrich.html

教授は国大協の長尾会長宛にも，ほぼ同じ内容の手紙を送っています．

Message from Professor Richard Gombrich, Fellow of Balliol College

I have learnt of proposed new legislation to bring Japan's state
universities firmly under the control of the central government, by
reorganizing them as so-called "Independent Administrative
Institutes", the plans of which are to be supervised and checked by
the Ministry of Education. Scrutiny of the proposal discloses that the
word "independent" has little real meaning and that what is envisaged
is centralised government control. Though such an arrangement may
well improve economic efficiency and administrative tidiness, it
cannot but imperil academic freedom and the essential role of
universities, which is to seek the truth in whatever way they see fit
and to proclaim their views without fear or favour. Surely by now
history has demonstrated to us often enough that to imperil academic
freedom is to court disaster. No university system in the world with
such a degree of centralised control has ever succeeded in
maintaining world class standards. As a friend and well-wisher of
Japan, I would be very sad to see the country thus demeaned.

Yours sincerely,
Richard Gombrich