THE "DARK" AGES
Sir,-In an article on broadcasting for schools in your latest issue we are told that children are being taught that "during the Middle Ages there had been a black-out on education, art, scienceeven thought, and everything making for progress. Then, about 1,400 people in Europe began to realise they were missing something." Well, I’m a constant reader and I’ve read a good deal of nonsense in my time, but this beats anything I ever read before. No Art? Then who built the cathedrals? No Education? Then who founded the Universities? No Thought? Then who were the Schoolmen? A great modern philosopher, Professor A, N. Whitehead, describes the
Middle Ages as a period of "unbridled rationalism" and all the standard historians of philosophy describe S. Thomas Aquinas as one of the greatest thinkers of all time. I see that I have not mentioned Dante. Would it be possible to draw up a list of the four greatest poets of the Western World that did not include him? He too flourished during the black-out. It looks as if there is something to be said for living in the dark.
HAROLD
MILLER
(Wellington).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19460322.2.13.4
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 352, 22 March 1946, Page 5
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193THE "DARK" AGES New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 352, 22 March 1946, Page 5
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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