How not to treat guests

The most ignorant Hottentot will not upset his guest once he has deemed it fit to invite him to his house. But when the new Archbishop visited the University this principle was not observed, by someone who is presumably able to write his personal views and is given all the means to transmit them to any specific person or, indeed, to the public at large, by the University itself. His words were unsuited to the place, the occasion and the audience.

Moreover, in teaching, it is always wise never to discuss (much less advertise) your personal lifestyle in front of your students. A certain fictional Miss Jean Brodie came to a sad end for having done that. In any case, good manners never hurt anyone.

One may claim the right to freedom of speech, of course, but not before having read Oliver Wendell Holmes's classic definition about what a man may not say on certain occasions, and he was the foremost Judge in the United States, dealing with a very delicate case, when he delivered it.

Previous to reading a newspaper report about the Archbishop's visit I was not aware of the speaker's existence, much as he is not aware of God's, so nothing personal should be read into this.