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Boris Johnson's view of the student's lot is limited by out-of-date assumptions, in particular about the use (and abuse) of the web. How can he suggest that personal interactions with tutors are essential to every single aspect of learning when classics (his subject) is the study of the past derived from texts written in "dead" languages (Ancient Greek and Latin) and involves hours spent in university libraries?

The web is much more interactive now. The online encyclopedia Wikipedia has nearly 1 million articles in English alone, with thousands of articles in many other languages. Students could read the web in 1996. In 2006, they can write it. Any reader can edit the majority of articles, including Johnson's entry, which is more dynamic (reacting to news events) than any published article, such as his entry in Who's Who .

Gordon Joly London