Dr Conan Doyle and Scottish Universities
Dr Conan Doyle and Scottish Universities is a letter written by Arthur Conan Doyle published in Scottish Leader on 13 october 1893.
Dr Conan Doyle and Scottish Universities
(To the Editor of the "Scottish Leader.")
Sir, — I said in the remarks upon which you comment that every Edinburgh man, and, above all, every Edinburgh University man, has a right to be very proud of the literary record of his Alma Mater. When, however, you go on to infer that the literature is the result of the college training — in other words, that Carlyle and Walter Scott would not have been the men they were had fate sent them to Aberdeen or Glasgow instead of to Edinburgh — I think that you are pushing the matter to rather extravagant lengths. Creative literature, in my opinion, cannot be taught. If my taking this view has caused (as you say it has) "pain and sorrow" among my friends at Edinburgh, I can only regret it. It did not appear to produce any such effect upon the forty or fifty graduates to whom my remarks were addressed. — Yours, etc.,
- A. CONAN DOYLE.
- 12 Tennison Road, South Norwood,
- London, October 11, 1893.
