WHAT A DUNCE!

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6802, 4 January 1929, Page 3

WHAT A DUNCE!

If you want to bo wise you should go to Duns. They have been learned there for centuries; they aro so still. And where is Duns, that you may go there? It is a wee town in Berwickshire, with the usual history of towns in tho Border country, for in 1545 it was unfortunately destroyed, only to build itself up again bravely a few years later. But Duns him a greater claim to history, or at least to tradition, than a few Border raids. It is the town of Duns Scotus of medieval fame. Duns Scotus was. a philosopher of the thirteenth century, and a popular one too, as his mere presence attracted some thirty thousand students to Oxford University. He wrote books on the Bible and Aristotle, and «ie disputed with Aquinas, enhancing the reputation of his native town for learning. It seems strange indeed that from so wise a place, and from so great a philosopher, should havo come a word that still expresses the unieared; a simpleton, a fool, a know-nothing—in short a “dunce.” But though Duns Scotus may have been a monument to wisdom, his students of a later day were not, and they opposed all forms of learning but their own. Hence, in derision, they were known as “Dunsers” or opponents of advancing thought, therefore ignoramuses. So the whilrigig of timo turn and twisted the word about, as it has done to many another word, and gave it an opposito meaning to its first one. So take courage little dunce as you stand in tho corner with your foolscap on your head. You may not be as silly as you look, and certainly Duns Scotus was no lack wit. But dunces are out of date to-day, it is pleasant to think, when there is more love for learning. Tho only ‘foolscap’ left pertains to the stationers, among whom tho name lingers, though its meaning is lost forever.