Dick Ford wrote: We read Huckleberry Finn because it is Quality. We require our children to read it for the same reason we expose them to Beethoven and Leonardo da Vinci. We want to communicate to them that there is a world of fine arts, that there is a great conversation that continues through history among the best minds, that all of us can be a part of that conversation when we read works of literature. [skipping here] I have heard it argued that literature should not be forced down the throats of unwilling students because they won't understand it and will probably hate it forever after, that access to literature should be allowed only when we are mature enough to understand it. But there are some students who will recognize Quality. Why, shame on you, Dick Ford! What a moss-covered relic you are! Do you actually DARE to suggest that Huckleberry Finn is a "finer" piece of literature than a Batman comic book? Or that some boring old picture by Leonardo What's-his-name is "greater" than a 5-year-old's crayon doodle, proudly stuck with a magnet to his mommy's refrigerator? Dick Ford, you cannot PROVE that Beethoven's Ninth Symphony has some so-called "Quality" that the latest album by Skunk Vomit or Crotch Rot lacks. You're a stuffy old ELITIST, Dick Ford. Why don't you climb back in your cave? "Quality" judgments! Don't you know it's only in your entirely culturally biased opinion that Hamlet somehow "outranks" Porky Pig Learns the Alphabet? Putting sarcasm aside, anyone with a little historical background realizes that standards of artistic quality cannot be set in stone: Longfellow and Whittier are no longer the towering figures they once were; neither Huckleberry Finn nor Moby-Dick was widely considered a masterpiece for many years. Bach was unappreciated during the century after his death . . . and on and on. But although quality judgments can't be absolute, I'm appalled that we've reached a stage of silliness where it takes courage for someone like Dick Ford to speak out. In many circles it's no longer easy for someone to say, "This is Quality; that is trash." There are college departments where it would be bad form to hint that Antigone might surpass last night's t.v. drama-drivel. What makes me laugh (when not snarling) is that the same academic fad-follower who thinks it SO unfashionable to rate King Lear above Peanuts would never dream of shunning "Quality judgments" in his own life. --Try telling him that he can't prove his favorite merlot is better than cherry Kool-Aid. --Remind him that "cultural bias" leads him to "privilege" his New-Yorker-advertised cologne over the aroma of horse droppings. --Whisper to him that he dare not declare his Princeton doctorate "superior" to one from Moe's Mail Order University. Good for you, Dick Ford, for standing up on your hind legs and speaking out eloquently for artistic merit. Your fellow antique, Mark Coburn