Facing both ways

It was once a common charge that many senior administrators in the British Civil Service had been well educated in the Classics, but knew much less about the modern world and its needs than they did of Rome and Greece. Clearly there was substance in the charge. For it becomes increasingly clear that the Department of Education & Science has as its patron saint no Christian, but the Roman god Janus — two‐faced and looking in opposite directions at the same time. It is by his example that the education service is administered.