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The Spike: or, Victoria University College Review, June 1924

Oxford

page 6

Oxford

If there are those here tonight who have lived in Oxford, I cannot hope to satisfy them with my picture of the place. Besides, I do not purpose to dwell on the wonders, but rather on the common, every-day things and the ordinary people. Oxford, "spreading her gardens to the moonlight and whispering from her towers the last enchantments of the Middle Age," is not a complete and perfect picture. There is the picture of a thousand bicycles wheeling through the streets at noon, the roar of a hundred voices bellowing over Trinity wall, the breathless "squash" in Abdul Hamid's rooms to hear the newest crank from London, the stale smell of food that the buttery sends up to join the pungent smell of chemicals rising from the labs, beneath the Hall. These are the memories that come most often and may not be put by. And it is the Oxford of these common impressions that I would like to recover for a while longer to-night.

The City of Oxford was a centre of commerce before the University came; but in the end the city became a simple hand-maid to the Colleges. For myself, I liked the city from the first. A market town for a farming county, it provides a pleasant contrast to the "Great Smoke" which is London, 60 miles to the east. The streets are not straight, nor do the walls of the shops and houses always follow the plumbline. There is a big covered market, where the housewives buy fruit and vegetables and meat, and an open market for cattle and sheep. Your genuine Homo oxoniensis has broad speech and homely wits. From his ranks are recruited the army of scouts and porters who serve the young seekers of learning within the College wall. Porterships often go from father to son, and in this way the College servants sometimes provide a continuity which even the Heads of House and Fellows fail to provide.

In all, there are 23 men's Colleges, with about 4,000 undergraduates. Each College is independent and self-governing—with a Head (called Master, "Warden, Dean, Provost or President) and a staff of Fellows—Lecturers—Tutors—all of them referred to as Dons. In a college of 280 undergraduates, you will find perhaps 20 dons, each man a specialist in one subject. The relations subsisting between undergraduates and dons are very interesting, and not at all like the relations between undergraduate and Lecturer in New Zealand. On the whole, it is safe to say that these relations are less formal and more intimate in Oxford than in New Zealand. In my own College—in this perhaps exceptional-it is common to call dons by their Christian names, and this in their presence. A staid New Zealander is shaken at his centre when he hears a fair-haired boy of 17 summers hail a white-haired don as Sligges; k&trembles when he himself first stiffens his sinews and summons up his blood to address an editor of Lucretius as Cyril. In a conservative place like New Zealand it simply isn't done!

I think you will be interested to know how these misused dons contrive to keep order. How is discipline enforced? And how are the high spirits of youth kept down? The answer seems to be: by giving them plenty of rein. There is a printed list of things which members of the University may not do. A man may not page 7 smoke in academic dress, or enter a public billiard-room or the bar of a hotel; he must not loiter at the stage-door of the theatre, or attend a public subscription dance; he must not be found on a race-course or go up in an aeroplane; he may not bowl a hoop down the High Street. No undergraduate is permitted to be abroad between 12 midnight and seven in the morning. Those are clear and definite prohibitions. Officers of the University—called Proctors—together with their "bulldogs" (who are large-limbed and bowler-hatted) scour the streets in search of offenders. But the jurisdiction of the Proctors ceases at the door of each college. Within the college much larger liberties are enjoyed. So far as my own college was concerned, a man might do and say almost anything—short of damage to persons and property—and escape punishment. Language, however picturesque, is permitted, and the largest thirst may be slaked without fear of the consequences. The care of seeing that men carry themselves as men and not as beasts is left to the general "sense" of the college. I have no doubt that if there is occasion; a two-handed engine waits at the door ready to smite the offender. What is required is that a man shall do the work he is there to do.

The system is somewhat as follows:—Once a week a man goes to his tutor, to whom he reads an essay (his week's work), and the whole matter is argued and put into a better frame at the end. The tutor gives a new subject—and prescribes the requisite reading. At the beginning of each term a List is published by the University of all the lectures to be given during the term. Almost all lectures are open to all undergraduates. After consulting his tutor, a man picks out the lectures he wants to go to. He may or may not keep up his attendance at them—no records of attendances are kept. It must be remembered that although an undergraduate goes to his tutor only once a week by appointment, he may drop in at any time to discuss a difficulty. Lectures or study occupy the morning from 9 till 1. The afternoon is always given, to sports, and the hard workers get in an hour or two between tea and dinner, or between dinner and bed. The whole arrangement is an excellent one. In fact, it would be hard to think of any other arrangement whereby a man might work so well and enjoy himself so much. A morning's hard work—three or four hours—including perhaps a lecture; the afternoon for exercise; the evening for fraternity and argument; and two hours' work before bed—than this arrangement in such a place I can imagine no better. I ought to add that one is expected to work steadily through the vacations. A man's work is always under the general supervision of one tutor. And at the end of each term each gentleman is required to appear before the Master of the College while his tutor gives an account of his term's work.

But you would have a very imperfect idea of the life if you heard nothing of the numerous societies and clubs. These are of very different kinds, and they differ in size as well as in aim. The political clubs are large, but not so interesting as the smaller nonpolitical ones. And it is of the latter I wish to speak.

Some make their chief aim conviviality; but more often a serious aim is present. I heard of a club in one college called the Shakespeare Club. At every meeting, after private business had been despatched, the custom was for a member to move, "That the bard be not read tonight," and this motion having been carried, the meeting gave itself over to deep drinking.

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The common procedure is for a few men, interested in one subject or purpose, to make themselves into a society, with a maximum membership of 12 or 20 or 30. Either the members take turns in reading an essay or the society invites outsiders to introduce a discussion. One club I was greatly interested in—called the Lotus Club. It was formed for the purpose of discussing matters of Anglo-Indian interest—not a large club, more than half its members being Indians. Meetings were held in the rooms of members—each time at a different college. Generally a speaker from outside was invited to start a discussion. Rabindra Nath Tagore on "Indian Nationalism," Major Douglas on "Corporate Credit," Bertrand Russell on "Chinese Culture;" W. B. Yeats, John Masefield, and Nicholas Vachell Lindsay reading their poetry; Father Vincent McNab on "Divorce;" Geo. Lansbury on "Socialism;" Mrs. Besant on "Theosophy;" Canon Streeter on "Psycho-Analysis;" Sir Sydney Ollivier on "British Imperialism in Africa;" Father Martinclale on "Scholastic Philosophy;" Roger Fry and Wyndham Lewis on "The New Painting"—these were a few of the speakers at this one club during my three years of membership.

Just imagine 40 or 50 youths, gathered from all the ends of the earth, crowded into a sitting-room; some sitting on chairs and tables, most of them squatting on the carpet; the air thick with smoke; all eyes on a figure reclining in one of the two armchairs that the room has—cigarette in hand, whose ash every now and then he flicks into the fire. It is a Jesuit, unfolding the Catholic plan of salvation. Or again it is a tall, straight, bearded man, standing back to the fire, while he offers a careful defence of British Imperialism in Africa. The speaker has his say, and then the subject is thrown open to the "House." Often the argument is carried into the twelfth hour, and ends in a rush to get home before midnight.

The Lotus Club was open to members of all the colleges, but each college has club's confined to its own members. Of this sort was one I belonged to—called "The Leonardo." It was made up of not more than 20 members—not more than three from any one faculty. Classics, History, Medicine, Philosophy, Physics, Theology—no subject was without a voice. Each member was expected to read one paper per year. The society met in the rooms of the members in turn. Many a delightful evening did we spend. A paper—washed down by mulled claret and coffee; a discussion soothed by tobacco; and a half-hour's turn round the quad with your chief antagonist; and then to bed.

Less formal groups are often formed by a handful of men to discuss matters of common interest. I remember a little group of Balliol men who used to meet in Bath Place—a delightful spot—in order to pool their knowledge of Kant's "Kritik of Pure Reason." Another set used to come to my room after breakfast on Sundays to talk about Tolstoy. And still another was wont to fore-gather at Mansfield, where two young dons ran a weekly discussion on Dean Inge's "Outspoken Essays."

In clubs and societies such as these it is that the best part of education is obtained.

The English undergrad. I found to be a thoroughly good fellow. I don't mean to say that I found him easy to understand. He has a set of conventions that are strange to a colonial, and a page 9 love for the things of the mind that is not so common south of the Line. He seems to allow himself more freedom to speak his mind; he has no forbidden set of subjects; he has a way of jesting on sacred and solemn things (not loving them the less) that is an offence to the Antipodean. I knew very well a young don who combined several talents that are rarely combined in New Zealand—a lion for energy, a very good athlete, a brilliant student, Fellow of All Souls. He was a man to reckon with when the beer began to flow, and had the rarest gift of foul speech; he was also the father of a large family, and the most religious man in the college. He told me he was a Puritan. I think there must be more freedom, more tolerance, in Oxford than anywhere else in the world. It is a place where a man may wear what clothes he will. Many of the young gentlemen wear gaily-coloured garments, and very handsome they look; but the rule is plain and inexpensive wear.

One thing that surprised me was the widespread interest in the fine arts, and especially in music.

I think you would be surprised to observe how Oxford is pervaded by the influence of religion. In my own college attendance at chapel was not compulsory; and I don't doubt that men leave Oxford without ever having attended a chapel service. Nevertheless religion is in the air. It is a dinner-table subject; men are not afraid of it. And whether they confess and practise it, or whether they deny its truth or utility, they know something about it, and can talk of it without confusion or irritation.

I think Oxford rather plumes itself on its ability and its readiness to hear both sides of every story, and your Oxford man is careful to weigh every argument before he offers an opinion. This may be only a weak affectation, or at the worst a sort of disease of the will—(we all know the man who sees both sides of every argument so clearly that he never makes a decision at all)—but more often the habit is a result of that caution and fair-mindedness that is conspicuous in the best sort of Englishman everywhere. I have heard a story (which indeed cannot have originated in Oxford) of an old lady who said: "Cambridge men at least have opinions; Oxford men see your point!" But it is after all a national trait. This it is, I dare say, that accounts for the growth of toleration in England. Every Englishman is always bursting to have his "say" about things in general. But he is reasonable enough to admit: "Well, if I have my say, everybody else is entitled to have his say." And after everybody has said his say, caution suggests—"Well, we've all said different things, and after all there's no reason why my particular say should be any wiser than the rest."

This fair-minded and cautious temper—a defect rather than an excess of imagination, along with high spirits and a certain instinctive kindliness—these seem to be the marks of the best sort of Englishman; the possession of these making what we agree to call &"gentleman."

On the whole, as you will see, I regard Oxford as a wonderful place, and Oxford men as splendid men. Of Oxford as the "home of lost causes and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names and impossible loyalties," I have nothing to say—except to say that perhaps there are causes that never will be won, but never cease to be worth fighting for; that there are some men blind or stupid or fanatical enough to feel that life will never be worth the living till every living man at least has access to the best thought of all the ages.

H.M