Kitabı oku: «Aspects of Modern Oxford, by a Mere Don», sayfa 2

 
'When he was good he was very, very good;
But when he was bad he was horrid,'
 

like the little girl of the poet. He was either an inimitable example of improbable virtue, or abnormally vicious. The bad undergraduate defied the Ten Commandments, all and severally, with the ease and success of the villain of transpontine melodrama. Nothing came amiss to him, from forgery to screwing up the Dean and letting it be understood that some one else had done it; but retribution generally came at last, and this compound of manifold vices was detected and rusticated; and it was understood that from rustication to the gallows was the shortest and easiest of transitions. The virtuous undergraduate wore trousers too short for him and supported his relations. He did not generally join in any athletic pastimes, but when the stroke of his college eight fainted from excitement just before the start, the neglected sizar threw off his threadbare coat, leapt into the vacant seat, and won his crew at once the proud position of head of the river by the simple process of making four bumps on the same night, explaining afterwards that he had practised in a dingey and saw how it could be done. Then there was the Admirable Crichton of University life, perhaps the commonest type among these heroes of romance. He was invariably at Christ Church, and very often had a background of more or less tragic memories from the far-away days of his jeunesse orageuse. Nevertheless he unbent so far as to do nothing much during the first three and a half years of his academic career, except to go to a good many wine parties, where he always wore his cap and gown (especially in female fiction), and drank more than any one else. Then, when every one supposed he must be ploughed in Greats, he sat up so late for a week, and wore so many wet towels, that eventually he was announced at the Encaenia, amid the plaudits of his friends and the approving smiles of the Vice-Chancellor, as the winner of a Double-First, several University prizes, and a Fellowship; after which it was only right and natural that the recipient of so many coveted distinctions should lead the heroine of the piece to the altar.

Possibly the Oxford of a bygone generation may have furnished models for these brilliantly coloured pictures; or, as is more probable, they were created by the licence of fiction. At any rate the 'man' of modern times is a far less picturesque person-unpicturesque even to the verge of becoming ordinary. He is seldom eccentric or outré in externals. His manners are such as he has learnt at school, and his customs those of the world he lives in. His dress would excite no remark in Piccadilly. The gorgeous waistcoats of Leech's pencil and Calverley's 'crurum non enarrabile tegmen' belong to ancient history. He is, on the whole, inexpensive in his habits, as it is now the fashion to be poor; he no longer orders in a tailor's whole shop, and his clubs are generally managed with economy and prudence. If, however, the undergraduate occasionally displays the virtues of maturer age, there are certain indications that he is less of a grown-up person than he was in the brave days of old. It takes him a long time to forget his school-days. Only exceptionally untrammelled spirits regard independent reading as more important than the ministrations of their tutor. Pass-men have been known to speak of their work for the schools as 'lessons,' and, in their first term, to call the head of the College the head-master. Naturally, too, school-life has imbued both Pass and Class men with an enduring passion for games-probably rather a good thing in itself, although inadequate as the be-all and end-all of youthful energy. Even those who do not play them can talk about them. Cricket and football are always as prolific a topic as the weather, and nearly as interesting, as many a perfunctory 'Fresher's breakfast' can testify.

The undergraduate, in these as in other things, is like the young of his species, with whom, after all, he has a good deal in common. Take, in short, the ordinary provincial young man; add a dash of the schoolboy and just a touch of the Bursch, and you have what Mr. Hardy calls the 'Normal Undergraduate.'

It used to be the custom to draw a very hard-and-fast line of demarcation between the rowing and the reading man-rowing being taken as a type of athletics in general, and indeed being the only form of physical exercise which possessed a regular organization. Rumour has it that a certain tutor (now defunct) laid so much emphasis on this distinction that men whose circumstances permitted them to be idle were regarded with disfavour if they took to reading. He docketed freshmen as reading or non-reading men, and would not allow either kind to stray into the domain of the other. However, the general fusion of classes and professions has levelled these boundaries now. The rowing man reads to a certain extent, and the reading man has very often pretensions to athletic eminence; it is in fact highly desirable that he should, now that a 'Varsity 'blue' provides an assistant master in a school with at least as good a salary as does a brilliant degree. Yet, although the great majority of men belong to the intermediate class of those who take life as they find it, and make no one occupation the object of their exclusive devotion, it is hardly necessary to say that there are still extremes-the Brutal Athlete at one end of the line and the bookish recluse (often, though wrongly, identified with the 'Smug') at the other. The existence of the first is encouraged by the modern tendency to professionalism in athletics. Mere amateurs who regard games as an amusement can never hope to do anything; a thing must be taken seriously. Every schoolboy who wishes to obtain renown in the columns of sporting papers has his 'record,' and comes up to Oxford with the express intention of 'cutting' somebody else's, and the athletic authorities of the University know all about Jones's bowling average at Eton, or Brown's form as three-quarter-back at Rugby, long before these distinguished persons have matriculated. Nor is it only cricket, football, and rowing that are the objects of our worship. Even so staid and contemplative a pastime as golf ranks among 'athletics;' and perhaps in time the authorities will be asked to give a 'Blue' for croquet. These things being so, on the whole, perhaps, we should be grateful to the eminent athlete for the comparative affability of his demeanour, so long as he is not seriously contradicted. He is great, but he is generally merciful.

Thews and sinews have probably as much admiration as is good for them, and nearly as much as they want. On the other hand, the practice of reading has undoubtedly been popularised. It is no longer a clique of students who seek honours; public opinion in and outside the University demands of an increasing majority of men that they should appear to be improving their minds. The Pass-man pure and simple diminishes in numbers annually; no doubt in time he will be a kind of pariah. Colleges compete with each other in the Schools. Evening papers prove by statistics the immorality of an establishment where a scholar who obtains a second is allowed to remain in residence. The stress and strain of the system would be hardly bearable were it not decidedly less difficult to obtain a class in honours than it used to be-not, perhaps, a First, or even a Second; but certainly the lower grades are easier of attainment. Then the variety of subjects is such as to appeal to every one: history, law, theology, natural science (in all its branches), mathematics, all invite the ambitious student whose relations wish him to take honours, and will be quite satisfied with a Fourth; and eminent specialists compete for the privilege of instructing him. The tutor who complained to the undergraduate that he had sixteen pupils was met by the just retort that the undergraduate had sixteen tutors.

The relation of the University to the undergraduate is twofold; it is 'kept'-as a witty scholar of Dublin is fabled to have inscribed over the door of his Dean, 'for his amusement and instruction'-and if the latter is frequently formal, it is still more often and in a great variety of ways 'informal,' and not communicated through his tutor. Not to mention the many college literary societies-every college has one at least, and they are all ready to discuss any topic, from the Origin of Evil to bimetallism-there are now in the University various learned societies, modelled and sometimes called after the German Seminar, which are intended to supplement the deficiencies of tuition, and to keep the serious student abreast of the newest erudition which has been 'made in Germany,' or anywhere else on the Continent. Then there is the Union as a school of eloquence for the political aspirant; or the 'private business' of his college debating society, where a vote of censure on Ministers is sometimes emphasised by their ejection into the quadrangle, may qualify him for the possible methods of a future House of Commons.

III-OF SIGHTSEERS

'The women longed to go and see the college and the tutour.'

'The Guardian's Instruction' by Stephen Penton.

When the late Mr. Bright asserted that the tone of Oxford life and thought was 'provincial with a difference,' great indignation was aroused in the breasts of all Oxford men-residents, at least; whether it was the provincialism or the 'difference' wherein lay the sting of the taunt. Probably it was the first. For, although it is a tenable hypothesis that Kleinstädtigkeit has really been a potent factor in the production of much that is best in art and literature, still nobody likes to be called provincial by those whose business is in the metropolis. Caesar said that he would rather be a great man at Gabii, or whatever was the Little Pedlington of Italy, than an ordinary person at Rome; but the modern Little Pedlingtonian would seldom confess to so grovelling an ambition, whatever might be his real feelings. He would much sooner be one of the crowd in London than mayor of his native city: so at least he says. And so he is very angry if you call him provincial, and venture to insinuate that his views of life are limited by the jurisdiction of his Local Board or City Council; and thus the University of Oxford refused for a long time to forgive John Bright, and did not quite forget his strictures even when it gave him an honorary degree and called him 'patriae et libertatis amantissimus.' And yet the authorities had done what they could to keep the University provincial. It was only after many and deep searchings of heart that the Hebdomadal Council consented to countenance the advent of the Great Western Railway; while the ten miles which separate Oxford from Steventon preserved undergraduates from the contaminating contact of the metropolis there was still hope, but many venerable Tories held that University discipline was past praying for when a three-hours' run would bring you into the heart of the dissipation of London. Some there were who could not even imagine that so terrible a change had really taken place; it is said that Dr. Routh, the President of Magdalen, who attained the respectable age of ninety-nine in the year 1855 (he was elected towards the close of the last century as a warming-pan, being then of a delicate constitution and not supposed likely to live!), persistently ignored the development of railways altogether; when undergraduates came up late at the beginning of the winter term, he would excuse them on the ground of the badness of the roads.

We have changed all that, like other provincial centres; and undergraduates who want to 'see their dentist'-a venerable and time-honoured plea which we have heard expressed by the delicate-minded as 'the necessity for keeping a dental engagement'-may now run up to town and back between lunch and 'hall;' the latter function having also marched with the times, and even six-o'clock dinner being now almost a thing of the past. Not so long ago five was the regular hour. In the early seventies seven-o'clock dinner was regarded as a doubtful innovation; and there we have stopped for the present. But the fashionable world outside the colleges imitates London customs-always keeping a little way behind the age-and what has been called the 'Parks System' actually dines as late as 7.45 when it is determined to be très chic. It is only one sign of the influx of metropolitan ideas; but there are many others. Oxford tradesmen have learnt by bitter experience that the modern undergraduate is not an exclusive preserve for them like his father. That respected county magnate, when he was at Oriel, bought his coats from an Oxford tailor and his wine from an Oxford wine-merchant, to whom-being an honest man-he paid about half as much again as he would have paid anywhere in London, thereby recouping the men of coats or of wines for the many bad debts made by dealing with the transitory and impecunious undergraduate. But his son gets his clothes in London, and his wine from the college, which deals directly with Bordeaux. And the tone and subject of conversation is changed too. Oxford is thoroughly up to date, and knows all about the latest play at the Criterion and the latest scandal in the inner circle of London society-or thinks it does, at any rate: there is no one who knows so much about London as the man who does not live there.

But if Oxford goes to London, so does London come to Oxford. Whether it be fitting or not that the site of a theoretically learned University should be in summer a sort of people's park or recreation-ground for the jaded Londoner, the fact is so: the classes and the masses are always with us in one form or another. It has become a common and laudable practice for East-end clergymen and the staff of Toynbee Hall and the Oxford House to bring down their flocks on Whit-Monday or other appropriate occasions; and one may constantly see high academic dignitaries piloting an unwieldy train of excursionists, and trying to compress University history into a small compass, or to explain the nature of a college (of all phenomena most unexplainable to the lay mind) to an audience which has never seen any other place of education than a Board school. As for the classes, they have raised the Eights and 'Commem.' to the rank of regular engagements in a London season, and they go through both with that unflinching heroism which the English public invariably display in the performance of a social duty: they shiver in summer frocks on the barges, despite the hail and snowstorms of what is ironically described as the 'Summer' term; and after a hard day's sightseeing they enjoy a well-earned repose by going to Commemoration balls, where you really do dance, not for a perfunctory two hours or so, but from 8.30 to 6.30 a.m. In spite of these hardships it is gratifying to observe that, whether or not the University succeeds in its educational mission, it appears to leave nothing to be desired as a place of amusement for the jaded pleasure-seeker. People who go to sleep at a farce have been known to smile at the (to a resident) dullest and least impressive University function. Ladies appear to take an especial delight in penetrating the mysteries of College life. Perhaps the female mind is piqued by a subdued flavour of impropriety, dating from a period when colleges were not what they are; or more probably they find it gratifying to the self-respect of a superior sex to observe and to pity the notoriously ineffectual attempts of mere bachelors to render existence bearable. So much for the term; and when the vacation begins Oxford is generally inundated by a swarm of heterogeneous tourists-Americans, who come here on their way between Paris and Stratford-on-Avon; Germans, distinguished by a white umbrella and a red 'Baedeker,' trying to realise that here, too, is a University, despite the absence of students with slashed noses and the altogether different quality of the beer. Then with August come the Extension students; the more frivolous to picnic at Nuneham and Islip, the seriously-minded to attend lectures which compress all knowledge into a fortnight's course, and to speculate on the future when they-the real University, as they say-will succeed to the inheritance of an unenlightened generation which is wasting its great opportunities.

At Commemoration a general sense of lobster salad pervades the atmosphere, and the natural beauties of colleges are concealed or enhanced by a profusion of planking and red cloth; the architectural merit of a hall is as nothing compared to the elasticity of its floor. The Eights, again, provide attractions of their own, not especially academic. The truly judicious sightseer will avoid both of these festive seasons, and will choose some time when there is less to interfere with his own proper pursuit-the week after the Eights, perhaps, or the beginning of the October term, when the red Virginia creeper makes a pleasing contrast with the grey collegiate walls. Nor will he, if he is wise, allow himself to be 'rushed' through the various objects of interest: there are, it is believed, local guides who profess to show the whole of Oxford in two hours; but rumour asserts that the feat is accomplished by making the several quadrangles of one college do duty for a corresponding number of separate establishments, so that the credulous visitor leaves Christ Church with the impression that he has seen not only 'The House,' but also several other foundations, all curiously enough communicating with each other. And in any case, after a mere scamper through the colleges, nothing remains in the mind but a vague and inaccurate reminiscence, combining in one the characteristics of all; the jaded sightseer goes back to London with a fortunately soon-to-be-forgotten idea that Keble was founded by Alfred the Great, and that Tom Quad is a nickname for the Vice-Chancellor. Samuel Pepys seems to have been to a certain extent the prototype of this kind of curiosity or antiquity hunter, and paid a 'shilling to a boy that showed me the Colleges before dinner.' (Curiously enough, 'after dinner' the honorarium to 'one that showed us the schools and library' was 10*s.*!)

He who is responsible for the proper conduct of a gang of relations or friends will not treat them in this way. He will endeavour, so far as possible, to confine them within the limits of his own college, where he is on his native heath, and, if he is not an antiquarian, can at least animate the venerable buildings with details of contemporary history. He will point out his Dons (like the great French nation, 'objects of hatred or admiration, but never of indifference') with such derision or reverence as they may deserve, and affix to them ancient anecdotes whereby their personality may be remembered. He will show to an admiring circle the statue which was painted green, the pinnacle climbed by a friend in the confidence of inebriation, and the marks of the bonfire which the Dean did not succeed in putting out. Even the most ignorant and frivolous-minded person can make his own college interesting. When he has succeeded in impressing upon his friends the true character of a college as a place of religion and sound learning, he may be permitted to show them such external objects as form a part of every one's education, and which no one (for the very shame of confessing it) can pretermit unseen, such as the gardens of New College or St. John's, the 'Nose' of B.N.C, the Burne-Jones tapestry at Exeter, or the picture of Mr. Gladstone in the hall of Christ Church. Those who absolutely insist on a more comprehensive view of the University and City may be allowed to make the ascent of some convenient point of view-Magdalen Tower, for instance; it is a stiff climb, but the view from the top will repay your exertions. This is where, as since the appearance of Mr. Holman Hunt's picture everybody is probably aware, the choir of the college annually salute the rising sun from the top of the tower by singing a Latin hymn on May morning-while the youth of the city, for reasons certainly not known to themselves, make morning hideous with blowing of unmelodious horns in the street below. At all times-even at sunrise on a rainy May morning-it is a noble prospect. The unlovely red-brick suburbs of the north are hidden from sight by the intervening towers and pinnacles of the real Oxford; immediately below the High Street winds westwards, flanked by colleges and churches, of which the prevailing grey is relieved by the green trees of those many gardens and unexplored nooks of verdure with which Oxford abounds; to the south there are glimpses of the river flowing towards the dim grey line of the distant Berkshire downs. To the historically-minded the outlook may suggest many a picture of bygone times-scenes of brawling in the noisy High Street, when the old battle of Town and Gown was fought with cold steel, and blood flowed freely on both sides-in the days when the maltreated townsman appealing to the Proctor could get no satisfaction but a 'thrust at him with his poleaxe!' Down the street which lies below passed Queen Elizabeth-'Virgo Pia Docta Felix'-after being royally entertained with sumptuous pageants and the play of 'Palamon and Arcyte' in the Christ Church hall. Over the Cherwell, in the troublous times of the Civil Wars, rode the Royalist horse to beat up the Parliamentary quarters below the Chiltern hills and among the woods of the Buckinghamshire border-enterprising undergraduates perhaps taking an exeat to accompany them. Here it was that certain scholars of Magdalen, having a quarrel with Lord Norreys by reason of deer-stealing, 'went up privately to the top of their tower, and waiting till he should pass by towards Ricot' (Rycote) 'sent down a shower of stones upon him and his retinew, wounding some and endangering others of their lives'-and worse might have happened had not the 'retinew' taken the precaution, foreseeing the assault, to put boards or tables on their heads. At a later day Pope entered Oxford by this road, and there is a pretty description of the scene in one of his letters-it will no doubt appeal to the nineteenth-century visitor who departs through slums to the architecturally unimpressive station of the Great Western. 'The shades of the evening overtook me. The moon rose in the clearest sky I ever saw, by whose solemn light I paced on slowly, without company, or any interruption to the range of my own thoughts. About a mile before I reached Oxford all the bells tolled in different notes, the clocks of every college answered one another, and sounded forth (some in a deeper, some in a softer tone) that it was eleven at night. All this was no ill preparation to the life I have led since among those old walls, venerable galleries, stone porticos, studious walks, and solitary scenes of the University.' Jerry-built rows of lodging-houses rather militate against the romance of the Iffley Road as we know it now.

But, after all, the majority of sightseers are not given to historical reflections. What most people want is something that 'palpitates with actuality;' they want to see the machine working. They are temporarily happy if they can see a Proctor in his robes of office, and rise to the enthusiasm of 'never having had such a delightful day' if the Proctor happens to 'proctorise' an undergraduate within the ken of their vision. 'It was all so delightfuland mediaeval, and all that kind of thing, don't you know? Poor young man-simply for not wearing one of those horrid caps and gowns!I call it a shame.' This is the reason why a Degree Day is so wonderfully popular a ceremony. There is a sense of attractive mystery about it all-the Vice-Chancellor throned in the Theatre or Convocation House, discoursing in unintelligible scraps of Latin like the refrain of a song, and the Proctors doing their quarter-deck walk-although the dignity of the function be rather marred by the undergraduates who jostle and giggle in the background forgetting that they are assisting at a ceremony which is, after all, one of the University's reasons of existence. It is the same kind of curiosity which causes the lecturer to become suddenly conscious that he is being watched with intense interest-an interest to which he is altogether unaccustomed-by 'only a face at the window' of his lecture-room, to his own confusion and the undisguised amusement of his audience.