THE FRESHMAN’S TERM.
Strolling towards the Lodge on Monday morning--because everybody seemed
to be strolling in that direction--Frank had his attention called to
various notices posted in the gates. One was to the effect that “the
Master would see the gentlemen that morning between 10 a.m. and noon,
the freshmen on Tuesday, between the same hours.” Another that “the
Dean would be glad to see the freshmen at ten, the other gentlemen
after.” There was also a list of places in Hall; announcements of the
meetings of the College Debating Society, Boat Club, Cricket Club;
Greek Testament Lecture, _sine ulla solemnitate_ (_i.e._ without cap
and gown), at Mr. Wood’s house every Sunday evening at nine. He was one
of the married Fellows--a hard-working, energetic man.
Without quite knowing what “seeing the freshmen” meant, Frank got
his gown, and as it was five minutes to ten, made his way to the Dean’s
rooms. In the passage outside he found about twenty freshmen cooling
their heels, and engaged, some more and some less, in questions or
chaff with George, the Dean’s scout. George usually had the best of
it. In fact, the freshman who dared to argue with him on matters of
custom or local politics, and especially local politics, found himself
considerably “shut up.”
A door opened, and a sort of snort from within indicated to George
that the Dean was ready to see the freshmen. One by one they filed in,
and were greeted by the Dean with a smile that was naturally faint
but tried to be sweet, and a grasp of the hand that was meant to be
cordial but was unmistakably flabby. There were seats for all, but it
took some minutes to get into them. The interview did not last long:
just long enough, in fact, to enable the Dean to make one remark to
each of the freshmen. To one, without waiting for an answer, “How is
your father?” To another, “Does Mr. St. Leger intend coming forward for
Slowcombe?” To another, “Have you been in Devonshire this vacation,
Mr. Jones?”--Jones being, of course, a Yorkshireman who has never
travelled further south than Oxford, when he matriculated in February
last. To one or two a faint question as to their intentions. “Were they
going to read for Honours, or for a Pass?” On the whole, Frank left
the room depressed and disheartened as to his work. He had expected
to be questioned as to what he had done at school: what form he was
in: what books he had read; to be advised as to the turn his reading
should now take; whether he should read for Honours in one examination
or in more than one; or whether, in short, reading for Honours would be
beyond him, and therefore waste of time. The only piece of practical
information he gained was that Mr. Wood was his tutor, and to him he
must apply for all particulars as to Lectures and Examinations.
The plan at Paul’s is similar to that at most colleges. The
undergraduates are distributed among the tutors, a certain number
being apportioned to each. They are not necessarily to attend their
lectures, but they are to go to them for advice and private assistance
in their work. In many colleges, battels are paid by the undergraduate
to his own tutor. The tutors together draw up a scheme of lectures,
which the undergraduates attend simply according to the necessities of
the examination for which they are reading, and not according to the
particular tutor to whom they are assigned. Frank was assigned to Mr.
Wood, but did not attend his Lectures in his first term, as they were
for more advanced men. He learnt all this when he went to him at the
Dean’s direction. What he failed to find in the Dean he found in Mr.
Wood, who met him cordially, took him into his inner room, made him
sit comfortably on a sofa in the large bay window, and then chatted
with him for half an hour. The result of the conversation was that
Frank was to work for Responsions,[6] which would come on at the end
of the current term; not to think about Moderations[7] till he was
safe through this first ordeal; and to come on Sunday evenings to Mr.
Wood’s Greek Testament Lectures. The hours and subjects of the other
lectures, he told Frank, he would find posted on the Lodge-gate on
the following day. He asked him a few questions about his father and
the Vicar of Porchester, who was an old friend; about his school and
college friends; asked him whether he boated or played cricket; whether
he meant to join the Union; told him if he wanted any books out of
the college library to come to him; concluding hurriedly, as another
freshman, seeking advice, knocked timorously and entered.
The visit next morning to the Master was not unlike that to the
Dean--a purely formal one. The Master’s questions chiefly related to
cricket and boating, indicating an anxiety to discover the promising
men for the Eleven or the Boats. Frank, as he sat in the Master’s
arm-chair, while the old gentleman warmed his coat-tails by an
imaginary fire, could not help falling to making doggerel--
“‘D’ stands for Discipline, Duty, and Dean;
‘M’ must the Master and Merriment mean.”
But there he stopped by lack of rhymes and a general stampede of the
Freshmen, to the great relief of the much-enduring Master.
Frank selected for Responsions the books he had offered for
Matriculation, the usual and natural course; and with the assistance of
Crawford to interpret the Lecture-List on the college gates, he made
out his own lecture-card as follows:--
----------+----------+-----------+-----------+------------
| 9. | 10. | 11. | 12.
+----------+-----------+-----------+------------
| | | |
Monday | | |Greek Plays| Latin Prose
| | | --Mr. Lang| in Hall.
Tuesday | |Cicero--Mr.| | Grammar
| | Henderson| | Paper.
Wednesday | | |Greek Plays| Latin Prose
| | | --Mr. Lang| in Hall.
Thursday | Prose to |Cicero--Mr.| | Grammar
| Mr. Wood | Henderson| | Paper.
Friday | | |Greek Plays| Latin Prose
| | | --Mr. Lang| in Hall.
Saturday | |Cicero--Mr.| | Grammar
| | Henderson| | Paper.
----------+----------+-----------+-----------+------------
The lectures in his books were much the same as at school, except that
the undergraduates were treated with more respect than school-boys. A
certain quantity was set: the men were put on in turn to translate; and
general questions asked. Sometimes, if time permitted, the lecturer
would translate the lesson himself when the men had finished.
The grammar and prose in Hall were in the form of examination. The
men were called up one by one to be shown the mistakes in the papers
done on previous days, so that, with this interruption, not much more
than forty minutes were left for actual writing. The prose on Thursday
morning was the only tutorial link that bound Mr. Wood to his pupil,
and that was, as often as not, severed by a note to the effect that Mr.
Wood would be “unable to see Mr. Ross on Thursday morning.”
To Frank the work seemed as nothing after the long hours of school. It
never occurred to him to look ahead, and to think of Moderations; in
fact, he had been told not to do so. And so he commenced, energetically
it is true, going over work he already knew well enough to satisfy the
examiners, listening to the marvellous mistakes of his fellow-freshmen
and of those senior men who had been degraded because of failure in
previous terms. He soon learnt to think nothing of hearing mistakes
that would disgrace school-boys of fifteen; and to fancy that, because
he regularly prepared his work and attended his lectures, he was
working to the utmost extent that he could, or that was required of
him. And that is how so many first terms are wasted, and boys with
energy enough for eight or ten hours’ daily study drift into two or
three, and often into none at all. Failure sometimes rouses them; but
it is a questionable remedy, and more often demoralizes than benefits.
There is not much work done in the summer term; an outsider might say,
none at all. But then he would be judging from the external appearance
of the place: the quads crowded with lounging men, waiting for drags
to go to the cricket-ground; the wide-open windows with their gay
flowers, whence issue sounds and scents of the heavy luncheons of the
more languidly inclined; the river swarming with boats of all sorts and
sizes; the Union rooms full of readers leisurely scanning the papers or
dipping into the magazines, with ices or cigars to soothe or sweeten
the summer afternoons; the roads busy with rattling pony-carriages
bound for Woodstock or Abingdon, Witney or Thame; even the shops
themselves are full, whose windows from without and wares within tempt
the passing “loafer.” “Where are the reading men?” the stranger may
well ask.
There are plenty of them if you know where to find them. But it is just
because the stranger is a stranger that he won’t find them. What can
he know of the hours of heavy work got through in the quiet of those
bright summer afternoons; of the one close-shut room on this deserted
staircase of open, idle doors; of that back-quad attic, with its
sported oak; of the “coach’s” crowded chambers, where, unheeding the
charms of river or cricket-field, of Union-garden or leafy roads, he
and his hourly pupils sit, “grinding for the schools”?
Besides, the surprised and maybe shocked stranger must remember that
a large number of men who come to Oxford do not come there merely for
the sake of the degree. They take one if they can; the sooner they
can, so much the better are they pleased. They come to be made men
and gentlemen. A degree is only one of the many means to that end.
It is only because some make it their all-absorbing motive that the
University sends forth into the world so many prigs.
Within the first week Frank had made many friends, most of them friends
of Crawford’s, who had called at his suggestion. The secretaries of
the Boat and Cricket Clubs had looked him up, to whom Frank, with much
pleasure, had paid his entrance fee and annual subscriptions.
The captain of the Paul’s company in the Rifle Corps had come to
work upon his military ardour; the president of the College Debating
Society, to arouse his ambition for oratory; the collector for the
various Church Societies, to test his impartiality and charity. Frank
was enabled, by his father’s wish and the means he had placed at his
disposal, to join the various societies, and pay the subscriptions.
But it was not this pecuniary willingness alone that gained for our
freshman so much popularity. The pecuniary outlay was as follows:--
£ _s._ _d._
Boat Club 3 10 0
Cricket Club 2 10 0
Paul’s Debating Society 0 2 6
Union Society 1 5 0
Rifle Corps, including Band-Subscriptions and Uniform 5 0 0
There is no need to enter into Frank’s charitable subscriptions. They
were neither large nor small, but what they were, were given with
pleasure. About this time also came in the valuation of his rooms,
amounting to 30_l._ Our freshman is now, therefore, fairly started on
his career.