one, is the wine club. In Balliol there is a college rule against wine
clubs, which seems to be due partly to a feeling against social
exclusiveness, and partly perhaps to a distrust of purely convivial
gatherings. The purpose of a wine club was served quite as well,
however, by an organization that was ostensibly for debating. The
notices of meetings were usually a parody of the notices of the
meetings of genuine debating clubs, and the chief business of the
secretary was to concoct them in pleasing variety. For instance, it
would be _Resolved_, that this House looks with disfavor upon the
gradual introduction of a continental sabbath into England; or
_Resolved_, that this House looks with marked disfavor upon the
assumption that total abstinence is a form of intemperance. On the
evening when the House was defending total abstinence, our host's
furniture and tea-things suffered some damage, and as I was in
training, I found it advisable to leave early. As I slipped out, the
president of the club, a young nobleman, who was himself at the time
in training for the 'varsity trial eights, called me back and said
with marked sobriety that he had just thought of something. "You are
in for the mile run, aren't you? And in America you have always run
the half. Well, then, if you find the distance too long for you, just
don't mind at all about the first part of the race, but when you get
to the last part, run as you run a half mile. Do it in two minutes,
and you can't help beating 'em." He bade me good-night with a grave
and authoritative shake of the hand. If he recalled his happy thought
next morning, he was unable to avail himself of it, for I grieve to
say that in the 'varsity trial race, which came only a few days
later, he missed his blue by going badly to pieces on the finish.
The meeting at which this occurred was exceptional. For the most part
the fellows were moderate enough, and at times I suspected the wine
club of being dull. Certainly, we had no such fun as at the more
general jubilations--a rag in the quad or a boating wine. I doubt if
any one would have cared so very much to belong to the club if it had
not afforded the only badge of social distinction in college, and if
this had not happened to be an unusually pretty hatband. However
successful a wine club may be, moreover, it is of far less consequence
than similar clubs in America. In the first place, since there are one
or more of them in each of the twenty colleges, the number of men who
belong to them is far greater relatively, which of course means far
less exclusion. In the second place, and this is more important, the
fellows who do not belong are still able to enjoy the life which is
common to all members of the college. In general, the social walls of
Oxford are like the material ones. Far from being the means of undue
exclusion and of the suppression of public feeling, they are the live
tissues in which the vital functions of the place are performed.
Until well along in the nineteenth century, this life in the college
was about the only life; but of late years the university has begun to
feel its unity more strongly, and in social and intellectual life, as
in athletics, it has become for the first time since the Middle Ages
an organic whole.
VIII
SOCIAL LIFE IN THE UNIVERSITY
The first formal organization of the life of the university was, as
its name records, the Oxford Union, an institution of peculiar
interest to Americans because our universities, though starting from a
point diametrically opposite, have arrived at a state of social
disorganization no less pronounced than that which the Union was
intended to remedy. Harvard, which has progressed farthest along the
path of social expansion and disintegration, has already made a
conscious effort to imitate the Union. The adamantine spirit of Yale
is shaken by the problems of the Sophomore societies; and it will not
be many decades before other universities will be in a similar
predicament. It will not be amiss, therefore, to consider what the
Oxford Union has been and is. If Americans have not clearly understood
it even when attempting to imitate it, one should at least remember
that it would not be easy for an Oxford man to explain it thoroughly.
The Union was founded in 1823, and was primarily for debating. In
fact, it was the only university debating society. Its members were
carefully selected for their ability in discoursing on the questions
of the day. In its debates Gladstone, Lord Rosebery, the Marquis of
Salisbury, and countless other English statesmen of recent times got
their first parliamentary training. Its present fame in England is
largely based upon this fact; but its character has been
metamorphosed. Early in its history it developed social features; and
though it was still exclusive in membership, little by little men of
all kinds were taken in. At this stage of its development, the Union
was not unlike those vast political clubs in London in which any and
all principles are subordinated to the kitchen and the wine cellar.
The debates, though still of first-rate quality, became more and more
an incident; the club was chiefly remarkable as the epitome of all the
best elements of Oxford life. The library was filled with men reading
or working at special hobbies; the reading and smoking rooms were
crowded; the lawn was daily thronged with undergraduates gossiping
over a cup of tea; the telegram board, the shrine of embryo
politicians watching for the results from a general election, was apt
to be profaned by sporting men scanning it for the winners of the
Derby or the Ascot. In a word, the Union held the elect of Oxford,
intellectual, social, and sporting. This is the Union remembered by
the older graduates, and except for a single feature, namely, that it
was still exclusive, this is the Union that has inspired the
projectors of the Harvard Union.
The Oxford man of the later day knows all too well that this Union is
no more. Some years ago, responding to a democratic impulse that has
been very strong of late at Oxford, the Union threw down all barriers;
virtually any man nowadays may join it, and its members number well
beyond a thousand. The result is not a social millennium. The very
feature of inclusiveness that is to be most prominent in the Union at
Harvard destroyed the character of the Oxford Union as a
representative body. To the casual observer it still looks much as it
did a dozen years ago; but its glory has departed. In any real sense
of the word it is a Union no more. The men who used to give it
character are to be found in smaller clubs, very much like the clubs
of an American university.
The small university debating clubs are the Russell, the Palmerston,
the Canning, and the Chatham, each of which stands for some special
stripe of political thought, and each of which has a special color
which--sure sign of the pride of exclusiveness--it wears in hatbands.
The clubs meet periodically--often weekly--in the rooms of members.
Sometimes a paper is read which is followed by an informal discussion;
but the usual exercise is a formal debate. Time was when the best
debates came off at the Union, and writers of leading articles in
London papers even now look to it as a political weather-vane. The
debates there are still earnest and sometimes brilliant, and to have
presided over them is a distinction of value in after life; but as far
as I could gather, their prestige is falling before the smaller
debating clubs. The main interest at the Union appeared to centre in
the interpellation of the president, which is carried on much as in
the House of Commons, though with this difference, that, following the
immemorial custom, it is turned into ragging. When this is over, the
major part of the audience clears out to the smoking and reading
rooms. In the smaller clubs the exercises are not only serious,
but--in spite of the preliminary ragging, which no function at Oxford
may flourish without--they are taken seriously. The clubs really
include the best forensic ability of Oxford. At the end of each year
they give dinners, at which new and old members gather, while some
prominent politician from Westminster holds forth on the question of
the hour. In a word, these clubs, collectively, are what the Union
once was--the training school of British statesmen.
The university social clubs are of a newness that shocks even an
American; but it would not be quite just to account for the fact by
regarding them as mere offshoots, like the debating clubs, of a parent
Union. Until the nineteenth century, there really was no university at
Oxford, at least in modern times. The colleges were quite independent
of one another socially and in athletics, and each of them provided
all the necessary instruction for its members. The social clubs which
now admit members from the university at large began life as wine
clubs of separate colleges, and even to-day the influence of the
parent college is apt to predominate. The noteworthy fact is that in
proportion as the social prestige of the Union has declined, these
college wine clubs, like the small debating clubs, have gained
character and prestige.
The oldest of these is the Bullingdon, which is not quite as old, I
gathered, as the Institute of 1770 at Harvard, and, considered as a
university organization, it is of course much younger. It was
originally the Christ Church wine club, and to-day it is dominated by
the sporting element of Christ Church, which is the most aristocratic
of Oxford colleges. In former years, it is said, the club had kennels
at Bullingdon, and held periodic hunts there; and it is still largely
composed of hunting men. To-day it justifies its name mainly by having
an annual dinner beneath the heavy rafters of a mediaeval barn at
Bullingdon. On these, as on other state occasions, the members wear a
distinctive costume--no doubt a tradition from the time when men
generally wore colors--which consists of a blue evening coat with
white facings and brass buttons, a canary waistcoat, and a blue tie.
This uniform is no doubt found in more aristocratic wardrobes than any
other Oxford trophy. The influence of the Bullingdon is indirectly to
discourage athletics, which it regards as unaristocratic and
incompatible with conviviality; so that Christ Church, though the
largest of Oxford colleges and one of the wealthiest, is of secondary
importance in sports. For this reason the Bullingdon has suffered a
partial eclipse, for the middle-class spirit which is invading Oxford
has given athletic sports the precedence over hunting, while expensive
living and mere social exclusiveness are less the vogue. By a curious
analogy, one of the oldest and most exclusive of the clubs at Harvard
is similarly out of sympathy with the athletic spirit.
Another old and prominent college wine club that has come to elect
members from without is the Phoenix of Brazenose, the uniform of
which is perhaps more beautiful than the Bullingdon uniform,
consisting of a peculiar dark wine-colored coat, brass buttons, and a
light buff waistcoat. In general, the college wine clubs are more or
less taking on a university character. The Annandale Club of Balliol,
for instance, has frequent guests from outside, and often elects them
to membership out of compliment. At the formal wines the members have
the privilege of inviting outside guests.
The most popular and representative Oxford club is Vincent's, which
owes its prominence to the fact that it expresses the enthusiasm of
modern Oxford for athletics. It was founded only a third of a century
ago, but it must be remembered that inter-varsity boat races did not
become usual until 1839, nor a fixture until 1856; that the first
inter-varsity athletic meeting came in 1864, and the first
inter-varsity football game as late as 1873. Vincent's was originally
composed largely of men from University College, which was at that
time a leader in sports; but later it elected many men from Brazenose,
then in the ascendant. When Brazenose became more prominent in
athletics, it gained a controlling influence in Vincent's; and when
it declined, as it lately did, the leadership passed on. The name
Vincent's came from a printer's shop, above which the club had its
rooms. Any second year man is eligible; in fact, until a few years
ago, freshmen were often taken in. The limit of members is ninety, but
as the club is always a dozen or so short of this, no good fellow is
excluded for lack of a place. When a man is proposed, his name is
written in a book, in which space is left for friends in the club to
write their names in approval. After this, elections are in the hands
of a committee. Like all Oxford clubs, Vincent's will always, I
suppose, lean towards men of some special college or group of
colleges; yet it is careful to elect all clubable blues, and, in point
of fact, is representative of the university at large, as, for
instance, the Hasty Pudding Club at Harvard, or the senior societies
at Yale, to which, on the whole, it most nearly corresponds.
The most democratic, as well as one of the most recent of the more
purely social clubs, is the Gridiron. It is a dining rather than a
social club, and one may invite to his board as many guests who are
not members as he chooses. Any good fellow is eligible, though here,
again, a man in one of the less known colleges might fail to get in
from lack of acquaintances on the election committee.
The Union has long lost prestige before this development of small
exclusive clubs. Politically, socially, and even in that most
essential department, the kitchen, it holds a second place. If you ask
men of the kind that used to give it its character why they never go
there, they will tell you, in the most considerate phrase, how the
pressure of other undergraduate affairs is so great that they have not
yet found time; and this is quite true. They may add that next year
they intend to make the time, for they believe that one should know
all kinds of men at Oxford; and they are quite sincere. But next year
they are more preoccupied than ever. If Oxford is united socially, it
is not because of the Oxford Union.
In addition to the clubs which are mainly social, there is the usual
variety of special organizations. These, as a rule, are of recent
growth. The Musical Union has frequent meetings for practice, and
gives at least one concert a year. The Dramatic Society, the O.U.D.S.,
as it is popularly called, will be seen to be a very portentous
organization. In America, college men give comic operas and
burlesques, usually writing both the book and the music themselves;
and when they do, there is apt to be a Donnybrook Fair for vulnerable
heads in the faculty. So well is musical nonsense adapted to the
calibre of the undergraduate mind that college plays sometimes find
their way to the professional stage, and to no small general favor. At
Oxford the Vice-Chancellor, who is a law to himself and to the
university, has decreed that there shall be no fun and nonsense. If
the absurdities of donnishness are all too fair a mark for the
undergraduate wit, the Vice-Chancellor has found a very serviceable
scapegoat. He permits the undergraduates to present the plays of
Shakespeare. Surely Shakespeare can stand the racket. The aim of the
O.U.D.S. seems to be to get as many blues as possible into the cast
of a Shakespearean production, with the idea, perhaps, of giving
Oxford its full money's worth. I remember well the sensation made by
the most famous of all university athletes,--a "quadruple blue," who
played on four university teams, was captain of three of them, and
held one world's record. The play was "The Merchant of Venice," and
the athlete in question was the swarthy Prince of Morocco. Upon
opening the golden casket his powers of elocution rose to unexpected
heights. Fellows went again and again to hear him cry, "O hell! what
have we here?" In one way, however, the performances of the O.U.D.S.
are really noteworthy. Not even the crudest acting can entirely
disguise the influences of birth and environment; and few
Shakespearean actors have as fine a natural carriage as those
companies of trained athletes. For the first time, perhaps, on any
stage, the ancient Roman honor more or less appeared in Antonio, and
there were really two gentlemen in Verona. For this reason--or, what
is more likely, merely because the plays are given by Oxford men--the
leading dramatic critics of London run up every year for the O.U.D.S.
performance, and talk learnedly about it in their dignified
periodicals. Both the musical and the dramatic societies have an
increasing social element, and the dramatic society has a house of its
own.
Of at least one association I happened upon, I know of no American
parallel. One Sunday afternoon, a lot of fellows who had been lunching
each other in academic peace were routed from college by a Salvation
Army gathering that was sending up the discordant notes of puritanical
piety just outside the walls. In the street near by we came upon a
quiet party of undergraduates in cap and gown. They were standing in a
circle, at the foot of the Martyr's Memorial, and were alternately
singing hymns and exhorting the townspeople who gathered about. Their
faces were earnest and simple, their attitude erect. If they were
conscious of doing an unusual thing, they did not show it. I don't
remember that they moved any of us to repent the pleasantness of our
ways, but I know that they filled the most careless of us with a very
definite admiration. One of the fellows said that he thought them
mighty plucky, and that they had the stuff at least out of which
sportsmen are made. The phrase is peculiarly British, but in the
undergraduate vernacular there is no higher epithet of praise. In
America there are slumming societies and total abstinence leagues; but
I never knew any body of men who had the courage to stand up in the
highway and preach their gospel to passers-by.
IX
THE COLLEGE AND THE UNIVERSITY
The distinctive feature of the social organization of Oxford life is
said to be the colleges. Fifty years ago the remark held good, but
to-day it requires an extension. The distinctive feature is the
duality of the social organization: a man who enters fully into
undergraduate affairs takes part both in the life of the college and
in the life of the university. The life of the college, in so far as
it is wholesome, is open to all newcomers; it is so organized as to
exert powerfully upon them the force of its best influences and
traditions, and is thus in the highest degree inclusive. The life of
the university, in so far as it is vigorous, is in the main open only
to those who bring to it special gifts and abilities, and is therefore
necessarily exclusive. In college, one freely enjoys all that is
fundamental in the life of a young man--a pleasant place to sleep in
and to dine in, pleasant fellows with whom to work and to play. In the
university, one finds scope for his special capacities in conviviality
or in things of the mind. More than any other institution, the
English university thus mirrors the conditions of social life in the
world at large, in which one is primarily a member of his family, and
takes part in the life of the outside community in proportion as his
abilities lead him.
The happiest thing about all this is that it affords the freest
possible interplay of social forces. As soon as a newcomer gains
distinction, as he does at once if he has the capacity, he is noticed
by the leading men of the college, and is thus in a way to be taken
into the life of the university. From the college breakfast it is only
a step to the Gridiron, from the college eight to Vincent's, and from
the debating society to the Chatham or the Canning. These, like all
undergraduate clubs, are in yearly need of new members, and the older
men in college are only too glad to urge the just claims of the
younger for good-fellowship sake, and for the general credit of their
institution.
Even when a fellow has received all the university has to offer, he is
still amenable to the duality of Oxford life. In American
institutions, in proportion as a man is happily clubbed, he is by the
very nature of the social organization withdrawn from his college
mates; but at Oxford he still dines in Hall, holds forth at the
college debating society, plays on the college teams, and, until his
final year, he lives within the college walls. First, last, and always
his general life is bound up with that of the college.
The prominent men thus become a medium by which every undergraduate is
brought in touch with the life of the university. The news of the
athletic world is reported at Vincent's over afternoon tea; and at
dinner time the men who have discussed it there relate it to their
mates in the halls of a dozen colleges. A celebrated debater brings
the news of the Union or of the smaller clubs; and whatever a man's
affiliations in the university, he can scarcely help bringing the
report of them back with him. In an incredibly short time all
undergraduate news, and the judgments upon it of those best qualified
to judge, ramify the college; and men who seldom stir beyond its walls
are brought closely in touch with the innermost spirit of the
university life. Here, again, those forbidding walls make possible a
freedom of social interplay which is unknown in America. The real
union of Oxford, social, athletic, and intellectual, is quite apart
from the so-called Oxford Union; it results from the nice adjustment
between the general residential life of the colleges and the
specialized activities of the university.
The immediate effect of this union is the humble one of making the
present life of the undergraduate convenient and enjoyable; but its
ultimate effect is a matter of no little importance. Every
undergraduate, in proportion to his susceptibilities and capacities,
comes under the influence of the social and intellectual traditions of
Oxford, which are the traditions of centuries of the best English life.
In Canada and Australia, South Africa and India, you will find the old
Oxonian wearing the hatband, perhaps faded and weather-stained, that
at Oxford denoted the thing he was most proud to stand for; and
wherever you find him, you will find also the manners and standards of
the university, which are quite as definite a part of him, though
perhaps less conspicuous. Without a large body of men animated by such
traditions, it is no exaggeration to say that it would not have been
possible to build up the British empire. If the people of the United
States are to bear creditably the responsibilities to civilization
that have lately fallen to them, or have been assumed, there is urgent
need for institutions that shall similarly impose upon our young men
the best traditions and influences of American life.
II
OXFORD OUT OF DOORS
I
SLACKING ON THE ISIS AND THE CHERWELL
The dual development of college and university, with all its organic
coordinations, exists also in the sports of Oxford. The root and trunk
of the athletic spirit lies in the colleges, though its highest
development is found in university teams. To an American, this
athletic life of the college will be found of especial interest, for
it is the basis of the peculiar wholesomeness and moderation of Oxford
sports. If the English take their pleasures sadly, as they have been
charged with doing ever since Froissart hit upon the happy phrase,
they are not so black a pot but that they are able to call us blacker;
in the light of international contests, they have marveled at the
intensity with which our sportsmen pursue the main chance. The
difference here has a far deeper interest than the critic of boating
or track athletics often realizes. Like the songs of a nation, its
sports have a definite relation to its welfare: one is tempted to say,
let me rule the games of my countrymen and who will may frame their
laws. At least, I hope to be pardoned if I speak with some
particularity of the out-of-door life, and neglect the lofty theme of
inter-varsity contests for the humbler pursuits of the common or
garden undergraduate.
The origin of the boating spirit is no doubt what the Oxonian calls
slacking, for one has to learn to paddle in a boat before he can row
to advantage; and in point of fact the bumping races are supposed to
have originated among parties of slackers returning at evening from up
the river. If I were to try to define what a slacker is, I suppose you
could answer that all Oxford men are slackers; but there are depths
beneath depths of _far niente_. The true slacker avoids the worry and
excitement of breakfast parties and three-day cricket matches, and
conserves his energies by floating and smoking for hours at a time in
his favorite craft on the Isis and the Cherwell--or "Char," as the
university insists on calling it. He is a day-dreamer of day-dreamers;
and despised as he is by the more strenuous Oxford men, who yet stand
in fear of the fascination of his vices, he is as restful a figure to
an American as a negro basking on a cotton-wharf, and as appealing as
a beggar steeped in Italian sunlight. Merely to think of his
uninterrupted calm and his insatiable appetite for doing nothing is a
rest to occidental nerves; and though one may never be a roustabout
and loaf on a cotton-wharf, one may at any time go to Oxford and play
through a summer's day at slacking.