passman and honor man are examined twice and twice only. The first
public examination, more familiarly called "moderations," or "mods,"
takes place in the middle of an undergraduate's course. Here the
passmen have only a single subject in common with the men seeking
honors, namely, the examination in Holy Scripture, or the Rudiments of
Faith and Religion, more familiarly called "Divinners," which is to
say Divinities. The subject of the examination is the gospels of St.
Luke and St. John in the Greek text; and either the Acts of the
Apostles or the two books of Kings in the Revised Version. As in all
Oxford examinations, cram-books abound containing a reprint of the
questions put in recent examinations; and, as many of these questions
recur from year to year, the student of Holy Scripture is advised to
master them. A cram-book which came to my notice is entitled "The
Undergraduate's Guide to the Rudiments of Faith and Religion," and
contains, among other items of useful information: tables of the ten
plagues; of the halting-places during the journey in the wilderness;
of the twelve apostles; and of the seven deacons. The book recommends
that the kings of Judah and Israel, the journeys of St. Paul, and the
Thirty-nine Articles shall be committed to memory. The obviously pious
author of this guide to the rudiments of these important
accomplishments speaks thus cheerfully in his preface: "The compiler
feels assured that if candidates will but follow the plan he has
suggested, no candidate of even ordinary ability need have the least
fear of failure." According to report, it is perhaps not so easy to
acquire the rudiments of faith and religion. In a paper set some years
ago, as one of the examiners informed me, a new and unexpected
question was put: "Name the prophets and discriminate between the
major and the minor." One astute passman wrote: "Far be it from me to
make discriminations between these wise and holy men. The kings of
Judah and Israel are as follows." Unless a man passes the examination,
he has to take it again, and the fee to the examiner is one guinea.
"This time I go through," exclaimed an often ploughed passman. "I need
these guineas for cigars." Those who are not "European British
subjects" may substitute certain sacred works in Sanskrit, Arabic, or
Pali; and those who object for conscientious scruples to a study of
the Bible may substitute the Phaedo of Plato; but the sagacious
undergraduate knows that if he does this he must have no conscientious
scruples against harder work.
In America there is no such examination, so far as I know. At Harvard
an elective course in the history and literature of the Jews is given
by the Semitic department; and if this does not insure success in
acquiring the rudiments of faith and religion, it was, on one occasion
at least, the means of redoubling the attendance at chapel. Just
before the final examination, it transpired that the professor in
charge of the course was conducting morning service, and was giving
five minute summaries of Jewish history. For ten days the front pews
were crowded with waistcoats of unwonted brilliance; the so-called
sports who had taken the course as a snap were glad to grind it up
under the very best auspices.
Let me not be misunderstood. In the long run, the English
undergraduates no doubt add greatly to their chances of spiritual
edification. At the very least they gain a considerable knowledge of
one of the great monuments of the world's literature. In America the
Bible is much less read in families than in England, so that it would
seem much more important to prescribe a course in Biblical history and
literature. At one time Professor Child gave a course in Spenser and
the English Bible, and is said to have been moved at times when
reading before his classes to a truly Elizabethan access of tears.
Some years before the great master died, he gave up the course in
despair at the Biblical ignorance of his pupils. The usual Harvard
undergraduate cannot name five of the prophets, with or without
discrimination, or be certain of five of the kings of Judah. As I
write this, I am painfully uncertain as to whether there were as many
as five.
But to return to our muttons. The remaining subjects for pass
moderations are: (1) Portions of three classic authors, two Greek and
one Latin, or two Latin and one Greek. The passages of each author to
be studied are prescribed, but the candidate may elect, with certain
slight limitations, from eight Greek and eight Latin authors "of the
best age." As in the case of responsions and Holy Scripture, Sanskrit,
Arabic, or Pali may be substituted for either Greek or Latin. The
examination covers not only grammar and literature, but any question
arising out of the text. Besides these are required: (2) Latin prose
composition; (3) sight translation of Greek and Latin; and (4) either
logic or the elements of geometry and algebra.
The final pass examination allows a considerable range of election.
Three general subjects must be offered. At least one of these must be
chosen from the following: Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Persian, German,
and French. If a candidate wishes, he may choose two of his three
subjects in ancient language, literature, and history, or in modern
language, literature, history, and economics. The remaining one or two
subjects may be chosen from a dozen courses ranging through the
elements of mathematics, natural science, law, and theology. This
range of choice is very different from that in America, in that a
student is not permitted freely to elect subjects without reference
to one another. For the pass degree, no considerable originality or
grasp of the subject is necessary, any more than for an
undistinguished degree in an American college; but the body of
necessary facts is pretty sure to be well ordered, if not digested.
The idea of grouping electives is the fundamental difference between
English and American education. In the case of the honor man it will
be seen to be of chief importance.
In order to take the Oxford degree, it is further necessary to be in
residence three years, and a man may reside four years before going up
for his final examination. The period of study--or loafing--may be
broken in various ways; and it is characteristic that though a man may
anticipate his time and take his last examination before the last term
of his third year, he is required to reside at the university, studies
or no studies, until the minimum residence is completed. Nothing could
indicate more clearly the importance which is attached to the merely
social side of university life.
It is, in fact, as a social being that the passman usually shines. You
may know him most often from the fact that you sight him in the High
by a waistcoat of many colors. At night he is apt to evade the
statutes as to academicals; but if he wears his gown, he wraps it
about his neck as if it were a muffler, and tilts his mortar-board at
all angles. He is the genius of the fox terrier and the bulldog pipe;
he rides to the hounds, and is apt in evading the vice-chancellor's
regulations as to tandems and four-in-hands. Or perhaps he sits
comfortably in his rooms discoursing lightly of the impious
philosophies that are the studies of the classman, and writes Horatian
verse for the "Isis" and the "Oxford Magazine." He does anything, in
fact, that is well-bred, amusing, and not too strenuous. Curiously
enough, it sometimes happens that he does sufficient reading on his
own account to give him no little real culture. Of late there has been
a reaction in favor of the pass school as affording a far better
general education.
If the passman loiters through the three or four years, it is mainly
the fault--or the virtue--of the public school he comes from. Of late
the best public schools have had so strong and admirable an influence
that boys have often been kept in them by their parents until they
reach the age limit, generally nineteen. By this time they have
anticipated most of the studies required for a pass degree in the
university, and find little or nothing to do when they go up but to
evade their tutors and to "reside." It is by this means, as the
satirist long ago explained, that Oxford has become an institution of
such great learning. Every freshman brings to it a little knowledge
and no graduate takes any away.
There is reason in all this. In the first place, as I have said, the
passman is the historical undergraduate, and little short of a
convulsion could disestablish him--that is the best of British
reasons. Moreover, to be scrupulously just, the passman knows quite as
much as the American student who barely takes a degree by cramming a
few hours with a venal tutor before each of his many examinations, and
perhaps more than the larger proportion of German students who confine
their serious interests to the duel and the Kneipe, and never
graduate. And then, the Oxonian argues amiably, if it were not for the
pass schools, the majority of the passmen would not come to Oxford at
all, and would spend their impressionable period in some place of much
less amenity. Clearly, they learn all that is necessary for a
gentleman to know, and are perhaps kept from a great deal that is
dangerous to young fellows with money and leisure. It means much to
the aristocracy and nobility of England that, whatever their ambitions
and capacities, they are encouraged by the pursuit of a not too
elusive A.B. to stay four years in the university. Even the
ambitious student profits by the arrangement. Wherever his future may
lie, in the public service, in law, medicine, or even the church, it
is of advantage to know men of birth and position--of far greater
advantage, from the common sensible English point of view, than to
have been educated in an atmosphere of studious enthusiasm and exact
scholarship.
II
THE HONOR SCHOOLS
The modern extension of the world's knowledge, with the corresponding
advance in educational requirements, which are perhaps the most signal
results of the nineteenth century, could not fail to exert a powerful
influence on all university teaching. In the United States, the
monument to its influence is the elective system. In England, it is
the honor schools. Both countries felt the inadequacy of the antique
pint-pot of learning. The democratic New World has not dreamed of
making a sharp distinction between the indifferent and the ambitious.
Under the lead of the scientific spirit of the German universities, it
has placed the noblest branches of human knowledge on a par with the
least twig of science. With characteristic conservatism England kept
the old pint-pot for the unscholarly, to whom its contents are still
of value, though extending its scope to suit the changing spirit of
the age; and for those who felt the new ambitions it made new
pint-pots, each one of which should contain the essence gathered from
a separate field of learning. The new pint-pots are the honor schools,
and the children of the new ambition are the honor men.
The honor schools of Oxford are eight in number. Here again the
English conservatism is evident. The oldest of them, literae
humaniores, which was at first the only honor school, has for its
subject-matter a thorough view of classical language, literature, and
thought. It is an _edition de luxe_ of the old pass school. Because of
the nobility of its proportions, it is familiarly called "greats," and
it justifies its name by enrolling almost half of all Oxford
candidates for the honor degree. An overwhelming majority of famous
Oxford graduates have taken their degree in "greats." The other
schools are sometimes known as the minor schools. Mathematics was
originally a part of the school in literae humaniores, but was soon
made into a separate school. Since then schools have been established
in six new subjects--natural science, jurisprudence, modern history,
theology, Oriental studies, and English. Under our elective system, a
student continues through his four years, choosing each year at
random, or as the fates decree, this, that, or the other brief
"course." Under the honor system a man decides sooner or later which
one of the several branches he most desires, and sets out to master
it.
An Oxford man's decision may be made at the outset; but far the larger
number of men defer the choice. They do this by reading for
moderations, for pass moderations as well as honor mods may be
followed by an honor school at finals. The subject-matter for honor
mods is, roughly speaking, the same as for pass mods--the classics and
kindred studies; but the field covered is considerably more extended,
and to take a high class the student is required to exhibit in his
examination papers no little grasp of the subjects as a whole, and if
possible to develop his own individuality in the process. Having done
with moderations, an honor man is forced to choose a final school. The
logical sequence of honor mods is literae humaniores; but one may
choose instead modern history, theology, Oriental studies, or English.
The men who commit themselves to a choice at the outset are those who
go in for science or jurisprudence. These men begin by reading for a
form of moderations known as science preliminaries or jurisprudence
preliminaries.
The exact sequence of examinations is fixed only by common sense. The
school of history is open to those who have taken pass mods, and even
to those who have taken the jurisprudence preliminary, though mods is
usually preferred in order to give a man the use of the necessary
languages. If a science man's chief work is to be in astronomy or
physics, which require some mathematics, he may take the mathematical
mods, and devote only the second half of his course to science.
Even after a man has chosen his subject and begun to work on it with
his tutor, there is considerable range of election. As classical mods
are supposed to cover all the subjects essential to polite education,
election is mainly a question as to the ancient authors read. If a man
knows what final school he is to enter, he may choose his authors
accordingly. Thus, a history man chooses the ancient historians; a man
who intends to enter the school in English literature, the ancient
poets and dramatists. In addition to such authors, all candidates for
classical mods choose, according to their future needs, one of four
subjects: the history of classical literature, comparative classical
philology, classical archaeology, and logic. The preliminary
examinations in natural science and in jurisprudence are concerned
with a general view of the field, and thus do not admit of much
variation, whatever the branch to be pursued later; and the same is
true of mathematical moderations. A man who chooses any one of these
three honor schools has made the great choice of bidding good-by to
the classics.
In the final schools the range of choice is greater than at
moderations, and is greater in some schools than in others. Literae
humaniores offers the least scope for election. The reason is that the
subject-matter is a synthetic view of the classic world entire. Still,
in so vast a field, a student perforce selects, laying emphasis on
those aspects of the ancient world which he considers (or which he
expects the examining board to consider) of most interest and
importance. It has been objected even at Oxford that such a course of
study gives a student little or no training in exact scholarship. The
examination statutes accordingly give a choice of one among no less
than forty special subjects, the original sources of which a man may
thresh out anew in the hope of adding his iota to the field of
science; and, on six months' notice, a student may, under approval,
select a subject of his own. The unimportance of this part of the
"greats" curriculum is evident in the fact that it is recommended, not
required.
The history school requires the student to cover the constitutional
and political history of England entire, political science and
economy, with economic history, constitutional law, and political and
descriptive geography. It also requires a special subject "carefully
studied with reference to the original authorities," and a period of
general history. If a student does not aim at a first or second class
at graduation, he may omit certain parts of all this. In any case, he
has to choose from the general history of the modern world one special
period for a more detailed examination. In the school of natural
science, the student, after filling in the broad outlines of the
subject for his preliminary, must choose for his final examination one
of the following seven subjects: physics, chemistry, animal
physiology, zoology, botany, geology, and astronomy. Besides the
written examination, a "practical" examination of three hours is
required to show the student's ability at laboratory work. These three
honor schools are the most important, and may be regarded as
representative. After a man has taken one honor degree, for example,
in literae humaniores, he may take another, for example, in modern
history. He then becomes a double honor man, and if he has got a first
class in both schools, he is a "double first."
In America, the election of studies goes by fragmentary subjects, and
the degree is awarded for passing some four such subjects a year, the
whole number being as disconnected, even chaotic, as the student
pleases or as chance decrees. In England, the degree is granted for
final proficiency in a coherent and well-balanced course of study; but
within this not unreasonable limit there is the utmost freedom of
election. The student first chooses what honor school he shall pursue,
and then chooses the general lines along which he shall pursue it.
III
THE TUTOR
In preparing for his two "public examinations," the pupil is solely in
the hands of a college tutor. Any familiar account of the Oxford don
is apt to make him appear to the American, and especially to the
German mind, a sufficiently humble person. His first duty is the very
unprofessional one of making newcomers welcome. He invites his pupils
to breakfast and to dinner, and introduces them to their fellows so
that they shall enter easily into the life of the college; he tells
them to go in for one or another of the various undergraduate
activities. As a teacher, moreover, his position is strikingly similar
to that of the venal tutors in our universities, who amiably keep lame
ducks from halting, and temper the frost of the examination period to
gilded grasshoppers. It is all this that makes the American scholar so
apt to smile at the tutor, and the German, perhaps, to sniff. The
tutor is not easily put down. If he replies with anything more than a
British silence, it is to say that after all education cannot be
quite dissociated from a man's life among his fellows. And then there
is the best of all English reasons why the tutor should think well of
his vocation: it is approved by custom and tradition. Newman, Pusey,
Jowett, Pater, Stubbs, Lang, and many such were tutors, and they
thought it well worth while to spend the better part of each day with
their pupils.
Homely as are the primary duties of the tutor, it is none the less
necessary that certain information should be imparted. The shadow of
the examiners looms across the path twice in the three or four years
of an undergraduate's life. There is no dodging it: in order to get a
degree, certain papers must be written and well written. Here is where
the real dignity of the tutor resides, the attribute that
distinguishes him from all German and American teachers. He is
responsible to the college that his pupils shall acquit themselves
well before the examiners,--that the reputation of the college shall
be maintained. By the same token, the examiners are responsible to the
university that its degrees shall be justly awarded, so that the
course of education in England is a struggle of tutor against
examiner. In Germany and in America, an instructor is expected to be a
master of his subject; he may be or may not be--and usually is not--a
teacher. In England, a tutor may be a scholar, and often is not. His
success is measured first and foremost by the excellence of the papers
his pupils write. Is Donkin of Balliol a good tutor? Well, rather, he
has got more firsts than any don in Oxford; by which is meant of
course that his pupils have got the firsts. A college is rated partly
by its number of blues and partly by its number of firsts. For a tutor
to lead his pupils to success is as sacred a duty as for an athletic
undergraduate to play for the university. The leisurely, not to say
loafing, tutor of eighteenth-century tradition has been reformed out
of existence. If the modern tutor fails of any high attainment as a
scholar, it is mainly because he is required to be a very lively,
strenuous, and efficient leader of youth.
The means by which the tutor conducts his charges in the narrow path
to success in the schools are characteristic. The secret lies in
gaining the good-will of the pupil. Thus any breakfasts, luncheons,
and dinners that the hospitable tutor gives to his pupils while they
are learning the ways of the place are bread cast upon the waters in a
very literal sense. For a decent fellow to neglect the just wishes of
a teacher to whom he is indebted is easy enough on occasions; but
systematically to shirk a genuine debt of gratitude without losing
caste with one's self requires supreme ingenuity. If you don't want to
get into the clutches of your tutor, don't take the least chance of
getting to like him. This is the soundest advice ever given by the
wary upper classman. It has not been ordained by nature that the soul
of the teacher is sib to the soul of the taught, but clearly, by
exercising the humanities, the irrepressible conflict may be kept
within bounds.
Sometimes harsher measures are necessary. Then a man is sent up to the
Head of the college, which is not at all a promotion. One fellow used
to tell a story of how Jowett, the quondam master of Balliol,
chastised him. When he reported, the Master was writing, and merely
paused to say: "Sit down, Mr. Barnes, you are working with Mr. Donkin,
are you not?" The culprit said he was, and sat down. Jowett wrote on,
page after page, while the undergraduate fidgeted. Finally Jowett
looked up and remarked: "Mr. Donkin says you are not. Good-morning."
After that the undergraduate was more inclined to work with Mr.
Donkin.
For graver offenses a man is imprisoned within the paradise behind the
college walls--"gated," the term is. One fellow I knew--a third year
man who roomed out of college--was obliged to lodge in the rooms of
the dean, Mr. J. L. Strachan Davidson. The two turned out excellent
friends. No one could be altogether objectionable, the undergraduate
explained, whose whiskey and tobacco were as good as the dean's. In
extreme cases a man may be sent down, but if this happens, he must
either have the most unfortunate of dispositions, or the skin of a
rhinoceros against tact and kindness.
It is by similar means that the don maintains his intellectual
ascendency. Nothing is more foreign to Oxford than an assumption of
pedagogic authority. Mr. Hilaire Belloc, who is now not unknown in
London as a man of letters, used to tell of a memorable encounter with
Jowett. Mr. Belloc was holding forth in his vein of excellent
enthusiasm with regard to his countrymen. For a long time Jowett
listened with courteously qualified assent, but finally said: "Mr.
Belloc, do you know the inscription which is said to stand above the
gate to Hell?" Mr. Belloc was ready with the familiar line from Dante.
"No, Mr. Belloc, _Ici on parle francais_." The oratory of even a
president of the Oxford Union broke down in laughter. Under such a
system a mutual confidence increases day by day between teacher and
taught, which may end in a comradeship more intimate than that between
father and son.
Our universities are fast adopting the German or pseudo-German idea
that an advanced education consists merely in mastering the subject
one may choose to pursue. The point of departure is the "course." If
we gain the acquaintance of Lowell or Longfellow, Agassiz, Child, or
Norton, we have to thank our lucky stars. In England, the social
relationship is the basis of the system of instruction.
IV
READING FOR EXAMINATIONS