the regulations as to the times for taking the examinations. The
earliest date when a man may go up for moderations is his fifth term
after matriculation. As there are four terms a year, this earliest
date falls at the outset of his second year. For a passman there is
apparently no time beyond which it is forbidden to take mods, or
finals either. An honor man may repeat his attempts at mods until
eight terms are gone--two full and pleasant years; that is, he may
take mods in any of three terms--almost an entire year. For finals he
may go up as early as his eleventh term, and as late as his
sixteenth--giving a latitude of more than a year. If he wishes to take
a final examination in a second subject, he may do so up to his
twentieth term. Clearly, the pupil's work is done without pressure
other than the personal influence of the tutor. When an American
student fails to pass his examinations on the hour, he is disclassed
and put on probation, the penalty of which is that he cannot play on
any of the athletic teams. On this point, at least, the Oxford system
of discipline is not the less childish of the two.
As to the nature of the work done, it is aptly expressed in the Oxford
term, "reading." The aim is not merely to acquire facts. From week to
week the tutor is apt to meet his pupils, and especially the less
forward ones, in familiar conversation, often over a cup of tea and a
cigarette. He listens to the report of what the pupil has lately been
reading, asks questions to see how thoroughly he has comprehended it,
and advises him as to what to read next. When there are several pupils
present, the conference becomes general, and thus of greater advantage
to all. In the discussions that arise, opposing views are balanced,
phrases are struck out and fixed in mind, and the sum of the pupil's
knowledge is given order and consistency. The best tutors consciously
aim at such a result, for it makes all the difference between a
brilliant and a dull examination paper, and the examiners highly value
this difference.
The staple of tutorial instruction is lectures. In the old days the
colleges were mutually exclusive units, each doing the entire work of
instruction for its pupils. This arrangement was obviously wasteful,
in that it presupposed a complete and adequate teaching force in each
of the twenty colleges. Latterly, a system of "intercollegiate
lectures" has been devised, under which a tutor lectures only on his
best subjects and welcomes pupils from other colleges. These
intercollegiate tutorial lectures are quite like lecture courses at an
American college, except that they are not used as a means of police
regulation. Attendance is not compulsory, and there are no
examinations. A man issues from the walls of his college for booty,
and comes back with what he thinks he can profit by.
The importance of the university examinations is thus proportionate to
their rarity. The examiners are chosen from the best available members
of the teaching force of the university; they are paid a very
considerable salary, and the term of service is of considerable
length. The preparation for the examination, at least as regards honor
men, has a significance impossible under our system. Matters of fact
are regarded mainly as determining whether a man shall or shall not
get his degree; the class he receives--there are four classes--depends
on his grasp of facts and upon the aptitude of his way of writing. No
man can get either a first or a second class whose knowledge has not
been assimilated into his vitals, and who has not attained in some
considerable degree the art of expression in language.
One of the incidents of reading is a set of examinations set by the
colleges severally. They take place three times a year, at the end of
each term, and are called collections--apparently from the fact that
at this time certain college fees used to be collected from the
students. The papers are set by the dons, and as is the case with all
tutorial exercises, the results have nothing at all to do with the
class a man receives in the public examinations--mods and finals. I
was surprised to find that it was rather the rule to crib; and my
inquiries disclosed a very characteristic state of affairs. One man,
who was as honorable in all respects as most fellows, related how he
had been caught cribbing. His tutor took the crib and examined it
carefully. "Quite right," he said. "In fact, excellent. Don't be at
any pains to conceal it. By the finals, of course, you will have to
carry all these things in your head; at present, all we want to know
is how well you can write an examination paper." The emphasis as to
the necessity of knowing how to write was quite as genuine as the
sarcasm. These examinations have a further interest to Americans. They
are probably a debased survival of examinations which in centuries
past were a police regulation to test a student's diligence, and thus
had some such relation to a degree as our hour examinations, midyears,
and finals. In other words, they suggest a future utility for our
present midyears and finals, if ever a genuine honor examination is
made requisite for an American honor degree.
For the greater part of his course, an undergraduate's reading is by
no means portentous. It was Dr. Johnson, if I am not mistaken, whose
aim was "five good hours a day." At Oxford, this is the maximum which
even a solid reading man requires of himself. During term time most
men do much less, for here is another of the endlessly diverting
Oxford paradoxes: passman and classman alike aim to do most of their
reading in vacations. As usual, a kernel of common sense may be found.
If the climate of England is as little favorable to a strenuous
intellectual life as it is to strenuous athleticisms, the climate of
Oxford is the climate of England to the _n_th power. A man's
intellectual machinery works better at home in the country. And even
as the necessity of relaxation is greater at Oxford, so is the chance
of having fun and of making good friends--of growing used to the ways
of the world of men. The months at the university are the heyday of
life. The home friends and the home sports are the same yesterday and
forever. The university clearly recognizes all this. It rigidly
requires a man to reside at Oxford a certain definite time before
graduation; but how and when he studies and is examined, it leaves to
his own free choice. A man reads enough at Oxford to keep in the
current of tutorial instruction, and to get on the trail of the books
to be wrestled with in vacation.
V
THE EXAMINATION
When mods and finals approach, the tune is altered. Weeks and months
together the fellows dig and dig, morning, noon, and night. All sport
and recreation is now regarded only as sustaining the vital forces for
the ordeal. Sometimes, in despair at the distractions of Oxford life,
knots of fellow sufferers form reading parties, gain permission to
take a house together in the country, and draw up a code of terrible
penalties against the man who suggests a turn at whist, the forbidden
cup, or a trip to town. From the simplest tutorial cram-book to the
profoundest available monograph, no page is left unturned. And this is
only half. The motto of Squeers is altered. When a man knows a thing,
he goes and writes it. Passages apt for quotation are learned by rote;
phrases are polished until they are luminous; periods are
premeditated; paragraphs and sections prevised. An apt epigram turns
up in talk or in reading--the wary student jots it down, polishes it
to a point, and keeps it in ambush to dart it at this or that
possible question. One man I knew was electrified with Chaucer's
description of the Sergeant of the Law,--
No wher so bisy a man as he ther nas,
And yet he semed bisier than he was;--
and fell into despair because he could not think of any historical
personage in his subject-matter to whom it might aptly apply. On the
other hand, there was Alfred the Great, whose character was sure to be
asked for. Did I know any line of Chaucer that would hit off Alfred
the Great? So unusual to quote Chaucer.
All this sort of thing has, of course, its limits. In the last days of
preparation, the brains are few that do not reel under their weight of
sudden knowledge; the minds are rare that are not dazzled by their own
unaccustomed brilliance. The superlatively trained athlete knocks off
for a day or two before an important contest--and perhaps has a dash
at the flesh-pots by way of relaxing tension from the snapping point.
So does the over-read examinee. He goes home to his sisters and his
aunts, and to all the soothing wholesomeness of English country life.
And then that terrible week of incessant examinations! All the facts
and any degree of style will fail to save a man unless he has every
resource ready at command. No athletic contest, perhaps no battle,
could be a severer test of courage. Life does not depend upon the
examination, but a living may. In America, degrees are more and more
despised; but in England, it still pays to disarrange the alphabet at
the end of one's name, or to let it be known to a prospective employer
that one is a first-class honor man. The nature of the young
graduate's employment and his salary too have a pretty close
correspondence with his class at graduation. If he can add a blue to a
first, the world is his oyster. The magnitude of the issue makes the
examinee--or breaks him. Brilliant and laborious students too often
come off with a bare third, and happy audacity has as often brought
the careless a first. It may seem that the ordeal is unnecessarily
severe; but even here the reason may be found, if it be only granted
that the aim of a university is to turn out capable men. The honor
examination requires some knowledge, more address, and most of all
pluck--pluck or be plucked, as the Cambridge phrase is; and these
things in this order are what count in the life of the British Empire.
VI
OXFORD QUALITIES AND THEIR DEFECTS
Under the German-American system, the main end is scholarly training.
Our graduates are apt to have the Socratic virtue of knowing how
little they know--and perhaps not much besides. Even for the scholar
this knowledge is not all. Though the English undergraduate is not
taught to read manuscripts and decipher inscriptions--to trace out
knowledge in its sources--the examination system gives him the breadth
of view and mental grasp which are the only safe foundations of
scholarship. If he contributes to science, he usually does so after he
has left the university. The qualities which then distinguish him are
rare among scholars--sound common sense and catholicity of judgment.
Such qualities, for instance, enabled an Oxford classical first to
recognize Schliemann's greatness while yet the German universities
could only see that he was not an orthodox researcher according to
their standards. If a man were bent on obtaining the best possible
scholarly training, he probably could not do better than to take an
English B. A. and then a German or an American Ph.D. As for the world
of deeds and of men, the knowledge which is power is that which is
combined with address and pluck; and the English system seems based on
practical sense, in that it lays chief stress on producing this rare
combination.
To attribute to the honor schools the success with which Englishmen
have solved the problems of civic government and colonial
administration would be to ignore a multitude of contributory causes;
but the honor schools are highly characteristic of the English system,
and are responsible for no small part of its success. A striking
illustration of this may be seen in the part which the periodical
press plays in public affairs. In America, nothing is rarer than a
writer who combines broad information with the power of clear and
convincing expression. The editor of any serious American publication
will bear me out in the observation that, notwithstanding the
multitude of topics of the deepest and most vital interest, it is
difficult to find any one to treat them adequately; and any reader can
satisfy himself on this point by comparing the best of our periodicals
with the leading English reviews. Now the writing of a review article
requires nothing more nor less than the writing of a first-class
examination paper, even to the element of pluck; for to marshal the
full forces of the mind in the pressure of public life or of
journalism requires self-command in a very high degree. The same thing
is as obvious in the daily papers. The world is filled with English
newspaper men who combine with reportorial training the power of
treating a subject briefly and tellingly in its broadest relations.
The public advantage of this was not long ago very aptly exemplified.
When our late war suddenly brought us face to face with the fact that
our national destiny had encountered the destinies of the great
nations of the world, the most thoughtful people were those who felt
most doubt and uncertainty; the more one considered, the less could
one say just what he thought. At that crisis a very clear note was
sounded. The London correspondents of our papers--Englishmen, and for
the most part honor men--presented the issue to us from British and
imperialistic point of view with a vigor and conviction that had
immediate effect, as we all remember, and gave the larger part of the
nation a new view of the crisis, and a new name for it. It was not
until weeks later that our own most thoughtful writers as a body
perceived the essential difference between our position and that of
Great Britain, and we have scarcely yet discarded the word
"imperialism." The knowledge, address, and pluck--or shall we call it
audacity?--of the English correspondents enabled them to make a stroke
of state policy. This is only one of many citable instances.
To the robustious intelligence of the honor man, it must be admitted,
the finer enthusiasm of scientific culture is likely to be a sealed
book. The whole system of education is against it. Even if a student
is possessed by the zeal for research, few tutors, in their pursuit of
firsts, scruple to discourage it. "That is an extremely interesting
point, but it will not count for schools." One student in a discussion
with his tutor quoted a novel opinion of Schwegler's, and was confuted
with the remark, "Yes, but that is the German view." It is this tutor
who is reported to have remarked: "What I like about my subject is
that when you know it you know it, and there's an end of it." His
subject was that tangle of falsehood and misconception called history.
It must, of course, be remembered in extenuation that with all his
social and tutorial duties, the don is very hard worked. And
considering the pressure of the necessary preparation for schools, the
temptation to shun the byways is very great.
The examining board for each school is elected by the entire faculty
of that school from its own members; and though it is scarcely
possible for an unscrupulous examiner to frame the questions to suit
his own pupils, there is nothing to prevent the tutor from framing his
pupils' knowledge to meet the presumptive demands of the examiners.
"We shall have to pay particular attention to Scottish history, for
Scotus is on the board, and that is his hobby." In the school of
literae humaniores, no one expects either pupil or tutor to go far into
textual criticism, philology, or archaeology. These branches are
considered only as regards their results. In history, a special
subject has to be studied with reference to its original sources, but
its relative importance is small, and a student is discouraged from
spending much time on it. Stubbs's "Select Charters" are the only
original documents required, and even with regard to these all
conclusions are cut and dried.
To be sure there is a science school, but few men elect it, and it is
in distinctly bad odor. In the slang of the university it is known as
"stinks," and its laboratories as "stink shops." One must admit that
its unpopularity is deserved. As it is impossible that each of the
twenty colleges should have complete apparatus, the laboratories are
maintained by the university, and not well maintained, for the wealth
of Oxford is mainly in the coffers of the colleges. The whole end of
laboratory work at Oxford is to prepare the student for a "practical
examination" of some three hours. The Linacre professor has made many
strenuous efforts, and has delivered much pointed criticism, but he
has not yet been able to place the school on a modern or a rational
basis. In his nostrils, perhaps, more than those of the university,
the school of science is unsavory.
Many subjects of the highest practical importance are entirely
ignored. No advanced instruction is offered in modern languages and
literatures except English, and the school in English is only six
years old and very small. No one of the technical branches that are
coming to be so prominent a part of American university life is as yet
recognized.
The Oxford honor first knows what he knows and sometimes he knows
more. Few things are as distressing as the sciolism of a second-rate
English editor of a classic. The mint sauce quite forgets that it is
not Lamb. The English minor reviewer exhibits the pride of intellect
in its purest form. The don perhaps intensifies these amiable foibles.
There is an epigram current in Oxford which the summer guide will
tell you Jowett wrote to celebrate his own attainments:--
Here I am, my name is Jowett;
I am the master of Balliol College.
All there is to know, I know it.
What I know not is not knowledge.
This is clearly a satire written against Jowett, and it would be more
clearly a legitimate satire if aimed at the generality of dons.
VII
THE UNIVERSITY AND REFORM
This tale of Oxford shortcomings is no news to the English radical.
The regeneration of the university has long been advocated. On the one
hand, the reformers have tried to make it possible, as it was in the
Middle Ages, to live and study at Oxford without being attached to any
of the colleges; on the other, they have tried to bring into the
educational system such modern subjects and methods of study as are
cultivated in Germany, where the new branches have been so admirably
grafted on the mediaeval trunk. In general it must be said that Oxford
is becoming more democratic and even more studious; but the advance
has come in spite of the constitution of the university. All studied
attempts at reform have proved almost ludicrously futile.
In order to combat the monopoly of the colleges, and to build up a
body of more serious students without their walls, a new order of
"unattached" students was created. The experiment has no doubt been
interesting, but it cannot be said that it has revived the glorious
democracy and the intellectual enthusiasm of the mediaeval university.
Few things could be lonelier, or more profitless intellectually, than
the lot of the unattached students. Excluded by the force of
circumstances from the life of the colleges, they have no more real
life of their own than the socially unaffiliated in American
universities. They have been forced to imitate the organization of the
colleges. They lunch and dine one another as best they can, hold
yearly a set of athletic games, and place a boat in the college
bumping races. They have thus come to be precisely like any of the
colleges, except that they have none of the felicities, social or
intellectual, that come from life within walls.
From time to time the introduction of new honor schools is proposed to
keep pace with modern learning. A long-standing agitation in favor of
a school in modern languages was compromised by the founding of the
school in English; but it is not yet downed, and before the century is
over may yet rise to smite conservatism. Coupled with this there is an
ever-increasing desire to cultivate research. As yet these agitations
have had about as much effect as the kindred agitation that led to the
rehabilitation of the unattached student.
The Bodleian Library is a treasure chest of the rarest of old books
and of unexplored documents; but nothing in the Bod counts for
schools, and so the shadow of an undergraduate darkens the door only
when he is showing off the university to his sisters--and to other
fellows'. When I applied for permission to read, the fact that I wore
a commoner's gown, as I was required to by statute while reading
there, almost excluded me. If I had been after knowledge useful in the
schools, no doubt I should have been obliged to consult a choice
collection of well-approved books across the way in the camera of the
Radcliffe. In America, a serious student is welcome to range in the
stack, and to take such books as he needs to his own rooms. Some few
researchers come to the Bodleian from the world without to spend
halcyon days beneath the brave old timber roof of Duke Humphrey's
Library; but any one used to the freedom of books in America would
find very little encouragement to do so. The librarian is probably an
eminently serviceable man according to the traditions of the Bodleian;
but there are times when he appears to be a grudging autocrat
intrenched behind antique rules and regulations. In the Middle Ages it
was the custom to chain the books to the shelves, as one may still
observe in the quaint old library of Merton College. The modern
method at the Bodleian would seem to be a refinement on the custom.
And what is not known about the Bodleian in the Bodleian would fill a
library almost as large. In the picture gallery hangs a Van Dyck
portrait of William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, a former chancellor of
the university, a nephew of Sir Philip Sydney, son of Mary, Countess
of Pembroke, and the once reputed patron to whom Shakespeare addressed
the first series of his sonnets. The librarian did not know how or
when the portrait came into the possession of the University, or
whether it was an original; and not being required to know by statute,
he did not care to find out, and did not find out.
The crowning absurdity of the educational system is the professors,
and here is an Oxford paradox as yet unredeemed by a glimmering of
reason. When I wanted assistance as to a thesis on which I was
working, my tutor referred me to the Regius Professor of Modern
History, who he thought would be more likely than any one else to know
about the sources of Elizabethan literature.
Few as are the professors, they are all too many for the needs of
Oxford. They are learned and ardent scholars, many of them with a full
measure of German training in addition to Oxford culture. But in
proportion as they are wise and able they are lifted out of the life
of the university. They lecture, to be sure, in the schools; and now
and then an undergraduate evades his tutor long enough to hear them.
Several young women may be found at their feet--students from
Somerville and Lady Margaret. When the subject and the lecturer are
popular, residents of the town drop in. But as regards the great mass
of undergraduates, wisdom crieth in the streets. The professors are as
effectually shelved as ever their learned books will be when the
twentieth century is dust. "The university, it is true," Mr. Brodrick
admits in his "History of Oxford," "has yet to harmonize many
conflicting elements which mar the symmetry of its institutions."
This torpor in which the university lies is no mere matter of
accident. I quote from Mr. Gladstone's Romanes Lecture, delivered in
1892:--
"The chief dangers before the English universities are probably
two: one that in [cultivating?] research, considered as apart from
their teaching office, they should relax and consequently dwindle
[as teachers?]; the other that, under pressure from without, they
should lean, if ever so little, to that theory of education, which
would have it to construct machines of so many horse power rather
than to form character, and to rear into true excellence the
marvelous creature we call man; which gloats upon success in life,
instead of studying to secure that the man shall ever be greater
than his work, and never bounded by it, but that his eye shall
boldly run--
Along the line of limitless desire."
Few will question the necessity of rising above the sphere of mere
science and commercialism; but many will question whether the way to
rise is not rather by mastering the genius of the century than by
ignoring it. It is scarcely too much to say that the greatest
intellectual movement of the nineteenth century, though largely the
work of English scientists, has left no mark on Oxford education. If,
as Professor Von Holst asserts, the American universities are hybrids,
Oxford and Cambridge cannot be called universities at all.
VIII
THE UNIVERSITY AND THE PEOPLE