Those who live much in the society of the very middle-aged, hear from
them loud and frequent complaints of the decay of courtesy and the
general deterioration, both of manners and of habits, observable in
the young men of the day. With many portentous shakings of the head,
these grizzling censors inform those who care to listen to their
wailings, that in the time of their own youth it was understood to
be the duty of young men to be modest, considerate, generous in their
treatment of one another, and chivalrous in their behaviour to women.
And every one of them will probably suggest to his hearers that he was
intimately acquainted with at least one young man who fulfilled that
duty with a completeness and a perfection never since attained. Now,
however, they will declare, the case is different. Young men have
become selfish and arrogant. Their respect for age has vanished,
their behaviour to ladies is familiar and flippant, their style of
conversation is slangy and disreputable, they are wanting in all
proper reverence, they are pampered, luxurious, affected, foolish, and
disingenuous; unworthy, in short, to be mentioned in the same breath
with those who have preceded them, and have left to their degenerate
successors a brilliant but unavailing example of youthful conduct.
These diatribes may or may not be founded to some extent in truth.
At the best, however, their truth is only a half-truth. So long as
the world endures, it is probable that young men will have a large
allowance of follies, of affectations, of extravagances, and the young
men of to-day are certainly not without them. But, in the main, though
the task of comparison is difficult, they do not appear to be at all
inferior in manliness, in modesty of bearing, and in reverence to the
generations that have gone before. Here and there in London the antics
of some youth plunged into a torrent of folly before he had had time
even to think of being wise, excite the comments of the world. But
London is not the school to which one would look for youth at its
best. To find that in any considerable quantity one must travel either
to Cambridge or to Oxford, and inspect the average undergraduates, who
form the vast majority at both these Universities.
Now the Average Undergraduate, as he exists, and has for ages existed,
is not, perhaps, a very wise young man. Nor does he possess those
brilliant qualities which bring the Precocious Undergraduate to
premature ruin. He has his follies, but they are not very foolish; he
has his affectations, but they are innocent; he has his extravagances,
but they pass away, and leave him not very much the worse for the
experience. On the whole, however, he is a fine specimen of the young
Englishman--brave, manly, loyal, and upright. He is the salt of his
University, and an honour to the country that produces him.
The Average Undergraduate will have been an average schoolboy, not
afflicted with too great a love of classics or mathematics, and
gifted, unfortunately, with a fine contempt for modern languages. But
he will have taken an honourable part in all school-games, and will
have acquired through them not only vigorous health and strength,
but that tolerant and generous spirit of forbearance without which no
manly game can be carried on. These qualities he will carry with him
to the University which his father chooses for him, and to which he
himself looks forward rather as a home of liberty slightly tempered by
Proctors, than as a temple of learning, moderated by examiners.
During the October term which makes him a freshman, the Average
Undergraduate devotes a considerable time to mastering the etiquette
of his University and College. He learns that it is not customary to
shake hands with his friends more than twice in each term, once at
the beginning, and again at the end of the term. If he is a Cambridge
man, he will cut the tassel of his academical cap short; at Oxford
he will leave it long; but at both he will discover that sugar-tongs
are never used, and that the race of Dons exists merely to plague him
and his fellows with lectures, to which he pays small attention, with
enforced chapels, which he sometimes dares to cut, and, with general
disciplinary regulations, to which he considers it advisable to
submit, though he is never inclined to admit their necessity. He
becomes a member of his college boat-club, and learns that one of
the objects of a regular attendance at College Chapel is, to enable
the freshman to practise keeping his back straight. Similarly, Latin
Dictionaries and Greek Lexicons are, necessarily, bulky, since,
otherwise, they would be useless as seats on which the budding oarsman
may improve the length of his swing in the privacy of his own rooms.
These rooms are all furnished on the same pattern. A table, a pedestal
desk for writing, half-a-dozen ordinary chairs, a basket arm-chair,
perhaps a sofa, some photographs of school-groups, family photographs
in frames, a cup or two, won at the school athletic sports, a football
cap, and a few prints of popular pictures, complete the furniture and
decorations of the average College rooms. Of course there are, even
amongst undergraduates, wealthy æsthetes, who furnish their rooms
extravagantly--but the Average Undergraduate is not one of them.
On the fifth of November the freshman sallies forth only to find,
with a sense of bitter disappointment, that the rows between Town and
Gown are things of the past. He will have discovered ere this that
undergraduate etiquette has ordained that while he wears a cap and
gown he must forswear gloves, and leave his umbrella at home, even
though the rain should pour down in torrents. All these ordinances he
observes strictly, though he can neither be "hauled" nor "gated" for
setting them at defiance. Towards the end of his first term he begins
to realise more accurately the joys and privileges of University life,
he has formed his set, and more or less found his level, he has become
a connoisseur of cheap wine, he has with pain and labour learned to
smoke, he has certainly exceeded his allowance, and he returns to his
home with the firm conviction that he knows a great deal of life. He
will terrify his mother with tales of proctorial misadventures, and
will excite the suspicions of his father by the new brilliance of his
attire. Indeed it is a curious fact that whatever the special pursuit
of the Average Undergraduate may be, and whatever may be the calling
and profession of his father, the two are generally engaged in a
financial war. This always ends in the triumph of the older man, who
never scruples to use the power which the possession of the purse
gives him in order to discomfit his son. From a University point of
view, the average father has as little variety as the average son.
It must be noted that away from the University or his family circle,
and in the society of ladies, the Average Undergraduate is shy.
The wit that flashed so brilliantly in the College Debating Club
is extinguished, the stream of humour that flowed amidst shouts
of laughter in the Essay Society is frozen at its source, the
conversation that delighted the frequenters of his rooms is turned
into an irresponsive mumble. But as soon as he returns to the academic
groves, and knows that petticoats are absent, and that his own
beloved "blazer" is on his back, Richard is himself again. He has his
undergraduate heroes whom he worships blindly, hoping himself to be
some day a hero and worthy of worship. Moreover, there are in every
College traditions which cause the undergraduate who is a member of it
to believe that the men of that particular society are finer fellows
than the men of any other. These traditions the Average Undergraduate
holds as though they were articles of his religion.
The Average Undergraduate generally takes a respectable position
as a College oarsman or cricketer, though he may fail to attain to
the University Eight or to the Eleven. He passes his examinations
with effort, but still he passes them. He recks not of Honours. The
"poll" or the pass contents him. Sometimes he makes too much noise,
occasionally he dines too well. In London, too, his conduct during
vacations is perhaps a little exuberant, and he is often inclined to
treat the promenades at the Leicester Square Variety Palaces as though
he had purchased them. But, on the whole, he does but little harm
to himself and others. He is truthful and ingenuous, and although he
knows himself to be a man, he never tries to be a very old or a very
wicked one. In a word, he is wholesome. In the end he takes his degree
creditably enough. His years at the University have been years of pure
delight to him, and he will always look back to them as the happiest
of his life. He has not become very learned, but he will always be a
useful member of the community, and whether as barrister, clergyman,
country gentleman, or business man, he will show an example of manly
uprightness which his countrymen could ill afford to lose.
* * * * *
FINIS.--The last nights on earth at the Haymarket are announced of
_A Village Priest_. May he rest in piece. The play that immediately
follows is, _Called Back_; naturally enough a revival, as the title
implies. But one thing is absolutely certain, and that is, that
_A Village Priest_ will never be _Called Back_. Perhaps _L'Abbé
Constantin_ may now have a chance. Eminently good, but not absolutely
saintly. Is there any chance of the _Abbé_ being "translated?"
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE SMELLS.
(_EDGAR ALLAN POE "UP TO DATE."_)]