to be diverted by abuse of its seats of learning, is at first a little
surprising; but there is no doubt that such satire has an agreeable
piquancy, and for tolerably obvious reasons. English humour is
generally of the personal kind, and needs a butt; a capacity in which
all persons connected with education have from time immemorial been
qualified to perform, _ex officio_ (education being generally considered
as an imparting of unnecessary and even harmful knowledge, and obviously
dissociated from the pursuit of financial prosperity, both as regards
the teachers and the taught): Shakespeare set the fashion, and Dickens
and Thackeray have settled the hash of schoolmasters and college tutors
for the next fifty years, at any rate. Schoolmasters, indeed, are
becoming so important and prosperous a part of the community that they
will probably be the first to reinstate themselves in the respect of the
public; but Dons have more difficulties to contend against. They have
seldom any prospect of opulence. Then, again, they suffer from the
quasi-monastic character of colleges; they have inherited some of the
railing accusations which used to be brought against monasteries. The
voice of scandal--especially feminine scandal--is not likely to be long
silent about celibate societies, and no Rudyard Kipling has yet arisen
to plead on behalf of Fellows that they
'aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barracks, most remarkable like you.'
Altogether the legend of 'monks,' 'port wine and prejudice,' 'dull and
deep potations,' and all the rest of it, still damages Dons in the eyes
of the general public. 'That's ---- College,' says the local guide to
his sightseers, 'and there they sits, on their Turkey carpets,
a-drinking of their Madeira, and Burgundy, and Tokay.' Such is,
apparently, the impression still entertained by Society. And no doubt
successive generations of Fellows who hunted four days a week, or, being
in Orders, 'thanked Heaven that no one ever took _them_ for parsons,'
did to a certain extent perpetuate the traditions of 'Bolton Abbey in
the olden time.' Well, their day is over now. If the Fellow _fin de
siecle_ should ever venture to indulge in the sports of the field, he
must pretend that he has met the hounds by accident; and even then he
risks his reputation.
[Illustration: _IN EXETER COLLEGE CHAPEL. Drawn by E. Stamp._]
It is always pleasant, too, to be wiser than one's erstwhile pastors and
masters. The pupil goes out into the great world; the teacher remains
behind, and continues apparently to go on in his old and crusted errors.
Outwardly the Universities do not change much, and it is easy to assume
that the habits and ideas of their denizens do not change either. Thus
it is that the young men of the 'National Observer,' coming back from a
Saturday-to-Monday visit to a university which they never respected and
are now entitled to despise, are moved to declare to the world the
complete inutility of what they call the Futile Don. 'He is dead,' they
say, 'quite dead;' and if he is, might not the poor relic of mortality
be allowed in mere charity to lie peacefully entombed in his collegiate
cloisters? Yet, after all, it is only among the great Anglo-Saxon race
that the profession of teaching is without honour; and even among us it
may be allowed that it is a mode of earning a pittance as decent and
comparatively innocuous as another. We cannot, all of us, taste the
fierce joys of writing for the daily or weekly press, and the
barrister's 'crowded hours of glorious life' in the law courts would be
more overcrowded than ever were not a few _faineants_ suffered to
moulder in the retirement of a university. Seriously, it was all very
well for the young lions of the Press to denounce the torpor of Dons in
the bad old days when colleges were close corporations--when Fellows
inherited their bloated revenues without competition, and simply because
they happened to be born in a particular corner of some rural district.
But now that nearly every First-class man has the chance of election and
would be a Fellow if he could, one is tempted to recall the ancient
fable of the sour grapes. Or at least the _esprits forts_ whom the
University has reluctantly driven out into the great world might be
grateful to her for saving them in spite of themselves from an existence
of futile incapacity.
Probably as long as colleges exist in something like their present
form--until the People takes a short way with them, abolishes common
rooms and the Long Vacation, and pays college tutors by a system of
'results fees'--these things will continue to be said. Deans and Senior
Tutors will never escape the stigma of torpor or incapacity. That quite
respectable rhymester, Mr. Robert Montgomery (who, had he not been
unlucky enough to cross the path of Lord Macaulay, might have lived and
died and been forgotten as the author of metrical works not worse than
many that have escaped the lash), has left to the world a long poem--of
which the sentiments are always, and the rhymes usually,
correct--entitled 'Oxford.' He has taken all Oxford life for his
subject, Dons included; and this is how he describes the fate of College
Tutors:--
'The dunce, the drone, the freshman or the fool,
'Tis theirs to counsel, teach, o'erawe, and rule!
Their only meed--some execrating word
To blight the hour when first their voice was heard.'
To a certain extent this is true in all ages. But there are worse things
than mere sloth: this is not the measure of the crimes charged against
college authorities. They--even such contemptible beings as they--are
said to have the audacity to neglect untitled merit, and to truckle to
the aristocracy. Every one knows Thackeray's terrible indictment of
University snobs: Crump, the pompous dignitary (who, to do him justice,
seriously thinks himself greater than the Czar of All the Russias), and
Hugby, the tutor grovelling before the lordling who has played him a
practical joke. Every one remembers how even the late Laureate gibbeted
his Dons--how
'One
Discussed his tutor, rough to common men.
But honeying at the whisper of a lord:
And one the Master, as a rogue in grain,
Veneer'd with sanctimonious theory.'
No doubt Universities are not immaculate. There have been Tartuffes and
tuft-hunters there, as in the great world. No doubt, too, it was very
wrong to allow noblemen to wear badges of their rank, and take their
degrees without examination (although the crime was a lesser one in the
days before class-lists were, when even the untitled commoner became a
Bachelor by dark and disreputable methods); but these things are not
done any more. At this day there are probably few places where a title
is less regarded than at Oxford or Cambridge. It is true that rumour
asserts the existence of certain circles where, _ceteris paribus_, the
virtuous proprietor of wealth and a handle to his name is welcomed with
more effusion than the equally respectable, but less fortunate, holder
of an eleemosynary exhibition. But, after all, even external Society,
which regards tuft-hunting with just displeasure, does--it is
said--continue to maintain these invidious distinctions when it is
sending out invitations to dinner. The fact is that there are a great
many peccadilloes in London which become crimes at the University.
Satire, however, does not confine itself to Dons: undergraduates come in
for a share of it too, though in a different way. When the novelist
condescends to depict the Fellow of a college, it is usually as a person
more or less feeble, futile, and generally _manque_. The Don can never
be a hero, but neither is he qualified to play the part of villain; his
virtues and his vices are all alike inadequate. If he is bad, his
badness is rarely more than contemptible; if he is good, it is in a
negative and passionless way, and the great rewards of life are, as a
rule, considered as being out of his reach. But with the undergraduate
the case is different. He--as we have said--is always in extremes:
literature gives him the premier _role_ either as hero or villain; but
it is as the villain that he is the most interesting and picturesque.
Satire and fiction generally describe him as an adept in vicious habits.
So sings Mr. Robert Montgomery, with admirable propriety:--
'In Oxford see the Reprobate appear!
Big with the promise of a mad career:
With cash and consequence to lead the way,
A fool by night and more than fop by day!'
Over and over again we have the old picture of the Rake's Progress which
the world has learnt to know so well: the youth absents himself from his
lectures, perhaps even goes to Woodstock (horrid thought!)--'Woodstock
rattles with eternal wheels' is the elegant phrase of Mr.
Montgomery--and, in short, plays the fool generally:--
'Till night advance, whose reign divine
Is chastely dedicate to cards and wine.'
[Illustration: _PARSON'S PLEASURE. Drawn by L. Speed._]
The specimen student of the nineteenth century will probably survive in
history as represented in these remarkable colours, and the virtuous
youth of a hundred years hence will shudder to think of a generation so
completely given over to drunkenness, debauchery, and neglect of the
Higher Life generally. There is a _naivete_ and directness about
undergraduate error which is the easy prey of any satirist; and
curiously enough the public, and even that large class which sends its
sons to the Universities, apparently likes to pretend a belief that
youth is really brought up in an atmosphere of open and unchecked
deviation from the paths of discipline and morality. If Paterfamilias
seriously believed that the academic types presented to him in
literature were genuine and frequent phenomena, he would probably send
his offspring in for the London Matriculation. But he knows pretty well
that the University is really not rotten to the core, and that colleges
are not always ruled by incapables, nor college opinion mainly formed by
rakes and spendthrifts; and at the same time it gives the British Public
a certain pleasure to imagine that it too has heard the chimes at
midnight, although it now goes to bed at half-past ten--that it has been
a devil of a fellow in its youth. This fancy is always piquant, and
raises a man in his own estimation and that of his friends.
[Illustration: Fencing]
These little inconsistences are of a piece with the whole attitude of
the unacademic world towards the Universities. Men come down from
London to rest, perhaps, for a day or two from the labours of the
Session. They are inspired with a transient enthusiasm for antiquity.
They praise academic calm: they affect to wish that they, too, were
privileged to live that life of learned leisure which is commonly
supposed to be the lot of all Fellows and Tutors. Then they go away,
and vote for a new University Commission.
VII--DIARY OF A DON
'Collegiate life next opens on thy way,
Begins at morn and mingles with the day.'
_R. Montgomery._
Half-past seven A.M.: enter my scout, noisily, as one who is accustomed
to wake undergraduates. He throws my bath violently on the floor and
fills it with ice-cold water. 'What kind of a morning is it?' No
better than usual: rain, east wind, occasional snow. _Must_ get up
nevertheless: haven't superintended a roll-call for three days, and the
thing will become a scandal. Never mind: one more snooze.... There are
the bells (Oh, those bells!) ringing for a quarter to eight. Ugh!
Dress in the dark, imperfectly: no time to shave. Cap and gown
apparently lost. Where the ---- Oh, here they are, under the table.
Must try to develop habits of neatness. Somebody else's cap: too big.
Roll-call in full swing in Hall: that is, the college porter is there,
ticking off undergraduates' names as they come in. Hall very cold and
untidy: college cat scavenging remnants of last night's dinner.
Portrait of the Founder looking as if he never expected the college to
come to this kind of thing. Men appear in various stages of dishabille.
Must make an example of some one: 'Really Mr. Tinkler, I must ask you to
put on something besides an ulster.' Tinkler explains that he is fully
dressed, opening his ulster and disclosing an elaborate toilet:
unfortunate--have to apologise. During the incident several men without
caps and gowns succeed in making their escape.
Back in my rooms: finish dressing. Fire out, no hot water. This is
what they call the luxurious existence of a College Fellow. Post
arrives: chiefly bills and circulars: several notes from undergraduates.
'Dear Sir,--May I go to London for the day in order to keep an important
engagement.' Dentist, I suppose. 'Dear Mr. ----,--I am sorry that I was
absent from your valuable lecture yesterday, as I was not aware you
would do so.' 'Dear Sir,--I shall be much obliged if I may have leave
off my lecture this morning, as I wish to go out hunting.' Candid, at
any rate. 'Mr. ---- presents his compliments to Mr. ---- and regrets
that he is compelled to be absent from his Latin Prose lecture, because
I cannot come.' Simple and convincing. Whip from the Secretary of the
Non-Placet Society: urgent request to attend in Convocation and oppose
nefarious attempt to insert 'and' in the wording of Stat. Tit. Cap. LXX.
18. Never heard of the statute before. Breakfast.
College cook apparently thinks that a hitherto unimpaired appetite can
be satisfied by what seems to be a cold chaffinch on toast. 'Take it
away, please, and get me an egg.' Egg arrives: not so old as chaffinch,
but nearly: didn't say I wanted a chicken. Scout apologises: must have
brought me an undergraduate's egg by mistake. Never mind; plain living
and high thinking. Two college servants come to report men absent last
night from their rooms. Must have given them leave to go down: can't
remember it, though. Matter for investigation. Porter reports
gentleman coming into college at 12.10 last night. All right: 'The
Dean's compliment's to Mr. ----, and will he please to call upon him at
once. 'Mr. ----'s compliments to the Dean, and he has given orders not
to be awakened till ten, but will come when he is dressed.' Obliging.
Lecture to be delivered at ten o'clock to Honours men, on point of
ancient custom: very interesting: Time of Roman Dinner, whether at 2.30
or 2.45. Have got copious notes on the subject somewhere: must read
them up before lecture, as it never looks well to be in difficulties
with your own MS.--looks as if you hadn't the subject at your fingers'
ends. Notes can't be found. Know I saw them on my table three weeks
ago, and table can't have been dusted since then. Oh, here they are:
illegible. Wonder what I meant by all these abbreviations. Never mind:
can leave that part out. Five minutes past ten.
Lecture-room pretty full: two or three scholars, with air of superior
intelligence: remainder commoners, in attitudes more or less expressive
of distracted attention. One man from another college, looking rather
_de trop_. Had two out-college men last time: different men, too:
disappointing. Begin my dissertation and try to make abstruse subject
attractive: 'learning put lightly, like powder in jam.' Wish that
scholar No. 1 wouldn't check my remarks by reference to the authority
from whom my notes are copied. Why do they teach men German? Second
scholar has last number of the 'Classical Review' open before him. Why?
Appears afterwards that the 'Review' contains final and satisfying
_reductio ad absurdum_ of my theory. Man from another college asks if
he may go away. Certainly, if he wishes. Explains that he thought this
was Mr. ----'s Theology lecture. Seems to have taken twenty minutes to
find out his mistake. Wish that two of the commoners could learn to
take notes intelligently, and not take down nothing except the
unimportant points. Hope they won't reproduce them next week in the
schools.
Ten fifty-five: peroration. Interrupted by entrance of lecturer for
next hour. Begs pardon: sorry to have interrupted: doesn't go, however.
Peroration spoilt. Lecture over: general sense of relief. Go out with
the audience, and overhear one of them tell his friend that, after all,
it wasn't so bad as last time. Mem., not to go out with audience in
future.
Eleven o'clock: lecture for Passmen. Twelve or fifteen young gentlemen
all irreproachably dressed in latest style of undergraduate
fashion--Norfolk jacket and brown boots indispensable--and all inclined
to be cheerfully tolerant of the lecturer's presence _quand meme_,
regarding him as a necessary nuisance and part of college system. After
all there isn't so much to do between eleven and twelve. Some of them
can construe, but consider it unbecoming to make any ostentation of
knowledge. Conversation at times animated. 'Really, gentlemen, you
might keep something to talk about at the next lecture.' Two men appear
at 11.25, noisily. Very sorry: have been at another lecture: couldn't
get away. General smile of incredulity, joined in by the new arrivals
as they find a place in the most crowded part of lecture-room. Every
one takes notes diligently, and is careful to burn them at the end of
the hour. Translation proceeds rather slowly. Try it myself: difficult
to translate Latin comedy with dignity. Give it up and let myself
go--play to the gallery. Gallery evidently considers that frivolity on
the lecturer's part is inappropriate to the situation. 11.55: 'Won't
keep you longer, gentlemen.'
Twelve: time to do a little quiet work before lunch. Gentleman who was
out after twelve last night comes to explain. Was detained in a
friend's room (reading) and did not know how late it was. In any case
is certain he was in before twelve, because he looked at his watch, and
is almost sure his watch is fast. Fined and warned not to do it again:
exit grumbling. No more interruptions, I hope..... Boy from the
Clarendon Press: editor wants something for the 'Oxford Magazine,' at
once: not less than a column: messenger will wait while I write it.
Very considerate. Try to write something: presence of boy embarrassing.
Ask him to go outside and wait on the staircase. Does so, and continues
to whistle 'Daisy Bell,' with accompaniment on the banisters
_obbligato_. Composition difficult and result not satisfactory: hope no
one will read it. Column nearly finished: man comes to explain why he
wants to be absent during three weeks of next term. _Would_ he mind
going away and calling some other time? Very well: when? Oh, any time,
only not now. This is what they call the leisure and philosophic calm
of collegiate life.
Lunch in Common Room: cold, clammy, and generally unappetising. Guest
who is apparently an old member of the college greets me and says he
supposes I've forgotten him. 'Not at all: remember you quite well: glad
to meet you again.' Haven't the faintest idea what his name is:
awkward. Appears in course of conversation to be ex-undergraduate whom
I knew very well and did not like. Evidently regards me as a venerable
fossil: he himself has grown bald and fat and looks fifty, more or less:
suppose I must be about seventy or eighty. Vice-Principal wants to know
if I will play fives at two: yes, if he likes. No, by the way, can't;
have got to go and vote in Convocation. Don't know what it is about, but
promised to go: can't think why. Time to go.
In the Convocation House. Very few people there, nobody at all
interested. Borrow Gazette and study list of agenda. Question on which
I promised to vote comes on late, all sorts of uninteresting matters to
be settled first: mostly small money grants for scientific purposes:
pleasant way of wasting three-quarters of an hour. My question here at
last: prepare to die in last ditch in defence of original form of
statute. Member of Hebdomadal Council makes inaudible speech,
apparently on the subject. No one else has anything to say: Council's
proposal, whatever it is, carried _nem. con_. No voting: might as well
have played fives after all: next time shall.
Time for walk round the Parks: rain and mud. Worst of the Parks is, you
always meet people of houses where you ought to have called and haven't.
Free fight under Rugby rules going on between University and somewhere
else. Watch it: don't understand game: try to feel patriotic:
can't...... Meeting at four to oppose introduction of Hawaiian as an
optional language in Responsions. Not select: imprudent for a caucus to
transact business by inviting its opponents: people of all sorts of
opinions present. Head of House makes highly respectable speech,
explaining that while qualified support of reform is conceivable and
even under possible circumstances advisable, premature action is rarely
consistent with mature deliberation. Nobody seems to have anything
definite to suggest: most people move amendments. Safe to vote against
all of them: difficult to know how you are voting, however: wording of
amendments so confusing. All of them negatived: substantive motion
proposed: lost as well. Question referred to a Committee: ought to have
been done at first. Hour and a half wasted. Remember that I have cut
my five-o'clock pupil for second time running. Am offered afternoon
tea: thirsty, but must be off: man at half-past five. On the way back
meet resident sportsman in the High. Has been out with hounds and had
best twenty-five minutes of the season, in the afternoon, three miles
off. Might have been there myself if it hadn't been for Convocation:
hang Convocation! Never mind; satisfaction of a good conscience: shall
always be able to say that I lost best run of season through devotion to
duty.
[Illustration: _LAWN TENNIS AT OXFORD. Drawn by Lancelot Speed._]
Six forty-five: pupils gone; dress for seven-o'clock dinner with friend
at St. Anselm's. Man comes to ask why he has been gated: explain: man
not satisfied. Gone, at any rate. Another man, asking leave to be out
after twelve. Five minutes to dress and walk a quarter of a mile. Wish
men wouldn't choose this time for coming to see one. Very late: dinner
already begun: no soup, thanks. Meaty atmosphere: noisy atmosphere at
lower end of Hall: undergraduates throw bread about. No one in evening
dress but myself. Distinguished guest in shape of eminent German
Professor: have got next him somehow: wish I hadn't: wears flannel shirt
and evidently regards me as a mere butterfly of fashion. Speaks hardly
any English: try him in German: replies after an unusual effort on my
part, 'Ich spreche nur Deutsch.' My command of the language evidently
less complete than I thought: or perhaps he only speaks his own patois.
Man opposite me Demonstrator at the Museum, who considers that the
University and the world in general was made for physiologists.
Small party in Common Room, most of diners having to see pupils or
attend meetings. Will I have any wine? No one else drinks any and my
host is a teetotaller: 'No, thanks--never drink wine after dinner.'
Truth only a conventional virtue after all. Eminent Teuton would like
more beer, but has been long enough in England to know better than to
ask for it. Am put next to Demonstrator, who endeavours to give general
ideas of digestive organs of a frog, interpreting occasionally in German
for Professor's benefit: illustrates with fragments of dessert: most
interesting, I am sure. Nothing like the really good talk of an Oxford
Common Room, after all. Senior Fellow drinks whisky and water and goes
to sleep. Coffee and cigarettes: or will I have a weed? 'Thanks, but
must be off: man at nine...' Back in college: rooms dark: can't find my
matches and fall over furniture.
Man comes to read me an essay. Know nothing about the subject: thought
he was going to write on something else. Essay finished: must say
something: try to find fault with his facts. Man confronts me with
array of statistics, apparently genuine: if so nothing more to say.
Criticise his grammar: man offended. Interview rather painful, till
concluded by entrance of nine-thirty man with Latin prose. Rather
superior young man, who considers himself a scholar. Suggest that part
of his vocabulary is not according to classical usage: proves me wrong
by reference to dictionary. Is not surprised to find me mistaken. Wish
that Higher Education had stopped in Board Schools and not got down to
undergraduates.
Man at ten, with a desire to learn. Stays till near eleven discussing
his chances in the schools at great length. Presently comes to his
prospects in life. Would send me to sleep if he wouldn't ask me
questions.