Stanley Kuhl Hornbeck

“ Some critics complain that men waste their time in Oxford. So they do, some of them—and so they do elsewhere. It is all a matter of manner and degree, and a question of what constitutes waste. One might do almost no work in Oxford and yet do just the opposite of wasting his time—if he use his eyes and ears. There is that about Oxford which breathes of History, which exhales Romance, which is redolent of culture, which [58] fills the very atmosphere with the spirit of hospitality. ”

“ As Wellington gave credit for the victory of Waterloo to the ‘playing-fields of Eton’, so England gives credit for innumerable triumphs, military, civil, and political, for achievements, physical, intellectual, and moral, to the playing-fields and the river, the lecture-rooms and the firesides of Oxford. The University boasts that it trains men to live lives both of achievement and of enjoyment, to meet exigencies and emergencies as they arise—to be not only men but gentlemen. Oxford and Cambridge degrees are accepted in England as educational hall-marks. ”

“ But for the solid everyday comfort of well-furnished apartments, of good cooking and excellent service, for freedom from bother with details, for convenient arrangements for athletic sports and for social life, Oxford provides as by a high art. The ‘strenuous life’ is frequently better known by its absence than otherwise, and many people in Oxford dislike even the sound of those words; yet there is a clear track and every opportunity for the man who insists on being strenuous. ”

“ Voluntary early rising is not the fashion, but eight o’clock chapel or roll-call compels it on half, or more than half, the days of Term, while the demands of training prevent many men from sleeping as late as their less strenuous fellows. As compared with American students, however, on their native soil, the Oxford student is a late riser. The voice of the scout and the slamming of a bath-tub on the floor rouse the student to a consciousness of the new day. Morning hours begin invariably with a cold tub. ”

“ It is often hard to take Oxford seriously. Examinations seem a far-away, hazy something, too often forgotten, as each day unrolls a tempting programme of delights other than books. Unlimited credit causes many an unthinking undergraduate to step deep into debt before he stops to reflect that tradesmen do keep accounts. The freedom of a life where every man is expected to think and act for himself offers every opportunity for self-improvement or self-destruction. ”

“ The excellence of the University of Oxford is without doubt the training of the ready gentleman who cannot be pushed off his feet by an attack upon the weaknesses of his personality. His training at Oxford gives him that secure self-possession and self-respect which commands the respect of his fellows. Our American students need have no fear that they will lose their nationality at Oxford, for they will find the English ideal of a gentleman exactly fitted for Anglo-Saxons everywhere. ”

“ The residential feature of the Oxford system, on the one hand, and the stress laid on culture for its own sake, on a liberal education, on the other, has not been very favourable to the growth of special or graduate work. The Oxford life makes heavy demands on the student’s time. An ideal of culture and scholarship (in the English sense of the word) will not have much in common with the demands of technical and professional training, with ‘specialization’ and the scientific spirit. Conservative as Oxford is, it has not shut its doors to the spirit of the times. ”

“ During these undergraduate days he had been deeply impressed by a passage from Aristotle—‘Virtue is the highest activity of the soul living for the highest object in a perfect life.’ He appreciated Aristotle’s emphasis upon the necessity for having a high ideal and for struggling toward that ideal. He revolved in his mind while in Oxford and in Africa, as he went and came, and during his summers here and his winters there, many problems as to the end and object of existence. What is the end of the process of evolution? Is it man? For what end does man exist? Why do I exist? ”

“ There is, however, danger in choosing too mature a man. He may be so advanced in his studies or so old in his habits as to find Oxford unprofitable or uncongenial. He may be so deeply interested in his definite line of work, or ‘take himself so seriously’, as not to ‘mix’ well. He may be so set in his ways as to be unadaptable to Oxford ways. There is such a thing as too much self-reliance. The Rhodes Scholar should have ‘independence of character’ and should have ‘principles’, but he should not assert an aggressive individuality. ”

“ Oxford students probably give more time to athletics than any other body of students in the world. At Heidelberg, aside from a few sporadic efforts on the river, the most strenuous exercise indulged in seems to be on the blood-stained floor of the duelling-room in the ‘Hirschgasse’, but less than half the students indulge in this energetic crossing of swords. ”

“ The ‘town’ is Conservative; the University is Conservative; the students are Conservative. Conscious of this characteristic, Oxford cultivates it to some extent as an ideal. Pointing to history, and emphasizing results, it justifies Conservatism, yet its Conservatism should not be magnified. The town, rejoicing for the present in the artistic inconvenience of horse-cars and some other like antiquities, nevertheless continues a study and a discussion of motor-trams and motor-’buses, and will doubtless some day adopt that form of conveyance which it decides best. ”

“ It is hard to reconcile old buildings and modern conveniences. Lamp and candle still shed the only light in at least one College—but this is not the rule; nearly every College building in Oxford has been ‘wired’, and table-lamps as well as drop-light ‘switch on’ in student rooms at the ‘press of the button’. Modern baths and showers (except a few new buildings) and a University gymnasium are wanting; but every man has his ‘tub’; and the gymnasium ‘though missing is not missed’—for all outdoors is the Oxford gymnasium. For boxing, wrestling, and fencing there are private gymnasiums. ”

“ The University has its ‘Statutes’, its ‘Handbook’, its ‘Calendar’, its ‘Examination Statutes’, its ‘Programmes’ and ‘Lecture Lists’, which contain the official information which an American inquirer expects to find in his University ‘Catalogues’, ‘Bulletins’, and ‘College Annuals’. Then there are numberless books which deal with various phases of Oxford life, some of them serious, some merely impressionist sketches. But no one book professes to give a really comprehensive description of Oxford or to touch on all its phases; few persons have time or opportunity or inclination to read all ”

“ The type of student who under Western conditions in America not infrequently ‘starts his College career on nothing and graduates with a bank account’ is impossible in Oxford. Again, while it is true that many men in Oxford consider themselves ‘absolutely poor’ on a sum which will keep a man in most Universities altogether comfortably, yet for all purposes of comparison there is an inconsiderable proportion of poor men in the University. ”

“ An Oxford man ‘reads’ for his degree. This is characteristic. Much as depends on the Tutor, in the last resort the student is dependent on himself—on the ‘reading’ he does privately. The Tutor is merely an adviser and a guide; there are disciplinary rules, to be sure; but there are no final grades at the end of each Term’s work, and there is no actual compulsion. A man may do much or he may do little—that will depend entirely upon himself. ”

“ The Pass-man comes up to Oxford to live the social life, to take advantage of all its many opportunities for self-improvement, self-culture, self-development, and, incidentally, to acquire a modicum of knowledge. The man reading for ‘Honours’, on the other hand, naturally has to meet much higher requirements for the examinations. His success is measured by his place in the ‘Class Lists’, those who have passed the examination being distributed into three or four ‘Classes’, each representing a different level of merit. ”

“ Within itself the University is very democratic. The lines of social cleavage are rather vertical than horizontal. There is a thorough atmosphere of personal independence. [48] While peculiarities and eccentricities are discouraged, yet originality—so long as it does not annoy—is at a premium, and individuality is sacred to an extent best known to Englishmen. The diversity of interests and the variety of pursuits in which Oxford men are daily engaged cover almost as wide a range as the catalogue of individual tastes. ”

“ B.A. therefore represents much more than mere routine undergraduate work. The work for the degree of Bachelor in Letters, Science, or Law may be fairly described as the equivalent of ‘post-graduate’ work. Thorough research, a dissertation or a special course of advanced study, followed in the case of the degree in Law by a very difficult examination, written and viva voce, are required, and a very high standard is set. One of the first ideas of which a Rhodes Scholar [71] must disabuse himself is that the path to an Oxford Honour degree is smooth and easy. ”

“ One need only walk through the College ‘quads’ and cloisters, follow the windings of the ‘finest architectural street in Europe’, ‘the High,’ wander through meadow and park, along the banks of Isis and Cherwell, through Addison’s Walk, through ‘Mesopotamia’, or out on the hills where Shelley delighted to pass long afternoons, or off to the north where Gladstone walked alone; one must, if he have any capacity, get something of a liberal education ”

“ The cost of living in an English ‘Public School’ is as great as, or greater than, that of educating a boy in an American Private Preparatory School or ‘Military Academy’. Men who have been in these Schools usually come up to Oxford with a generous allowance.
But there are also in Oxford a large number of men whose means are comparatively limited. There is no such thing as ‘working one’s way’ in Oxford, and practically the only way in which one’s allowance may be supplemented is through the winning of a scholarship. ”

“ Added to the personal comforts are the artistic and scholastic comforts—if one may speak of them as such—with which the student is surrounded. The natural beauties of Oxford’s environment are a fit setting for the classic treasures of architecture which have risen in irregular grouping throughout the mediaeval town. As the student comes and goes, as he sits at his lecture, he is, consciously or unconsciously, living in an atmosphere of artistic realities. ”

“ The man who comes to Oxford without athletic propensities and without a hearty interest in sports is apt not only to have a dull time of it, but to find himself in an ‘unhealthy, enervating atmosphere’. It is not necessary that one be a ‘record’ man or a ‘star’, but the athletic qualification should be given its proper significance. ”

“ One feature of Oxford athletics which is in striking antithesis to American College athletics is, that here, the more prominent and successful an athlete becomes, the greater his expenses, as he buys his own outfits, his own ‘blazers’, often pays his own railroad fares, usually incurs numerous social obligations, and receives no ‘compensation’ further than a row of shining prizes which may adorn his mantle-shelf. ”

“ Whatever may be said of ‘reading for the Schools’, it is a powerful factor and incentive in the cultivation of the reading habit, apart from the literary atmosphere of Oxford, which of itself fosters general reading for the sake of self-culture. Moreover, the academic year is very short—less than six months. The Oxford man is therefore obliged to do the bulk of his reading at home, during the Vacations which make up more than half the year—a striking contrast to the American or German programmes. ”

“ It should be borne in mind that Oxford does not draw a sharp line between ‘undergraduate’ and ‘graduate’ study; that reading for the B.A. degree in an Oxford Honour School is to a large extent ‘specializing’, and that the work need by no means be a repetition of what one has done elsewhere in getting his B.A.; that the tutorial system calls for a large amount of private reading with elastic limitations, with much work during Vacations; and that this system will require in most cases a radical readjustment of habits and methods of work. ”

“ Some one has said that a University, primarily considered, is less a school than an atmosphere. This applies with peculiar force to Oxford. Unlike American or German Universities, Oxford aims not primarily to provide instruction, but rather to provide an atmosphere for the many-sided Oxford life. For centuries, Oxford has been the training school of the English gentleman. ”

“ There are opportunities for research or advanced special work in almost every field of knowledge, but some of them deserve special mention. It goes without saying that the student of the Classics, of Comparative Philology, and of Ancient History will find at Oxford not merely the technical facilities in the way of instruction, libraries, and museums, but an atmosphere particularly favourable to the prosecution of his studies. ”

“ With all this diversity of taste and pursuit, the students within the University commonwealth are alike in this, that, whether from noble, aristocratic, or middle-class families, they generally represent achievement and ambition—and most of them regard their University course as a training for active political, professional, literary, or social life. Oxford and Cambridge claim pre-eminently to fit the men, who by reason of birth or merit succeed to the leading places in British administration and thought, for the high places which they are to fill. ”

“ Why should not other nations learn more from one another? Wider experience and wider knowledge mean broader and saner judgements, a truer perspective, a clearer vision, a juster and more sympathetic appreciation of the achievements, the methods, the objects, and the ideals of the contemporary nations, together with a better understanding of one’s own country and a better equipment for and a higher ideal of the duties and possibilities of citizenship. ”