An American at Oxford

The happiest thing about all this is that it affords the freest possible interplay of social forces. As soon as a newcomer gains distinction, as he does at once if he has the ca...

I found subsequently that every afternoon, between luncheon and tea, the college was virtually deserted for field, track, and river; and it dawned upon me that unless I joined t...

The relationship between the colleges and the university exists in a greater or less degree in all sports. There is a series of matches among the leading colleges in cricket, an...

Each club convenes at regular intervals, usually in the rooms of such members as volunteer to be hosts. The hour of meeting is directly after dinner, and while the men gather an...

No one supposes for a moment that all this is done out of simple human kindness. The freshman breakfast is a conventional institution for gathering together the unlicked cubs, s...

In the final schools the range of choice is greater than at moderations, and is greater in some schools than in others. Literæ humaniores offers the least scope for election. Th...

The only bond between the numerous college meetings and the university sports is a single event in each, called a strangers' race, which is open to all comers. The purpose of th...

This remedy is perhaps extreme; but the only alternative is almost as radical. It is to enable the student, at least the more serious student, to slip the trammels of the electi...

As regards the American teaching system, the fact that the college so long remained identical with the university has caused little else than good. At Oxford and Cambridge, when...

The townspeople seem to have been the not unnatural fathers of the tradesmen and landlords of modern Oxford; and the likeness is well borne out in the matter of charges. But whe...

If you stay out of college after midnight, the dean makes a star chamber offense of it, fines you a "quid" or two, and like as not sends you down. This sounds a trifle worse tha...

The signal fact is that our young men do what they do with the diligence of enthusiasm, and with the devotion that inspires the highest courage. It is not unknown that, in the b...

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...

Even the university examinations became farcical. Under the Laudian statutes the very examiners became corrupt. Instead of a feast of reason and a flow of soul, the wary student...

At Harvard, where the evil has long been recognized, a remedy has been sought in increasing the membership of the great sophomore and senior societies, the Institute of 1770 and...

By a curious coincidence, the day on which the last proof of this book was sent to the printer saw the publication of the will of the late Cecil Rhodes, providing that each of t...

He shall also be expected to show a competent knowledge (1) of the chief periods of the English language, including Old English (Anglo-Saxon), and (2) of the relation of English...