Part 4

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 and settle down to the business of the evening, coffee, port, and tobacco are provided out of the club treasury. The debates are supposed to be carried on according to the strictest parliamentary law, and the man who transgresses is subject to a sharp rebuff. On one occasion, when the question of paying members of Parliament was up, one speaker gravely argued that the United States Senate was filled with politicians who were attracted by the salary. Though I had already spoken, I got up to protest. The chairman sat me down with the greatest severity--amid a broad and general smile. I had neglected, I suppose, the parliamentary remark that I arose to a point of fact. A member's redress in such instances is to rag the president at the time when, according to custom, interpellations are in order; and as a rule he avails himself of this opportunity without mercy. On one occasion, a fellow got up in the strictest parliamentary manner and asked the president--a famous shot on the moors--whether it was true, as reported, that on the occasion when he lately fell over a fence three wrens and a chipping sparrow fell out of his game-bag. Such ragging as the chair administers and receives may not aid greatly in rational debate, but it certainly has its value as a preparation for the shifts and formalities of parliamentary life. It is the first duty of a chairman, even the president of the Oxford Union, to meet his ragging with cheerfulness and a ready reply, and the first duty of all debaters is to be interesting as well as convincing. In American college debating there is little of such humor and none of such levity. The speakers are drafted to sustain or to oppose a position, often without much reference to their convictions, and are supposed to do so to the uttermost. The training is no doubt a good one, for life is largely partisan; but a man's success in the world depends almost as much on his tact and good sense as on his strenuosity.

The Englishman's advantage in address is sometimes offset by deficiencies of information. In a debate on Home Rule, one argument ran somewhat as follows: It is asserted that the Irish are irresponsible and lacking in the sense of administrative justice. To refute this statement, I have only to point to America, to the great metropolis of New York. There, as is well known, politics are exclusively in the hands of Irish citizens, who, denied the right of self-government--as the American colonies were denied similar freedom, I need scarcely point out with what disastrous results to the empire--the Irish immigrants in America, I say, are evincing their true genius for statesmanship in their splendid organization known as Tammany Hall.

In the better clubs, the debates are often well prepared and cogent. I remember with particular gratitude a discussion as to whether the English love of comfort was not an evidence of softening morals. The discussion was opened with a paper by a young Scotchman of family and fortune. More than any other man I met he had realized the sweetness and pleasantness of Oxford, and all the delights of the senses and of the mind that surround the fellows there; and the result of it was, as it has so often been with such men, a craving for the extreme opposite of all he had known, for moral earnestness and austerity. What right, he questioned, had one to buy a book which, with ever so little more effort, he might read in the Bodleian, while all the poor of England are uneducated? And was it manly or in any way proper to spend so much time and interest on things that are merely agreeable? The sense of the meeting seemed to be that comfort in daily life is an evil only when it becomes an end in itself, a self-indulgence; and that a certain amount of it is necessary to fortify one for the most strenuous and earnest work in the world. I think that debate made us realize, as we never could have realized without it, to what serious end England makes the ways of her young men so pleasant; yet the more deeply I lived into the life of the university, the more deeply I questioned, as the young Scotchman did, whether the line between the amenities and the austerities was not somewhat laxly drawn.

The only purely social club, and therefore the only really exclusive one, is the wine club. In Balliol there is a college rule against wine clubs, which seems to be due partly to a feeling against social exclusiveness, and partly perhaps to a distrust of purely convivial gatherings. The purpose of a wine club was served quite as well, however, by an organization that was ostensibly for debating. The notices of meetings were usually a parody of the notices of the meetings of genuine debating clubs, and the chief business of the secretary was to concoct them in pleasing variety. For instance, it would be _Resolved_, that this House looks with disfavor upon the gradual introduction of a continental sabbath into England; or _Resolved_, that this House looks with marked disfavor upon the assumption that total abstinence is a form of intemperance. On the evening when the House was defending total abstinence, our host's furniture and tea-things suffered some damage, and as I was in training, I found it advisable to leave early. As I slipped out, the president of the club, a young nobleman, who was himself at the time in training for the 'varsity trial eights, called me back and said with marked sobriety that he had just thought of something. "You are in for the mile run, aren't you? And in America you have always run the half. Well, then, if you find the distance too long for you, just don't mind at all about the first part of the race, but when you get to the last part, run as you run a half mile. Do it in two minutes, and you can't help beating 'em." He bade me good-night with a grave and authoritative shake of the hand. If he recalled his happy thought next morning, he was unable to avail himself of it, for I grieve to say that in the 'varsity trial race, which came only a few days later, he missed his blue by going badly to pieces on the finish.

The meeting at which this occurred was exceptional. For the most part the fellows were moderate enough, and at times I suspected the wine club of being dull. Certainly, we had no such fun as at the more general jubilations--a rag in the quad or a boating wine. I doubt if any one would have cared so very much to belong to the club if it had not afforded the only badge of social distinction in college, and if this had not happened to be an unusually pretty hatband. However successful a wine club may be, moreover, it is of far less consequence than similar clubs in America. In the first place, since there are one or more of them in each of the twenty colleges, the number of men who belong to them is far greater relatively, which of course means far less exclusion. In the second place, and this is more important, the fellows who do not belong are still able to enjoy the life which is common to all members of the college. In general, the social walls of Oxford are like the material ones. Far from being the means of undue exclusion and of the suppression of public feeling, they are the live tissues in which the vital functions of the place are performed.

Until well along in the nineteenth century, this life in the college was about the only life; but of late years the university has begun to feel its unity more strongly, and in social and intellectual life, as in athletics, it has become for the first time since the Middle Ages an organic whole.

VIII

SOCIAL LIFE IN THE UNIVERSITY

The first formal organization of the life of the university was, as its name records, the Oxford Union, an institution of peculiar interest to Americans because our universities, though starting from a point diametrically opposite, have arrived at a state of social disorganization no less pronounced than that which the Union was intended to remedy. Harvard, which has progressed farthest along the path of social expansion and disintegration, has already made a conscious effort to imitate the Union. The adamantine spirit of Yale is shaken by the problems of the Sophomore societies; and it will not be many decades before other universities will be in a similar predicament. It will not be amiss, therefore, to consider what the Oxford Union has been and is. If Americans have not clearly understood it even when attempting to imitate it, one should at least remember that it would not be easy for an Oxford man to explain it thoroughly.

The Union was founded in 1823, and was primarily for debating. In fact, it was the only university debating society. Its members were carefully selected for their ability in discoursing on the questions of the day. In its debates Gladstone, Lord Rosebery, the Marquis of Salisbury, and countless other English statesmen of recent times got their first parliamentary training. Its present fame in England is largely based upon this fact; but its character has been metamorphosed. Early in its history it developed social features; and though it was still exclusive in membership, little by little men of all kinds were taken in. At this stage of its development, the Union was not unlike those vast political clubs in London in which any and all principles are subordinated to the kitchen and the wine cellar. The debates, though still of first-rate quality, became more and more an incident; the club was chiefly remarkable as the epitome of all the best elements of Oxford life. The library was filled with men reading or working at special hobbies; the reading and smoking rooms were crowded; the lawn was daily thronged with undergraduates gossiping over a cup of tea; the telegram board, the shrine of embryo politicians watching for the results from a general election, was apt to be profaned by sporting men scanning it for the winners of the Derby or the Ascot. In a word, the Union held the elect of Oxford, intellectual, social, and sporting. This is the Union remembered by the older graduates, and except for a single feature, namely, that it was still exclusive, this is the Union that has inspired the projectors of the Harvard Union.

The Oxford man of the later day knows all too well that this Union is no more. Some years ago, responding to a democratic impulse that has been very strong of late at Oxford, the Union threw down all barriers; virtually any man nowadays may join it, and its members number well beyond a thousand. The result is not a social millennium. The very feature of inclusiveness that is to be most prominent in the Union at Harvard destroyed the character of the Oxford Union as a representative body. To the casual observer it still looks much as it did a dozen years ago; but its glory has departed. In any real sense of the word it is a Union no more. The men who used to give it character are to be found in smaller clubs, very much like the clubs of an American university.

The small university debating clubs are the Russell, the Palmerston, the Canning, and the Chatham, each of which stands for some special stripe of political thought, and each of which has a special color which--sure sign of the pride of exclusiveness--it wears in hatbands. The clubs meet periodically--often weekly--in the rooms of members. Sometimes a paper is read which is followed by an informal discussion; but the usual exercise is a formal debate. Time was when the best debates came off at the Union, and writers of leading articles in London papers even now look to it as a political weather-vane. The debates there are still earnest and sometimes brilliant, and to have presided over them is a distinction of value in after life; but as far as I could gather, their prestige is falling before the smaller debating clubs. The main interest at the Union appeared to centre in the interpellation of the president, which is carried on much as in the House of Commons, though with this difference, that, following the immemorial custom, it is turned into ragging. When this is over, the major part of the audience clears out to the smoking and reading rooms. In the smaller clubs the exercises are not only serious, but--in spite of the preliminary ragging, which no function at Oxford may flourish without--they are taken seriously. The clubs really include the best forensic ability of Oxford. At the end of each year they give dinners, at which new and old members gather, while some prominent politician from Westminster holds forth on the question of the hour. In a word, these clubs, collectively, are what the Union once was--the training school of British statesmen.

The university social clubs are of a newness that shocks even an American; but it would not be quite just to account for the fact by regarding them as mere offshoots, like the debating clubs, of a parent Union. Until the nineteenth century, there really was no university at Oxford, at least in modern times. The colleges were quite independent of one another socially and in athletics, and each of them provided all the necessary instruction for its members. The social clubs which now admit members from the university at large began life as wine clubs of separate colleges, and even to-day the influence of the parent college is apt to predominate. The noteworthy fact is that in proportion as the social prestige of the Union has declined, these college wine clubs, like the small debating clubs, have gained character and prestige.

The oldest of these is the Bullingdon, which is not quite as old, I gathered, as the Institute of 1770 at Harvard, and, considered as a university organization, it is of course much younger. It was originally the Christ Church wine club, and to-day it is dominated by the sporting element of Christ Church, which is the most aristocratic of Oxford colleges. In former years, it is said, the club had kennels at Bullingdon, and held periodic hunts there; and it is still largely composed of hunting men. To-day it justifies its name mainly by having an annual dinner beneath the heavy rafters of a mediæval barn at Bullingdon. On these, as on other state occasions, the members wear a distinctive costume--no doubt a tradition from the time when men generally wore colors--which consists of a blue evening coat with white facings and brass buttons, a canary waistcoat, and a blue tie. This uniform is no doubt found in more aristocratic wardrobes than any other Oxford trophy. The influence of the Bullingdon is indirectly to discourage athletics, which it regards as unaristocratic and incompatible with conviviality; so that Christ Church, though the largest of Oxford colleges and one of the wealthiest, is of secondary importance in sports. For this reason the Bullingdon has suffered a partial eclipse, for the middle-class spirit which is invading Oxford has given athletic sports the precedence over hunting, while expensive living and mere social exclusiveness are less the vogue. By a curious analogy, one of the oldest and most exclusive of the clubs at Harvard is similarly out of sympathy with the athletic spirit.

Another old and prominent college wine club that has come to elect members from without is the Phoenix of Brazenose, the uniform of which is perhaps more beautiful than the Bullingdon uniform, consisting of a peculiar dark wine-colored coat, brass buttons, and a light buff waistcoat. In general, the college wine clubs are more or less taking on a university character. The Annandale Club of Balliol, for instance, has frequent guests from outside, and often elects them to membership out of compliment. At the formal wines the members have the privilege of inviting outside guests.

The most popular and representative Oxford club is Vincent's, which owes its prominence to the fact that it expresses the enthusiasm of modern Oxford for athletics. It was founded only a third of a century ago, but it must be remembered that inter-varsity boat races did not become usual until 1839, nor a fixture until 1856; that the first inter-varsity athletic meeting came in 1864, and the first inter-varsity football game as late as 1873. Vincent's was originally composed largely of men from University College, which was at that time a leader in sports; but later it elected many men from Brazenose, then in the ascendant. When Brazenose became more prominent in athletics, it gained a controlling influence in Vincent's; and when it declined, as it lately did, the leadership passed on. The name Vincent's came from a printer's shop, above which the club had its rooms. Any second year man is eligible; in fact, until a few years ago, freshmen were often taken in. The limit of members is ninety, but as the club is always a dozen or so short of this, no good fellow is excluded for lack of a place. When a man is proposed, his name is written in a book, in which space is left for friends in the club to write their names in approval. After this, elections are in the hands of a committee. Like all Oxford clubs, Vincent's will always, I suppose, lean towards men of some special college or group of colleges; yet it is careful to elect all clubable blues, and, in point of fact, is representative of the university at large, as, for instance, the Hasty Pudding Club at Harvard, or the senior societies at Yale, to which, on the whole, it most nearly corresponds.

The most democratic, as well as one of the most recent of the more purely social clubs, is the Gridiron. It is a dining rather than a social club, and one may invite to his board as many guests who are not members as he chooses. Any good fellow is eligible, though here, again, a man in one of the less known colleges might fail to get in from lack of acquaintances on the election committee.

The Union has long lost prestige before this development of small exclusive clubs. Politically, socially, and even in that most essential department, the kitchen, it holds a second place. If you ask men of the kind that used to give it its character why they never go there, they will tell you, in the most considerate phrase, how the pressure of other undergraduate affairs is so great that they have not yet found time; and this is quite true. They may add that next year they intend to make the time, for they believe that one should know all kinds of men at Oxford; and they are quite sincere. But next year they are more preoccupied than ever. If Oxford is united socially, it is not because of the Oxford Union.

In addition to the clubs which are mainly social, there is the usual variety of special organizations. These, as a rule, are of recent growth. The Musical Union has frequent meetings for practice, and gives at least one concert a year. The Dramatic Society, the O.U.D.S., as it is popularly called, will be seen to be a very portentous organization. In America, college men give comic operas and burlesques, usually writing both the book and the music themselves; and when they do, there is apt to be a Donnybrook Fair for vulnerable heads in the faculty. So well is musical nonsense adapted to the calibre of the undergraduate mind that college plays sometimes find their way to the professional stage, and to no small general favor. At Oxford the Vice-Chancellor, who is a law to himself and to the university, has decreed that there shall be no fun and nonsense. If the absurdities of donnishness are all too fair a mark for the undergraduate wit, the Vice-Chancellor has found a very serviceable scapegoat. He permits the undergraduates to present the plays of Shakespeare. Surely Shakespeare can stand the racket. The aim of the O.U.D.S. seems to be to get as many blues as possible into the cast of a Shakespearean production, with the idea, perhaps, of giving Oxford its full money's worth. I remember well the sensation made by the most famous of all university athletes,--a "quadruple blue," who played on four university teams, was captain of three of them, and held one world's record. The play was "The Merchant of Venice," and the athlete in question was the swarthy Prince of Morocco. Upon opening the golden casket his powers of elocution rose to unexpected heights. Fellows went again and again to hear him cry, "O hell! what have we here?" In one way, however, the performances of the O.U.D.S. are really noteworthy. Not even the crudest acting can entirely disguise the influences of birth and environment; and few Shakespearean actors have as fine a natural carriage as those companies of trained athletes. For the first time, perhaps, on any stage, the ancient Roman honor more or less appeared in Antonio, and there were really two gentlemen in Verona. For this reason--or, what is more likely, merely because the plays are given by Oxford men--the leading dramatic critics of London run up every year for the O.U.D.S. performance, and talk learnedly about it in their dignified periodicals. Both the musical and the dramatic societies have an increasing social element, and the dramatic society has a house of its own.

Of at least one association I happened upon, I know of no American parallel. One Sunday afternoon, a lot of fellows who had been lunching each other in academic peace were routed from college by a Salvation Army gathering that was sending up the discordant notes of puritanical piety just outside the walls. In the street near by we came upon a quiet party of undergraduates in cap and gown. They were standing in a circle, at the foot of the Martyr's Memorial, and were alternately singing hymns and exhorting the townspeople who gathered about. Their faces were earnest and simple, their attitude erect. If they were conscious of doing an unusual thing, they did not show it. I don't remember that they moved any of us to repent the pleasantness of our ways, but I know that they filled the most careless of us with a very definite admiration. One of the fellows said that he thought them mighty plucky, and that they had the stuff at least out of which sportsmen are made. The phrase is peculiarly British, but in the undergraduate vernacular there is no higher epithet of praise. In America there are slumming societies and total abstinence leagues; but I never knew any body of men who had the courage to stand up in the highway and preach their gospel to passers-by.

IX

THE COLLEGE AND THE UNIVERSITY

The distinctive feature of the social organization of Oxford life is said to be the colleges. Fifty years ago the remark held good, but to-day it requires an extension. The distinctive feature is the duality of the social organization: a man who enters fully into undergraduate affairs takes part both in the life of the college and in the life of the university. The life of the college, in so far as it is wholesome, is open to all newcomers; it is so organized as to exert powerfully upon them the force of its best influences and traditions, and is thus in the highest degree inclusive. The life of the university, in so far as it is vigorous, is in the main open only to those who bring to it special gifts and abilities, and is therefore necessarily exclusive. In college, one freely enjoys all that is fundamental in the life of a young man--a pleasant place to sleep in and to dine in, pleasant fellows with whom to work and to play. In the university, one finds scope for his special capacities in conviviality or in things of the mind. More than any other institution, the English university thus mirrors the conditions of social life in the world at large, in which one is primarily a member of his family, and takes part in the life of the outside community in proportion as his abilities lead him.