Part 5

It has been said that the function of a University is to criticise; but the proposition is at least equally true that Oxford and Cambridge are continually conjugating the verb in the passive. We--and more especially we who live in Oxford, for the sister University apparently is either more virtuous or more skilful in concealing her peccadilloes from the public eye--enjoy the priceless advantage of possessing innumerable friends whose good nature is equalled by their frankness; and if we do not learn wisdom, that is not because the opportunity is not offered to us. It is true that our great governing body, the Hebdomadal Council, has hitherto preserved its independence by a prudent concealment of its deliberations: no reporter has ever as yet penetrated into that august assemblage; but whatever emerges to the light of day is seized upon with avidity. Debates in Convocation or even in Congregation (the latter body including only the resident Masters of Arts), although the subject may have been somewhat remote from the interests of the general public, and the number of the voters perhaps considerably increased by the frivolous reason that it was a wet afternoon, when there was nothing else to do than to govern the University--debates on every conceivable subject blush to find themselves reported the next morning almost in the greatest of daily papers; and perhaps the result of a division on the addition of one more Oriental language to Responsions, or one more crocket to a new pinnacle of St. Mary's Church, is even honoured by a leading article. This is highly gratifying to residents in the precincts of the University, but even to them it is now and then not altogether comprehensible. Nor is it only questions concerning the University as a whole which appeal to the external public; even college business and college scandal sometimes assume an unnatural importance. Years ago one of the tutors of a certain college was subjected to the venerable and now almost obsolete process of 'screwing up,' and some young gentlemen were rusticated for complicity in the offence. Even in academic circles the crime and its punishment were not supposed to be likely to interfere with the customary revolution of the solar system; but the editor of a London daily paper--and one, too, which was supposed to be more especially in touch with that great heart of the people which is well known to hold Universities in contempt--considered the incident so important as to publish a leading article with the remarkable exordium, 'Every one knew that Mr. ----, of ---- College, would be screwed up some day!' Most of the _abonnes_ of this journal must, it is to be feared, have blushed for their discreditable ignorance of Mr. ----'s existence, not to mention that leaden-footed retribution which was dogging him to a merited doom.

It is hardly necessary to say that in nine cases out of ten comment on the proceedings of a learned University takes the form of censure: nor are censors far to seek. There are always plenty of young men more or less connected with the Press who have wrongs to avenge; who are only too glad to have an opportunity of 'scoring off' the college authority which did its best--perhaps unsuccessfully, but still with a manifest intention--to embitter their academic existence; or of branding once for all as reactionary and obscurantist the hide-bound regulations of a University which did not accord them the highest honours. In these cases accuracy of facts and statistics is seldom a matter of much importance. Generally speaking, you can say what you like about a college, or the University, without much fear of contradiction--provided that you abstain from mere personalities. For one thing, the cap is always fitted on some one else's head. It is not the business of St. Botolph's to concern itself with an attack which is obviously meant for St. Boniface: it is darkly whispered in the St. Boniface common-room that after all no one knows what actually _does_ go on in St. Botolph's: and obviously neither of these venerable foundations can have anything to do with answering impeachments of the University and its financial system. Moreover, even if the Dons should rouse themselves from their usual torpor and attempt a defence, it is not very likely that the public will listen to them: any statement proceeding from an academic source being always regarded with the gravest suspicion. That is why 'any stick is good enough to beat the Universities,' and there are always plenty of sticks who are quite ready to perform the necessary castigation.

Moreover, these writers generally deal with a subject which is always interesting, because it is one on which every one has an opinion, and an opinion which is entitled to respect--the education of youth. Any one can pick holes in the University system of teaching and examination--'can strike a finger on the place, and say, "Thou ailest here and here,"'--or construct schemes of reform: more especially young men who have recently quitted their Alma Mater, and are therefore qualified to assert (as they do, and at times not without a certain plausibility) that she has failed to teach them anything.

That the British public, with so much to think about, should find time 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.

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.'

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.

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.'