UNCONVENTIONAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 529, 5 December 1928, Page 8

UNCONVENTIONAL

Statue With Mortar Board AMONG THE ANGELS Oxford the town of stately statuarv ls lranklv puzzled—even a shocked—by the new carving on th extension o£ Corpus Christ! Colle -e With dramatic suddenness there appeared among the angels the tured head and shoulders of the cAn.. president. Dr. P. S. Allen. compW board spectacles and mort?r True, like the angels, the carvinhas wings, but they are the wingsT,? the don’s butterfly collar. As I stood in Merton Street inspect ins the figure, says the correspondent' of a London paper, two passers-hv paused. "Good gracious,” said one. "if that’, not Dr. Allen I” ats "Ahem, a bit unconventional.” com mented the other, as they turned aw|y That is Oxford's criticism. i t is unorthodox—and what is Oxford if nm orthodox? Dr. Allen declines to discuss the figure, or to explain its significance “The less said about the matter th'« better,” he told me. Oxford does not quarrel with tha remainder of the decorative work. There is a head and shoulders ot Bishop Foxe, founder of the College the 400th anniversary of whose death was recently commemorated, and there is a beehive, to recall one of the founder's favourite metaphors tha; students should be as busy as bees. The extension has taken the place of the old brew-house, where for centuries the college ale was brewed.