OXFORD CHARACTERISTICS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7933, 5 January 1906, Page 3

OXFORD CHARACTERISTICS.

"A.G.T." a Melbourne student, writing in the Daily Chronicle, makes some comments on the presentday tone of Oxford Univeristy, now the haunt of holders of Rhodes scholarships. Enthusiasm is considered bad form. "One may be 'keen' on sports like rowing, cricket, and football, etc., but any other interest must be sedulously kept unde:r control, if you wish tn avoid being called a freak. If, for instance, you happen to be struck while'walking up from the river by the beautlurglow of the October sunset on the srire of the 'Varisty Church, and, without being sure of your company, remark upon it otherwise than very casually, there'will follow eithern silence and a charge of the subject, or else a stare and a joke. Oxford abounds in architectural beauties, in historical and literary associations, but it would never do to conless an interest in such things. That is only tolerated in 'Eights Week' and the festivities of the summer term, when thero are sisters, cousins, and aunts to be shown round. "To be called "pi,' that is, pious, is abusive and the last word in social condemnation. Yon are apt to incur it even if you do nothing more than show a desire to hear one of the many famous preachers who go to Oxford during the term. For these who are destined for the church and are devoted both to it and the usual life of the college, the way is made extremely hard. "Two causes combine to bring about this unfortunate influence. The first is the fact that the great mass of the undergraduates are very young, though uot so much m years as (compared with those of the same age in other countries) in the ways. The average Australian, for example, tnouen he leaves school at least a year earlier, takes Ins three years at the University, rather more seriously, acd the same is, perhaps, equally true of the average American, more especially those who go to \Vesiarn colleges. "The second, and greater, cause is that Oxford is the paradise of the 'pass man,' who comes up provided with plenty of money, and, to him, a degree is a superfluity, and too much of n 'bore' to he bothered about. He is so numerous that his influence rsrvades the ■whole place, and !!;io;»! being made so easy fur him, h'- life of joyous leisure is a ennp'a* f ;m"tation for many whose instincts for working might otherwise have been nourished. The campaign against hard work has, it Is true, diminished in activity, and is now carried -u »uily occasionally and in few but the feeling of contempt for it whioh the ppss man disseminates is still strong and influential. Even the tutors only ask six hours' work a day from their honour pupils. It is mote tbah they can hone for, and usually it is a good deal more than they get regularly. "There is more than a possibility that in time redemption will be won by the aid of the Rhodes scholar:, who come to Oxford with the^ad vantage of being ufunljy two or three years older that tie FiJuglishffrejhman, and of having more serious ideals and a greater freedom from the trammels of tradition. This time next year there will be 200 of them in residence, and if they succeed in changing some of the canons of Oxford form, they will have done not a little to justify Cecil Rhodes' hopes and aims."