Life at Oxford

BY L.V.B. CHOWDARY, B. A., (Oxon), BAR-AT-LAW

The aim of all education must be to develop character, to mature intellect and to equip a person with proper tools to make the best of his life. In the West, this object of education is aimed at and different methods are adopted in different countries to achieve this object. In England itself, there are variations in the method of imparting education but every variety contributes on a smaller or a larger scale to the same object. And England has for centuries past been bred on Public Schools, though of late, such institutions as County Schools have come into the field and are challenging the former's supremacy. There are some people nowadays who deny the value of Public Schools to the nation and who even assert that they breed snobbishness, class spirit and diehardism and are therefore harmful. But it has generally been recognised that Public Schools build up character, that is, fair play to your opponents, obedience to authority, loyalty to your friends and sacrifice for your college and university. More-over, a good grounding in the outlines of different branches of knowledge is given there and solid foundations for future building up of knowledge are laid. Whatever else may be said of them, it is true that able administrators like Lord Curzon of Keddleston, rulers of men like Lord Palmerston, statesmen like Gladstone and generals like Wellington are made there and that the battle of Waterloo was won on the cricket fields at the Lords. Public Schools like Eton and Harrow have glorious traditions and these traditions along with the excellent training that is received in them are carried to universities like Oxford and Cambridge where they are developed to a high standard and blazened to a magnificent beacon for all to see and follow.

Now, there are two sides to a school, college or university. One is ‘learning’ side and the other is ‘playing’ side. The chief features of Oxford University on its ‘learning’ side are its tutorial system, its enforcement of residence by the students, its proctorial supervision and its club life. Residence is intended for promoting esprit de corps among the alumni; proctorial supervision is there for keeping young men and women within proper bounds of behaviour and conduct; and club life is fostered for social intercourse and developing business, oratorical and debating powers. The most important of all is the tutorial system. It is by this system that Oxford and Cambridge stand or fall on their ‘learning’ side. The system means that a young man or woman has two or more tutors to look after his or her education to guide him or her along the proper channels. The tutor plans out your work for the term, asks you to attend such and such lectures, gives you a question or two for writing an essay or two, and refers you to various books and various chapters in different books which you will have to read for your essay or essays. This is done once or twice every week. When the day comes, you take your essays called ‘tutorials’ to your tutor. Sometimes, you will have sent them to him the previous evening, so that he may look into them carefully and make notes on the margin. When you go to him, you either read the essay aloud to him or he reads it with you and he points out your mistakes and explains your difficulties. He will thrash out points with you and will occasionally give you orally a summary of the subject. And then he gives one or two questions again and asks you to refer to various books and journals as before, and you take again your tutorial to him. This thing is repeated week in and week out, throughout the academic year. Besides these tutorials, there are what are called ‘collections’ and they are examinations at the beginning and the end of every term. The tutor will have given you some work for the vacation and you are, on your return to the college, examined in that work. So is the work that is done during the term, tested at the end of the term, to see how far and how much you have taken in what has been presented to you. If either tutorials or collections are not done satisfactorily, you are warned once or twice and if you are obstinate and do not heed the warning, you are ‘sent down for good’, that is, you are dismissed from the university.

The education you receive at Oxford is very liberal and you are free to develop your personality and individuality as you please. It is not compulsory at Oxford to attend lectures. Of course, you will have to attend those which your tutor recommends, but there is no sanction attached to non-compliance with your tutor's advice. He may be displeased with you, if he finds you are not attending them, because you have become a slacker, but he will not mind in the least if you tell him that a particular lecturer is no good and that he speaks awful rot. In any case, you will not attend more than ten lectures at the most in a week, but of course you are not precluded from attending any lecture you like and you may attend as many as you please. Only, you must not neglect your work and write poor tutorials for your tutor. Since there is no compulsion of attendance at lectures, there is no roll-call. I think the roll-call is a hideous thing. I am afraid it is based on distrust of students with regard to their willingness to work and learn. I am sure the atmosphere of distrust is not congenial to the healthy growth of young men and women. Students are left to develop themselves in their own way, although under the wise guidance of their tutors. Tutors do not exact agreement with orthodox notions and compliance with their own ideas. New ideas and opinions are encouraged; and individuality and originality are fostered. Only, there must be in your speech and writing, a system, a method and a cogency. If your arguments are cogent, logical and probable, you are encouraged and supported. No matter whether your tutor personally likes your views or not, he will not come in your way. On the other hand, a really good essay, whether your tutor agrees with it or not, receives his unstinted praise.

Your tutor will not be stiff-necked with you, nor will he treat you as if you were a child or worse still. He will put you at your ease in his presence and make you as comfortable as possible. You may even smoke his cigarettes and offer him yours. Your tutor and yourself are really friends: he knowing more than you do, and being anxious to tell you ‘all about it’. He may be your elder brother taking a keen interest in you, as all good brothers ought to in their younger brothers. At the worst, he is something like a father to you, admonishing and correcting, but full of kindness and affection. The dons of your college are your elder brothers or uncles and the College Head is a veritable patriarch who beams kindness and concern on you. The proctors with their bulldogs may at times disconcert you, but when you come to know them better, you will find that they are really jolly good fellows at heart.

Oxford is not ‘the home of lost causes’, as Matthew Arnold, a great alumnus, once said of it in half-playful and half-sentimental mood, but is a haven for new faiths, new ideas and great ambitions. It is full of life, full of romance and full of dreams. It abounds in various clubs and societies where you meet and mingle with different types of people from a good many countries of the world. You find there young men from almost every part of the world and from almost every race and religion. Nowadays girls of many nationalities are to be found there as under-graduates of the University. Oxford is a little world in itself, and its club life is the breath of its training. It is in its various clubs and societies that beginnings of great careers are made and foundations of noble ambitions are laid. Oxford club life forms a battle-field where competing wills and rival intellects fight a hard and strenuous battle. There are clubs for all tastes and for all convictions. There are Conservative, Liberal, Labour and Communist clubs; and diehard Unionists, Radicals, Syndicalists and Bolshevists have also their associations. There are the Union Society, the Indian Majlis, the French Club, the Spanish Club, the Chinese Association, etc. They have societies like the League of Nations Union, the International Association, the Asiatic Society, the British Empire League and the Social Service League. You have clubs of a clique complexion such as the Lotus Club. And there are highbrow, snobbish, exclusive and bonhomie clubs, such as the Bullingdon, the Vincent, and the O. U .D.S.¹ There used to be a club for drinking also, called the Mermaid. There are various University Associations such as the Historical and the Hellenic Associations. Besides these, every college has its arts and science associations, its debating society, and its sports and games clubs.

The Union Society at Oxford is the foremost of the debating societies in the university, and its fame has far transcended the university-bounds. It is called the House of Commons nursery and it more than justifies that appellation. When you hear the witty and brilliant speeches that are made there, you will feel that it is nearly as good as any House of Commons is and much more amusing than any deliberative body can be. It is really good to see a sturdy young man eagerly get up and deliver a slashing, fervent, and torrential attack. It is pleasant to notice a healthy youth proceed in a deliberate I way and make point after point in a cool, scientific manner, demolishing his opponents' arguments and building up his own case. It is very interesting indeed to observe a good-looking young man get up languidly from his seat and spin out an amusing speech with a twinkle in his eyes and a smile on his lips. Youth after youth gets up and many foolish things and many mere nothings are said. There are epigrams, paradoxes, witty sayings and bon-mots. There is seriousness in the minds of the audience and there is amusement in their eyes. Laughter and shouts are not uncommon and everybody seems to enjoy himself. At times the debating society seems to have somehow turned into a picnic party. A very pleasant aroma spreads over the whole house. They come with expectation and they go away with satisfaction and enjoyment. The Union Society can boast of such illustrious names among its members as Gladstone, Lords Salisbury, Asquith, Birkenhead, Curzon and Milner, Sir John Simon and Hilaire Belloc, besides many other famous people.

The Indian Majlis has its lessons to offer to the young Indians who go to Oxford for study. It also serves as an avenue for the coming together of some Englishmen and Indians. It has had quite a reputable career, but I am afraid it is not at present at its best.

The various other clubs in the University bring men and women of many races and nationalities together and provide opportunities for the understanding of each other's point of view. All these clubs and societies contribute to the making and growth of the youth. The youth finds, himself in a glorious lake of many enchanted waters, which is surrounded by wonderful groves of magnificent fruit and flower trees and by beautiful meadows of limitless verdure. And without shame or shiver, he discards whatever he has on him and plunges into it in all his nakedness and ingenuity and with all relish, joy, freedom, and abandon of a bubbling young life. He is like a Salaka (a sharp razor-blade) and his physical, mental and emotional qualities shine sharpest and brightest and he is ready for a fight and victory. He is all freedom, all joy, all daring, and all conquering.

Now we shall turn to the ‘playing’ side of the Oxford University. We have already noticed that building up of character is a chief characteristic of Public Schools and that characteristic is perfected in the universities like Oxford and Cambridge. Well, character building is chiefly done on the ‘playing’ side of a university. When you are playing a game and taking part in sports, you will come into contact with your opponents and you have to deal with them squarely and fairly. Fair-play is to give the Devil its due and to act in a ‘give and take’ spirit. You have your comrades who throw in their lot with you, and you will all have to pull together your burden along and carry your team into victory. This teaches you loyalty, loyalty to your friends and co-workers. You will have to play the ‘game’ or what is sometimes called ‘cricket’, by them. You will also learn obedience to authority. You have the Captain of your team and unless you obey him implicitly and with good humour, you will not be able to pull the cart along as you ought to, and you will thereby spoil the chances of victory for your college or ’Varsity. So, you learn the maxim that only those who are able to obey, are those who will be able to command. Sacrifice also is sometimes demanded of you. You have to forego your personal ambitions for the sake of the team. You must be prepared to have your collar bone broken in the preparation and the fight that the games and the sports entail upon you. You sometimes take part in them against great odds or in the face of danger to your health or studies, in order to uphold the reputation of your beloved college or ’Varsity.

Oxford is famous for its rowing and rugger. Its ‘Torpids’ and ‘Eights’ are well known and its annual boat race with the University of Cambridge on the Thames, has become a national institution. It is not infrequently that the Prince of Wales who was up at Oxford for two or three years before the war, and the Duke of York who can boast of being an alumnus of Cambridge, follow the boats of their respective ’Varsities along the race course from Putney Bridge to Mortlake. There is a happy rivalry between Oxford and Cambridge in various sports and games, but the object on which the rivalry is most concentrated is the annual boat race. This race serves as a link between the old and the new alumni of the Universities and refreshes memories in the minds of the old students and reinforces their sentiment, affection and loyalty to their beloved Alma mater.

Oxford in summer is very pretty with flower and foliage and the University is very gay during the ‘Eights’ Week’ which comes in the summer term, when inter-collegiate boat races take place. The Isis, which flows through the city and on which the boat races are run, is at its full and it flows slowly and majestically. There are expanses of lawns and meadows on its either side and on its western side there are magnificent trees which form a glorious ground for the stately barges of various colleges. During the ‘Eights’ Week’ undergrads and ‘undergraduates’ put on pretty things full of colour, and college and ’Varsity colours are simply enthralling. Young life bubbles over with vigour, hope and confidence. Parents and friends of statu pupillari are invited to Oxford for the ‘Eights’ Week’. The varied colours of the pretty dresses of their friends and relatives and those of their blazers, the humming life around them, the green foliage and the warm sunshine give zest to student life and arouse enthusiasm in young men and women to strive and achieve. These make the youth ambitious to win the laurel crown before their parents, friends and sweethearts. Moreover a heat in a boat race is something like a hard fight with life. Sports and games prepare young men and women for the worst in life. They knock the soft side out of them and make them hardy and prepared for the struggles of life. A rowing or a rugger blue can equally stand the scorching heats of the equatorial Africa and the biting colds of the Poles. He is better able to spread culture and civilisation on the banks of the Amazon and he is better fitted to govern the turbulent tribes of North-West Africa. We know the maxim that a sound mind is in a sound body. Oxford is a happy combination of a sound mind and a sound body.

1 The Oxford University Dramatic Society.