OXFORD ON THE UPPER GRADE 3 



organised, than we were those twenty-three years ago — mean- 

 while, Germany has done nothing but organise, organise, 

 organise — and against us in effect, whatever the intention may 

 have been. The way in which we continue to cultivate loss of 

 opportunity is maddening to many of us, especially when we 

 see others who certainly are not more able so much more alert 

 than ourselves — the Japanese, for example. But the reasons for 

 this are not far to seek. A friend who has spent the greater 

 part of his life amongst the Japanese told me only recently that 

 when he congratulated some of his Japanese acquaintance on 

 the wonderful success which had attended their efforts in the 

 war against Russia and on the exceptionally clever way in which 

 they had applied European experience, the reply made to him 

 was in effect — " that no particular credit was due to them ; they 

 had but studied our methods and learnt the rules of the game 

 we had devised ; applying these rules strictly they could not 

 do otherwise than succeed. If we had failed to obtain equally 

 good results, it was because we had not worked according to 

 the rules we had ourselves laid down but had been hampered 

 by prejudices of which they had no cognisance." No doubt this 

 has been the case and is still. 



Prejudice or mere precedent seems to guide everything — 

 no proper use is made of the wonderful store of experience 

 we have accumulated. Our lack of outlook may be congenital, 

 it may be that we are over imbued with philanthropic desires 

 and in a sense over civilised or perhaps too democratic : it is 

 certainly no longer true that we are good shopkeepers — in 

 thought at least the good shopkeeper is always in advance 

 of his customers' wants. 



Probably one great cause of our difficulty arises from the 

 fact that the bulk of the teaching staff at Oxford and Cambridge 

 consists of men who have never held any post outside and 

 have therefore no conception of what is being done in the 

 world at large. Moreover the schemes under which these 

 Universities are worked are so complex, being the growth of 

 centuries, that no one can master them. Every change has to 

 run the gauntlet of criticism by a series of disconnected bodies 

 and no one person can well watch or undertake the supervision 

 of a change through all its stages. Every opportunity is 

 therefore given to malcontents to block progress. Autocratic 

 action is almost imperative. 



