OXFORD AND GREEK 649 



instructive letters in the Oxford Magazine this term (February 1 5 

 and 29, March 14). Very moderate changes in the Greek part 

 of the examination, which were rendered almost inevitable, 

 even in Oxford, by recent public criticisms of "Smalls Greek," 

 are already making it difficult to keep all available rooms filled 

 with men who have passed or can count on easily passing 

 11 Smalls." One of the results . . . has been the transference 

 to the sister university of men to the number [as complainant 

 estimated] of some hundreds already. Others have been de- 

 terred from attempting to take a university course at all." 

 At Cambridge, too, how completely successful the discrimina- 

 tion is between the Classical and the Modern-side boy was 

 lately shown by Mr. Oscar Browning, 1 when he claimed that 

 "abolition of compulsory Greek would not have increased 

 our numbers [at the Cambridge Training College] by a single 

 man " but added, all unaware of its significance, " I wish 

 I could say the same of the insane regulations of the Board 

 of Education, which compelled our students to pass before 

 entrance a compulsory examination in history, geography 

 and English literature." The candidates, it would seem, knew 

 so much Latin that they could cram "Greek" without risk; 

 but not all their Latin could secure them from failure in 

 history, geography and English literature, the very subjects 

 which would be their principal care as trained teachers and 

 without discipline in which their own lives surely were but 

 a sorry business. 



The New Policy of the Compulsionists 



" If at Oxford a man were asked whether he knew Greek and 

 replied that he did and that the proof was that he had passed 

 Responsions, the answer would be received with contempt." 

 Only recently, in fact, the committee charged with ascertaining 

 whether candidates for Research Degrees have received a "good 

 general education " rejected an applicant who had passed not 

 only Responsions but Pass Moderations as well. That is what 

 Oxford itself appears to think already about the value of " Com- 

 pulsory Greek." The facts are admitted by the Compulsionists 

 themselves. As the President of Corpus himself wrote last 

 November, " The minimum study at present required for 



1 Westminster Gazette, November 24, 191 1. 



