NATURE 



145 



THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 1904. 



OXFORD ON THE UP GRADE. 



■• Vou will not find your highest capacity in statesman- 

 ship, nor in practical science, nor in art, nor in any 

 other field where that capacity is most urgently needed 

 for the right service of life, unless there is a general 

 and vehement spirit of search in the air." 

 An Oxford Correspondence of 1903. Edited by W. 

 Warde Fowler. (0.\ford : B. H. Blackwell ; London : 

 Slmpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent and Co., Ltd.) 



OUTSIDE 0.\ford, the sub-rector of Lincoln 

 Colleg-e is known as a nature student — his many 

 " Tales of the Birds " having afforded infinite pleasure 

 to a large circle of readers, old and young, on account 

 of their subject-matter, their truthfulness and sin- 

 cerity and their great literary charm ; within the 

 university, he ranks as an authority on classical sub- 

 jects. To know the views of such a man, at such a 

 time as the present, is a matter of no slight con- 

 sequence. 



The booklet which Mr. Warde Fowler has most 

 opportunely published talies the form of a series of 

 letters exchanged between a tutor, a certain Mr. Slade, 

 and his pupil, Jim Holmes — who, having distin- 

 guished himself by taking a second in Greats and 

 muffed the LC.S., goes to Switzerland on a holiday; 

 he there falls in with two Swiss professors engaged 

 in bug-hunting and subsequently takes a short course 

 in architecture nt Zurich under one of them. Jim is 

 somewhat old for his age — so is Mr. Slade, for an 

 Oxford Don, in the sense that he is far ahead of his 

 time in the liberality of his views : but this no doubt 

 comes of mixing with the birds. When a small boy 

 at a private school, he tells Jim, he was what would 

 now perhaps be called slack ; he did not even play 

 games — but, he read all the books he could lay hands 

 on collected butterflies and laid the foundation 

 of one other pursuit which had been a constant delight 

 to him all his life since. What this was we may easily 

 guess. He is thankful that he was a small boy then 

 and not now. ."^fter referring to the success of several 

 of his schoolmates, he adds : — 



" I do not think we could have wasted our time 

 altogether. Anyhow I think we went to our respective 

 public schools with our minds fresh and our interests 

 pretty numerous and lively. If we really were idle 

 boys, then I think that the extirpation of the idle boy, 

 a process on which the headmasters seem to have set 

 their hearts, is a process that needs a little considera- 

 tion and criticism." 



The wisdom of this utterance is beyond question ; it 

 is undoubtedly all-important that interests should be 

 developed in early youth and it is unfortunate that 

 the combination of classic with naturalist is so far 

 from being a common one ; contact with nature is 

 perhaps the most effective of all means of correcting 

 the narrowness of outlook, the lack of alertness and 

 of observational power, as well as the intolerable self- 

 complacency, which, if not peculiarlj' characteristic, 

 are far too often met with in the student trained on 

 purely classical lines. Nature can be approached from 

 so many sides, some acquaintance with scientific 

 NO. 1807, VOI-. 70] 



method can be so easily gained, that the almost com- 

 plete neglect of natural knowledge by humanists, 

 especially by the Oxford school, is nothing short of in- 

 excusable The irrational conservatism which makes 

 progress so difficult at the present time is probably 

 almost wholly attributable to this neglect. 



The story is opened by a letter (full of significant 

 remarks) from Mr. Slade to Jim's father : — 



" I fear Jim himself will be disappointed. . . . No 

 one else will mind. Why it is I hardly know but it is 

 the fact that the Greats list attracts much less general 

 attention now than it used to ... it may be that we 

 don't believe any longer that a man who has taken a 

 first is something quite out of the common. ... I 

 want him to get into the I.C.S. . . . but honestly I 

 don't think he will. There's a fine quality in him 

 which is apt to be trampled out by these elephantine 

 examinations. . . . He would be a first-rate man for 

 India but I doubt if they will catch him by an 

 examination. Never mind, he will do good work in 

 life as soon as he recovers from the effects of his 

 education." 



The kmd of coiisolation administered to the father 

 in this closing sentence is noteworthy. The corre- 

 spondence shows how the recovery takes place — partly 

 at Mr. Slade's hands, partly because Jim is for a 

 time translated into an atmosphere which should but 

 does not yet exist at Oxford. 



Jim's father displays no little sanity of mind in his 

 reply to the tutor's letter : — 



" What on earth is to become of Jim if he fails — I 

 should have thought that four years of Oxford with a 

 little finishing at Wren's . . . would make a lad quite 

 safe who had been in the Sixth at a public school and 

 got a scholarship and first in Mods. However, I shall 

 get over it and so must he: he must look out for a 

 mastership or take to architecture like his uncle, who 

 might take him into his office if he meant business. 

 But that is just what Oxford men don't. The young 

 fellows peddle along until the awful question comes 

 down on them and then if you ask what they would 

 like to do they say, they don't exactly know. Affairs 

 of tremendous importance have occupied their atten- 

 tion — boat-races, football matches, tennis and all the 

 rest of it — and after all it is as much our fault as 

 yours ; we like to see them enjoying themselves when 

 they come home. And their sisters arrange an out-of- 

 door life for them lasting pretty well all the vacation." 



Jim goes to the Maderanerthal with a friend, who 

 is soon called away, however, so that he is left with 

 "only some stupid foreigners, professors, I fancy "; 

 having injured his knee on the way, he is laid up there 

 for a time. Mr. Slade sends him a parcel of books to 

 supplement the novels in the hotel saloon — a transla- 

 tion of Goethe's conversations with Eckermann, Mat. 

 Arnold's "Essays in Criticism," Gardner's " Oxford 

 at the Cross Roads," Bury's inaugural lecture at 

 Cambridge and Boissier's " Promenades Archaeolo- 

 giques." At the same time, he suggests to Jim, 

 " Might it possibly be worth while to cultivate the 

 acquaintance of the stupid professors? " Jim takes 

 the fly gradually but greedily — both books and pro- 

 fessors. The bug-hunter exhibits his catch and asks 

 him if he knows Prof. Bolton at O.xford ; of course he 

 does not — the prophet having little honour in his own 

 country, especially in the eyes of undergraduates, who 

 have no love for prophets at our universities. But on 



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