第 9 节
作者:
冬儿 更新:2022-04-05 13:37 字数:9320
hail in his house beside the campus; smoking cigarettes。 When I add that he distinctly refused to visit the Palaeontologic Museum; that he saw nothing of our new hydraulic apparatus; or of our classes in Domestic Science; his judgment that we had here a great institution seems a little bit superficial。 I can only put beside it; to redeem it in some measure; the hasty and ill…formed judgment expressed by Lord Milner; 〃McGill is a noble university〃: and the rash and indiscreet expression of the Prince of Wales; when we gave him an LL。D。 degree; 〃McGill has a glorious future。〃
To my mind these unthinking judgments about our great college do harm; and I determined; therefore; that anything that I said about Oxford should be the result of the actual observation and real study based upon a bona fide residence in the Mitre Hotel。
On the strength of this basis of experience I am prepared to make the following positive and emphatic statements。 Oxford is a noble university。 It has a great past。 It is at present the greatest university in the world: and it is quite possible that it has a great future。 Oxford trains scholars of the real type better than any other place in the world。 Its methods are antiquated。 It despises science。 Its lectures are rotten。 It has professors who never teach and students who never learn。 It has no order; no arrangement; no system。 Its curriculum is unintelligible。 It has no president。 It has no state legislature to tell it how to teach; and yet;it gets there。 Whether we like it or not; Oxford gives something to its students; a life and a mode of thought; which in America as yet we can emulate but not equal。
If anybody doubts this let him go and take a room at the Mitre Hotel (ten and six for a wainscotted bedroom; period of Charles I) and study the place for himself。
These singular results achieved at Oxford are all the more surprising when one considers the distressing conditions under which the students work。 The lack of an adequate building fund compels them to go on working in the same old buildings which they have had for centuries。 The buildings at Brasenose College have not been renewed since the year 1525。 In New College and Magdalen the students are still housed in the old buildings erected in the sixteenth century。 At Christ Church I was shown a kitchen which had been built at the expense of Cardinal Wolsey in 1527。 Incredible though it may seem; they have no other place to cook in than this and are compelled to use it to…day。 On the day when I saw this kitchen; four cooks were busy roasting an ox whole for the students' lunch: this at least is what I presumed they were doing from the size of the fire…place used; but it may not have been an ox; perhaps it was a cow。 On a huge table; twelve feet by six and made of slabs of wood five inches thick; two other cooks were rolling out a game pie。 I estimated it as measuring three feet across。 In this rude way; unchanged since the time of Henry VIII; the unhappy Oxford students are fed。 I could not help contrasting it with the cosy little boarding houses on Cottage Grove Avenue where I used to eat when I was a student at Chicago; or the charming little basement dining…rooms of the students' boarding houses in Toronto。 But then; of course; Henry VIII never lived in Toronto。
The same lack of a building…fund necessitates the Oxford students; living in the identical old boarding houses they had in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries。 Technically they are called 〃quadrangles;〃 〃closes〃 and 〃rooms〃; but I am so broken in to the usage of my student days that I can't help calling them boarding houses。 In many of these the old stairway has been worn down by the feet of ten generations of students: the windows have little latticed panes: there are old names carved here and there upon the stone; and a thick growth of ivy covers the walls。 The boarding house at St。 John's College dates from 1509; the one at Christ Church from the same period。 A few hundred thousand pounds would suffice to replace these old buildings with neat steel and brick structures like the normal school at Schenectady; N。Y。; or the Peel Street High School at Montreal。 But nothing is done。 A movement was indeed attempted last autumn towards removing the ivy from the walls; but the result was unsatisfactory and they are putting it back。 Any one could have told them beforehand that the mere removal of the ivy would not brighten Oxford up; unless at the same time one cleared the stones of the old inscriptions; put in steel fire…escapes; and in fact brought the boarding houses up to date。
But Henry VIII being dead; nothing was done。 Yet in spite of its dilapidated buildings and its lack of fire…escapes; ventilation; sanitation; and up…to…date kitchen facilities; I persist in my assertion that I believe that Oxford; in its way; is the greatest university in the world。 I am aware that this is an extreme statement and needs explanation。 Oxford is much smaller in numbers; for example; than the State University of Minnesota; and is much poorer。 It has; or had till yesterday; fewer students than the University of Toronto。 To mention Oxford beside the 26;000 students of Columbia University sounds ridiculous。 In point of money; the 39;000;000 dollar endowment of the University of Chicago; and the 35;000;000 one of Columbia; and the 43;000;000 of Harvard seem to leave Oxford nowhere。 Yet the peculiar thing is that it is not nowhere。 By some queer process of its own it seems to get there every time。 It was therefore of the very greatest interest to me; as a profound scholar; to try to investigate just how this peculiar excellence of Oxford arises。
It can hardly be due to anything in the curriculum or programme of studies。 Indeed; to any one accustomed to the best models of a university curriculum as it flourishes in the United States and Canada; the programme of studies is frankly quite laughable。 There is less Applied Science in the place than would be found with us in a theological college。 Hardly a single professor at Oxford would recognise a dynamo if he met it in broad daylight。 The Oxford student learns nothing of chemistry; physics; heat; plumbing; electric wiring; gas…fitting or the use of a blow…torch。 Any American college student can run a motor car; take a gasoline engine to pieces; fix a washer on a kitchen tap; mend a broken electric bell; and give an expert opinion on what has gone wrong with the furnace。 It is these things indeed which stamp him as a college man; and occasion a very pardonable pride in the minds of his parents。
But in all these things the Oxford student is the merest amateur。
This is bad enough。 But after all one might say this is only the mechanical side of education。 True: but one searches in vain in the Oxford curriculum for any adequate recognition of the higher and more cultured studies。 Strange though it seems to us on this side of the Atlantic; there are no courses at Oxford in Housekeeping; or in Salesmanship; or in Advertising; or on Comparative Religion; or on the influence of the Press。 There are no lectures whatever on Human Behaviour; on Altruism; on Egotism; or on the Play of Wild Animals。 Apparently; the Oxford student does not learn these things。 This cuts him off from a great deal of the larger culture of our side of the Atlantic。 〃What are you studying this year?〃 I once asked a fourth year student at one of our great colleges。 〃I am electing Salesmanship and Religion;〃 he answered。 Here was a young man whose training was destined inevitably to turn him into a moral business man: either that or nothing。 At Oxford Salesmanship is not taught and Religion takes the feeble form of the New Testament。 The more one looks at these things the more amazing it becomes that Oxford can produce any results at all。
The effect of the comparison is heightened by the peculiar position occupied at Oxford by the professors' lectures。 In the colleges of Canada and the United States the lectures are supposed to be a really necessary and useful part of the student's training。 Again and again I have heard the graduates of my own college assert that they had got as much; or nearly as much; out of the lectures at college as out of athletics or the Greek letter society or the Banjo and Mandolin Club。 In short; with us the lectures form a real part of the college life。 At Oxford it is not so。 The lectures; I understand; are given and may even be taken。 But they are quite worthless and are not supposed to have anything much to do with the development of the; student's mind。 〃The lectures here;〃 said a Canadian student to me; 〃are punk。〃 I appealed to another student to know if this was so。 〃I don't know whether I'd call them exactly punk;〃 he answered; 〃but they're certainly rotten。〃 Other judgments were that the lectures were of no importance: that nobody took them: that they don't matter: that you can take them if you like: that they do you no harm。
It appears further that the professors themselves are not keen on their lectures。 If the lectures are called for they give them; if not; the professor's feelings are not hurt。 He merely waits and rests his brain until in some later year the students call for his lectures。 There are men at Oxford who have rested th