The Inadequate Rhodes Scholar: A Defense
IT is a popular saying in England that America is the most sensitive nation in the world. And so it would seem, by the seriousness with which outside criticism is received. Let someone but suggest that an institution or a custom is imperfect, and at once a dozen or more writers will urge a revolution.
A concrete example of this phenomenon follows the contribution of Dr. George R. Parkin to the September Atlantic, on the subject of the Rhodes Scholarships. Hardly had Dr. Parkin’s article appeared, when the New York Times, commenting upon it, declared that it was ‘well calculated to arouse anxious and even alarmed questionings among American educators.’ ‘Startling and humiliating’ was the fact that, of two thousand candidates more than half had failed to pass an entrance examination which was ‘far from severe according to English standards.’
‘It has become clear,’ says Dr. Parkin, ‘that every inadequate Scholar sent to Oxford lowers the prestige of the Scholarships in the United States and diminishes respect for them.’ Ever since receiving an Oxford B.A. in 1914, I have been endeavoring to classify myself, and never before have I discovered anything that expresses my case so succinctly as the term ‘inadequate Scholar.’ Having admitted this much, and feeling incapable of refuting those who thus accuse me, I shall endeavor to defend myself and my class by the time-honored retort ‘You ’re another.’ In other words, is it not possible that there is something inadequate, both in Dr. Parkin’s criticism of the American Scholar and in Oxford itself?
Take, for example, the ‘startling and humiliating' fact that of more than two thousand candidates about one half failed to pass an entrance examination ‘far from severe according to English standards.’ Dr. Parkin deduces from this that there is something wrong with our American education. He points out that this examination is usually passed by English boys of seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen years of age.
It is perfectly true that ‘Responsions,’ or entrance examinations to Oxford, are far from severe, not only according to English standards, but equally according to American standards. If I remember correctly, the examinations consist of algebra, geometry, Latin translation at sight, and Latin prose composition. In difficulty it cannot be compared with the average entrance examinations in our own colleges, which hundreds of American boys under nineteen years old and just out of preparatory school pass annually. Of the two thousand candidates for the Rhodes Scholarships, it is safe to assume that practically all were college men who had previously passed their entrance examinations. Is it then fair to deplore the American preparatory school because its graduates fail to pass an examination much easier than one which they have succeeded in passing several years previously?
The fault, it would seem, lies, not in the fact that the American school does not teach algebra, geometry, and Latin efficiently, but in the fact that it is unable to make the boy retain his knowledge over a long period of years after the practical use for those studies has passed. Yet even Oxford is unable to do this, and Dr. Parkin himself may admit that he is not now as well qualified to pass Responsions as he was on the day he left school. The English boy, fresh from his school algebra, geometry, and Latin, passes with ease a simple examination in these subjects. The American college senior, his mind absorbed in the ephemeral delights of geology, psychology, zoölogy, and literature, returns to his youthful pursuits with the enthusiasm of a motorcyclist compelled to ride a velocipede, and ‘flunks.’
Still another cause for the failures in Responsions is that the examination is open to everyone, without distinction. All that a man has to do is announce his candidacy and take the examination. If he passes, he may be selected to fill a scholarship bringing fifteen hundred dollars a year, with prospects of foreign travel included. If he fails, he has nothing whatever to lose. Is it surprising that many seize the chance without having made any serious preparation? The very simplicity of the examination itself may prove a snare and a delusion.
Lastly, in nine cases out of ten the candidate, at the time of competing for the scholarship, is absorbed in the work of obtaining his degree in an American college, in comparison with which the Rhodes Scholarship is a side issue. I recall that, at the time of competing for the scholarship, I had entered upon my final year in college. Had I failed in the Oxford Responsions,
I should have suffered not the least humiliation; but had I failed to obtain my degree, I should have had to face the criticism of every friend and relative. Naturally, I took the collegiate work more seriously, neglected preparation for the Oxford examinations, and actually thought much less of Oxford when informed that I had passed.
II
What appears slightly unfair to Americans is that the Rhodes Trust asks for one class of men and then criticizes them in terms of another class. That is to say, the candidate is supposed to possess various qualifications, such as physique, athletic ability, personality, leadership, and scholarship. Scholarship is only one of the qualifications, yet it seems to be on scholarship alone that Dr. Parkin compares the American with the young Englishman. Oxford demands the ‘all-around’ man; America endeavors to fill the supply; then Oxford is surprised to find that in scholarship he falls behind the specialized English scholar. In my own time, save in Jurisprudence, it was most exceptional for an American to obtain a ‘First’ — that is to say, to be among the first ten or fifteen in a class of about three hundred. On the other hand, a very good percentage of American Scholars obtained a ‘Second.’ Now I have heard my tutor, with years of experience at Oxford, say that he had noticed that in after life the Seconds, as a rule, reached greater heights than the Firsts. In other words, the Seconds, not making a specialty of scholarship, were better fitted to meet the requirements of the world—just the type of men that Cecil Rhodes had in mind. It is true that many Americans got no further than the third group; yet attention should be drawn to the fact that very few indeed failed to obtain degrees, in spite of many difficulties, which will be touched upon later.
Perhaps the chief cause for disappointment lies in the fact that not in every single instance has America been successful in finding well-rounded men to represent her. The reason for this is not so much the inadequacy of American education and the method of selection as it is the inadequacy of Oxford. Every year a large percentage of the best material finds its way into the engineering schools. In England almost everything has been constructed ; in America it is an age of construction. Oxford can offer no attraction to these young men, so at the very outset they are eliminated from competition. And what appeal can Oxford make to the directors of our great industries, to a Schwab, a Gary, a Rockefeller, or a Morgan ?
Even in medicine Oxford, under the leadership of Sir William Osler, is demanding recognition; yet I know personally of three Rhodes Scholars who deemed it necessary to enter Johns Hopkins on the completion of their scholarships. It is difficult to convince a young medical student that three years at Oxford would be valuable to him.
Jurisprudence has always been popular with Americans at Oxford, and certainly the results obtained by them have been gratifying. Young men planning to make law their profession find the courses profitable and constitute a good percentage of the Scholars. However, many a young law student might argue that his time would be better spent at Harvard.
Prior to the war, American universities placed a premium on the Ph.D., and a young man intending to devote his life to teaching and research found it almost essential that he obtain it. The American university was unacquainted with Oxford education and to a great degree prejudiced against it; so that even in the field of letters Oxford could not offer the same appeal as the American or German universities.
Oxford has long been renowned as a school for politicians, and can point to the great leaders whose first debates were staged in the Union. But it looks to be a long time, indeed, before an American with political ambitions will consider Oxford as the startingpoint of his career.
To what young Americans, then, does Oxford appeal? They may be numbered on the fingers — prospective teachers, lawyers, possibly doctors, literary men, clergymen, diplomats, and those looking for new adventures and experiences. From this résumé it ought to be apparent that a large number of capable young Americans do not consider seriously the proposition of three years at Oxford; and the problems of the boards of selection are proportionately increased. It is really surprising that so many capable young men have been found for the Scholarships.
III
Assuming that the American Rhodes Scholar has not held his own against the young Englishman, it is only just to say a few words in his defense. In no other field where Englishman and American meet is the American forced to such an extent to play the Englishman at his own game. He arrives fresh from academic conquests, with a Phi Beta Kappa key in one hand and his diploma in the other, only to find that the Englishman has never heard of the Phi Beta Kappa and is skeptical of the diploma. Although Oxford is more liberal to American colleges in the matter of credits than she is to her sister universities in England, still the American is classed as an undergraduate, and is started on a level with the publicschool or grammar-school boy. It is a tribute to the American Rhodes Scholars that few have succumbed to this first shock, and that the majority have lived to understand the wisdom of Oxford’s attitude.
Should the American arrive, as he generally does, with the belief that his country is the greatest on earth, he soon learns that the Englishman has an empire of his own of which he is equally proud, and that in England civis Romanus sum applies to the Englishman and not to the American. Furthermore, the American is without caste. Practically every young Englishman comes from a school that is known at Oxford. He has rowed at Eton, played cricket at Harrow or football at Rugby, he holds this or that scholarship. Unless the American comes from Yale, Princeton, or Harvard, his university is virtually unknown in England. This young Englishman’s father is an M.P., another has a title. Socially the young American has no assets. In nine cases out of ten he comes from a state college or university where he has been the big frog in a small pond. He discovers that he is in a great university where the individual counts for less.
It is only natural that the young American must face a complete readjustment. Most of the things in which he has been taught to believe are discredited or unknown in his new world. That summer’s work in the wheatfields of Kansas is of little value to him in a discussion at tea over the finer points of Pre-Raphaelite art. Rubbing shoulders with the butcher boy in his home town has not been a great aid to his vocabulary, and he lacks words in which to express himself. When he uses the word ‘graft’ in his essay, his tutor inquires politely if he means ‘corruption.’ Apparently, too, ‘frame-up’ has not been Anglicized. The split infinitive proves a stumbling-block at first, as he has never heard of it, though perhaps in his third year he will return to it to display a Shavian independence. Gradually he discovers that originality of thought, not facts, is what Oxford demands of him.
Among the Englishmen with whom he competes he has the advantage of age and judgment; but, on the other hand, almost from their cradles his competitors have been trained to meet the requirements of Oxford. Just as the American school is organized to prepare boys for the American college, so the English school, by means of masters who are graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, instills into its boys the traditions and culture of the universities. Having specialized in Greek, Latin, and philosophy, under teachers who have themselves studied these subjects at Oxford, the young Englishman is more at home in the Classical school than is the young American, whose energies have been distributed over a variety of subjects. Where a young Englishman is familiar with the outlines of English history from his childhood, the American has to master the outlines, while at the same time endeavoring to keep pace with the more advanced work of historical criticism.
During his first year the American, too, must accustom himself to the coldness of his fellow students and fight off occasional attacks of homesickness and discouragement. These difficulties, however, are gradually overcome as he becomes acclimated, and fail to prove a serious obstacle.
IV
Like the comparison of cricket and baseball, so the comparison of English and American education is one difficult, if not impossible, of solution. Each has been fashioned with a different end in view, and the fact that, according to the statistics, Americans have not done as well as Englishmen, is no cause for hysteria or a revolution in either system. It would be absurd for Oxford to attempt to attract Americans by any radical alteration of her curricula; nor is it necessary for America to alter her schools to meet the Oxford requirements. Far better is it for both to follow their normal development.
What appears to be the chief trouble is that the Rhodes Trust is impatient of results and unnecessarily disturbed over the careers of the American Scholars. One loses sight of the fact that the Rhodes Scholars have only begun their part in carrying out the Rhodes idea on completion of the three years at Oxford. The Scholarships were not intended as a means of competition in the examination schools, but were for the purpose of giving young Americans an understanding of the real England, her men and her ideals. In this they have been eminently successful, for almost without exception the Rhodes Scholars treasure their experiences at Oxford. There is scarcely one who does not entertain the highest regard for her life, her culture, her breadth of view, and her traditions. When the American rowed on the Isis, wandered cheerily up the High, or browsed in the bookshops of the Turl and the Broad, he thought little and cared less that what he accomplished in ‘Schools’ was to be compiled into alarming statistics. He met and knew the Englishman as he was, and the Englishman learned to understand him. Far more important are these international friendships than all the Firsts and Newdigate Prizes in the University.
And what of the inadequate scholar who, Dr. Parkin fears, will lower the prestige of the Scholarships in America? Like the poor benighted Hindu, he is doing his best, confident that through his experiences at Oxford he possesses a certain advantage over those Americans who have never passed through a ‘viva’ or a ‘don rag.’ He will urge every young man of promise he knows to compete for a Scholarship, assuring him that he will never regret it; and thus he may be safely counted upon to bring more representative Americans to Oxford than will the new system of selection or a revival of learning in American preparatory schools. He is young, for the oldest Rhodes Scholars are not yet forty; and he still hopes that, before he has completed his allotted span on this earth, he may accomplish something that may redound to the credit of Oxford and the Scholarships. Perhaps he may be so ambitious as to endeavor to emulate the founder of the plan. And this aspiration is not beyond reason, for Cecil Rhodes himself began life with the stigma of being an inadequate scholar.