Education in the English Manner

MOST Americans would be prepared to explain the system upon which American university life and teaching are organized. No doubt a traveler could have for the asking an account of courses and credits, majors and minors, fraternities and student bodies, that would enrich, if it did not enlighten, his intelligence. A corresponding account of how things are managed at Oxford or Cambridge might be less easy to obtain, but it could scarcely fail to confound a mind already in possession of the American system. Indeed, one who has to compare the two for the first time may be excused for thinking that one or the other might be rational, but not both.

I am mainly concerned, of course, with the contrast between Oxford¹ and Cambridge on the one hand and the American universities on the other; but it may be well to say in passing that with the exception of Trinity College, Dublin, the other universities of the United Kingdom and the Dominions are organized in very much the same way as those of America. They derive, indeed, from a common type worked out, I think, in Scotland and much influenced by the way in which things were done in Holland. With all the differences, one feels that the academic kinship is clear and

close, and that after all we are beset with nothing more than the old difficulty of trying to understand how the same goal can be reached by so many seemingly divergent roads. It may be worth while, therefore, to consider a little some of the English ways that are unfamiliar to academic folk in America, particularly to the younger of them.

I

The European universities are older than the colleges which composed or, as in the case of Oxford and Cambridge, still compose them. It was and is the business of the university to teach in varying amounts and to certify, after due application of tests, the proficiency of those whom it has taught. But men require to be fed and clothed, housed and warmed, and young men at least may be the better for some supervision, some guiding of their feet toward the paths of peace and of their minds into habits of industry and application. These needs were no less urgent at Bologna, Paris, or Oxford in the thirteenth century than at Ann Arbor, Madison, or Berkeley in the twentieth.

The ways in which they have been met are at once so like and so unlike each other as to make one suspect that history may indeed repeat itself on condition of never using the same language twice. The mediæval undergraduates hired houses where they lived in common, generally under the presidency of a master of arts, and such a common dwelling was called a hostel. But there were many young men who could profit by study at the university but could not afford to maintain themselves there, and for these, in due course, provision was made, first by bursaries and exhibitions in the case of individuals, and then by the foundation of colleges which were in effect endowed hostels. The pious liberality of royal personages, bishops, judges, noble ladies, and rich men created foundations and fashioned dwellings where old and young might labor together for the promotion of religion, education, learning, and research.

These societies consisted of a master and a body of fellows and scholars on the foundation, to whom were later added in increasing numbers young men called ‘pensioners’ who were able to pay their own way. Carefully drawn statutes and ordinances regulated the conduct and duties of all alike, and officers were appointed to see that the young men observed the rules. The conduct of the seniors was controlled by a governing body constituted from among themselves and an external visitor to whom an ultimate appeal could be taken. The university soon required the unendowed and freely organized hostels to submit to the like discipline. It had the means, indeed, of regulating the conduct of its senior members, the doctors and masters, and to a certain extent that of the juniors too. But the control of these was perhaps regarded as a more domestic and educational matter, which could best be confided to the hostels and colleges.

So it happened at last that in order to be a member of the university you had also to be a member of a college or hostel. The colleges, each with its chapel, hall, courts, gardens, and ranges of chambers, provided for the religious, physical, and social needs of their members and gave to the juniors teaching supplementary to that provided by the university. Oxford and Cambridge alone retain this system, which was once almost universal, practically unaltered in its main lines. But the newer American universities, with their numerous fraternities and clubs where young men are lodged, amused, sometimes kept out of mischief, and often trained and influenced, present a curious and striking analogy to the conditions in European universities before the appearance of the endowed colleges. The analogy is worth dwelling on for a moment because it helps one to understand what is indeed my main point: namely, that the English college provides a very great deal which in an American university you must seek in a club or fraternity — if you have one — or else go without; and some things which, for good or for ill, are not to be found there at all. This may be worth developing a little.

To begin with, I would emphasize a point that is often lost sight of, to the confusion and disappointment of those who wish to enter an English university. The number of men which any college will receive is strictly limited with reference to its capacity, not. only to house, but also to teach and to train. This could not indeed be otherwise, but it follows that every college that has a margin of candidates over vacancies will inquire carefully, not only into a lad’s ability to pass the university entrance examination, but also into his fitness to profit by and contribute to the general life of the college. When the list for any given year is made up the belated applicant can hope for nothing better than the slender chance of a casual vacancy.

Once the men are admitted, the college takes responsibility for most of their needs. Every member in statu pupillari — everyone, that is, who has not yet taken his M. A. degree — is under the care of a tutor and under the eye of a dean. The word ‘tutor’ has many meanings and a long history. In English universities it sets out with its Roman sense of guardian or protector, to which is presently added the notion of a teacher. I think that it was in Oxford in the fourteenth century, and actually at William of Wykeham’s foundation, still known as New College, that the plan originated. It consisted in placing every undergraduate under the care of one or other of the fellows of the college who was best qualified to help him to prepare for and take advantage of the teaching of the university. In time the college teaching became more important than that of the university and was done either by the tutor himself or by his assistants. But beyond this the tutor had general charge of his pupil’s affairs and was responsible for him to his parents, to the college, and to the university. This — and all that it involves, which is a good deal — is in Cambridge the whole duty of a tutor, who, as such, does no teaching. In Oxford I think it is arranged somewhat differently.

The Cambridge tutor, at any rate, stands in a paternal relation to his pupil. He has corresponded with the boy’s parents and schoolmaster before he comes up, and has probably interviewed him more than once either at his school or during some examination he has had to take in the university. He knows what allowance the boy will have and has found lodgings for him. Then, at the beginning of the academic year, he instructs his pupils collectively in their obligations to the university and the college. Thereafter there is the routine of entering them for examinations, giving or refusing leave to be out late, or to go away for a night or two, or to entertain a party at lunch or dinner, or to keep indoors in case of illness.

Breaches of discipline outside the college are dealt with by the proctors, who invite the tutor to impose certain punishments, and it is for him to speak on his pupil’s behaif if he thinks fit. College discipline is maintained by the dean, but he will generally consult the tutor before taking action, and here again the accused has a protector if in the tutor’s opinion he should deserve one. The doctors report all cases of illness, and it is for the tutor to see that the parents are notified if necessary, and at least to visit the patient. Privation and even real distress endured with silent courage are not uncommon, but they sometimes pass the limit of endurance and it is then generally possible to find means of helping.

Beyond this there are emergencies — many, various, and sometimes formidable— and the tutor must always reckon with the unexpected, which occasionally takes disconcerting forms. I have myself appeared in a police court to speak to the good character of a pupil charged with using obscene language in the presence of the police — putting ideas into their heads, as it might be. I have helped to compromise an action for breach of promise and assisted at two coroner’s inquests. Such and suchlike are all in a day’s work and one takes them as they come. Their importance lies in the fact that they are part of the human, and what I called just now the paternal, relation that the college maintains with its junior members.

No college, unluckily, is big enough to house all its men throughout their whole course, except indeed in the case of scholars. Most people therefore will pass one year in lodgings — in Cambridge their first, and in Oxford their last, as a rule. But all will dine together in hall, and the college kitchens send out meals and provisions, for purposes of convenience or hospitality, to college rooms and lodgings alike. If an undergraduate wishes to entertain he has only to get leave from his tutor and give his order at the kitchens — everything else is done for him. If he wishes to put up a friend for a night or two his tutor will lend him a set of rooms in college, for someone is sure to be away ill or on an exeat.

All this is more than a matter of amenity — it means that every undergraduate feels some degree of social responsibility. He has the power, and therefore the obligation, to return the hospitality he has received. It may be that he can offer no more than a cup of tea and a muffin, but even so he must use the vigilance and unselfishness of a host. For the rest, he will necessarily feel himself a member of a social body and not merely an individual in a crowd. Meetings or dinners of the numerous clubs, societies, or old school associations are provided for in one or other of the lecture rooms, or it may be that the dons will lend the college guestroom or their own combination room. If the college crew should row head of the river in the summer bumping races there will probably be a ‘bump supper’ in the hall. The college gates are locked at 10 P. M. — rather earlier in Oxford — and after that no undergraduate may go out, but there are plenty of resources within the walls for those who have leisure. There are few nights in the week when you can’t find a meeting in someone’s rooms. It may be gathered to hear a paper on mathematics or history, to read a classical author or Shakespeare, to debate, to discuss theology or politics, to make music, or for lighter purposes. Then, of course, there is plenty of private visiting, and numbers of the dons who live in college are by way of seeing their undergraduate friends easily and informally when the day’s work is done.

II

I have said enough perhaps to make it clear that an English college stands halfway between a big family and a small club. It joins to the business of education the moral and social training of the one and the amenities and individualism of the other.

In a community so chosen and so cared for, the social life, as might be expected, organizes itself freely. No doubt the size of the college has a good deal to do with the matter, but in most colleges, though not in all, people who have been in residence for a year will know the whole college by sight at least. The old custom of calling on freshmen has, I think, fallen into disuse, — in Cambridge at all events this is so, — but there are other and less formal ways of making acquaintance. A young man’s interests and abilities in games, sports, politics, or whatever, are, except in certain negligible groups, much more considered than his background. The young men, indeed, are more interested in what their companions may be than in who they are, and college society is therefore remarkably democratic. It makes little difference where you come from if you are good at rowing or cricket or field games, if you have a turn for acting or are attended to when you speak at the Union. These things will bring you into contact with many people, and such acquaintances are readily cultivated in view of the easy arrangements for entertaining. Here, as elsewhere, the men of light and leading are those who have managed to accumulate capacities, and in most colleges they would prove to be the scholars — by which I mean holders of a scholarship or some lesser emolument — who have distinguished themselves in other ways as well.

Every college has a certain number of emoluments at its disposal — some of them a good many — which are open to competition once a year. A boy may come from an obscure country grammar school and beat a Winchester or Eton colleger at his own game — the nets are cast very wide, and when the youngsters come info residence they are marked by a common intellectual distinction that sets them apart from the rest of their contemporaries. This is recognized and respected; and if, as often happens, the scholar is good at other things as well, he is likely to become one of the ‘figures’ in the undergraduate world of his time. Any don could give many examples — I have several in mind among my own friends: one who got his two firsts in his tripos and a blue for cricket; another with the same academic record who just missed a rowing blue but was president of the Union; and I can’t help recalling a third who, though he missed a scholarship, got a first in his tripos and his rowing blue and was subsequently elected to a fellowship. They were the same sort of men — the sort by which a college profits. This system is, of course, an essential part of the educational ladder, — the carrière ouverte aux talents, — and the fact that the competition is wide and open guarantees the quality of those who succeed, while the social conditions I have been trying to present afford an excellent opportunity for making the most of success.

Many young Englishmen are extremely sociable, but bring with them from their public schools a dread of conversation. There at least it appears to be unsafe to express opinions or deal with ideas. This point is aptly illustrated by a story attributed to a wellknown peer. It seems that in his first week at Eton an older boy asked him whether he was a lord, and he answered yes. Thereupon he was kicked, with the comment, ‘That’s for your side.’ When the question was put to him again, not long afterward, he took the precaution of answering no, but he was kicked none the less this time for telling a lie. Thereafter he held his tongue even when questioned, and lived in peace until such time, one supposes, as he was in a position himself to question and chastise the young for their souls’ health. Such discipline is not readily forgotten, and it is small wonder that boys who have undergone it should be shy of conversational adventure even when they reach the university. To such, games and sports give the opportunity of enjoying companionship without trenching on dangerous ground.

But young Englishmen have plenty of ideas, and, given the right conditions, will produce them with humor, irony, and moderation. The right conditions, it seems, prevail more generally at Oxford than at Cambridge. Certainly schoolboy reluctance and caution tend to disappear very early there, and I have heard it said that at Oxford people talk to impress you with their intellectual superiority, while at Cambridge they hold their tongues for the same purpose. But this judgment is superficial as well as ill-natured, for good talk can be found in Cambridge if you know where to seek it, and silence in Oxford if you should happen to need it.

The various meetings to which I referred are held in the rooms of the members of the particular society or group in turn, but there are also university clubs of the usual sort with their own accommodations, restaurants, and other amenities. In Cambridge there are three, apart from the specifically theatrical clubs, and Oxford has more. These are much more like the ordinary clubs of London, New York, or San Francisco than the fraternities or societies in an American university. Some years ago now, a young American who had been elected into one of the most sought-after of the Cambridge clubs told me with some indignation that he intended to resign. I asked him why, and his answer seemed to me very significant. ‘I’ve lunched and dined there for the last two days,’ he said, ‘and not a soul I did n’t know before has spoken to me.’ Not so had he fared as an American undergraduate, and it was hard to persuade him that the members of this club had not allotted him one of the coveted vacancies in order to insult him more conveniently.

Of course in both American and English universities the social grouping rests ultimately on congeniality or common interest. The English system is, however, more elastic, just because the college is in some sense itself a club. You are not obliged to commit yourself irrevocably to any one group of people. In America, I think, when you join a fraternity or club it is generally with the implied, if not the expressed, condition that ‘thy people shall be my people and thy ways my ways,’ and the groups so formed constitute a series of independent cells that are somehow or other worked into the general organization of the university. In England the organization is for all but social purposes already complete, highly articulated, and officially recognized. This leaves to the social life within the colleges a great freedom — men pass easily from one group or set to another.

III

An American arriving at Oxford or Cambridge may well feel somewhat ruefully that he is left to grope his own way among unfamiliar social arrangements, but he will scarcely make such a complaint when he turns to the educational and disciplinary side. Here, indeed, he will receive a measure of personal attention and direction to which he has probably not been accustomed at home. At the outset he must put aside the ideas with which he is familiar, and particularly the notion of courses as self-contained units and the wide range of choice, limited only by the grouping of major and minor subjects, to which he has been accustomed. He will discover that in general the university frames the curriculum and leaves the colleges to do the teaching, reserving to itself the right to test the results by examinations in consequence of which it will give or withhold the degree. This is less true in the sciences, which require a great deal of practical training in laboratories, and it is also true that in consequence of the report of a recent royal commission the university will shortly take a larger share in the direction of the teaching of all subjects. But even then, I think, the more personal and characteristic side of the work will still be done by college teachers in their own colleges.

The whole system rests on two assumptions that hitherto do not seem to have been made in American university education. One is that it is desirable to classify men according to their natural ability and their intention and capacity to work. To facilitate this the university provides in most subjects parallel courses leading in one case to the ordinary or ' poll ’ degree and in the other to honors. In each case the whole course is mapped out and the subjects to be studied are proposed and defined, leaving a range of individual choice which in America would probably be considered very narrow. At Cambridge, in the courses leading to the ordinary degree the lecturing is rather elementary, set books are provided, and the examination tests are relatively simple. In one way this system resembles that of the American universities, for it enables a man to qualify for a degree by passing certain examinations in subjects not necessarily related to each other, one at the end of each year. There is no general examination or test of proficiency.

The advantage of this classification is that lecturers and teachers know pretty well to whom they are addressing themselves and the kind and amount of intelligence upon which they can count, and are able to adjust their work accordingly. The plan, of course, treats the poll men as though they were all alike — and perhaps in their shortcomings they are. So they remain units in an educational system which appears to be the best that can be made for men of that sort without being unjust to those who are better qualified.

This brings me to the second of the assumptions to which I have alluded: that every man reading for honors should be treated not as a unit but rather as a case. What that may mean can perhaps best be explained by taking account of the system of examining and teaching for honors. The university sets and defines the subjects in which the men are to be examined and in many cases recommends books for study or reference. The various lecturers doubtless take these into account in arranging their discourses, and are further guided by reference to the questions set by the examiners in past years. The examination itself is the affair of the university, which appoints a board generally including at least one external examiner. The papers framed by individual examiners are subject to a double process of revision and criticism which makes them, when they see the light, effectually the collective work of the whole board. The test therefore is one of proficiency. A man is examined in all the work he has done during two and sometimes three years, and the examiners consider not only what he has learned but what he has become. In some triposes there is an essay paper proposing general subjects unrelated to the content of the other papers, and this is a great help in estimating a man’s general ability and his capacity to write English — a matter as to which I shall have something to say presently. It may happen, of course, that some of the candidates will have heard the lectures of one or other of the examiners, or even that they may have been drilled by him in private teaching — called classwork or supervision — before the paper has been set. But any special advantage they may derive from that is so slight as to be negligible, and the reasons are not far to seek. In many cases every paper is read separately by two examiners. Then, when all the results are before the board, the candidates for the most part fall naturally into classes, and if in any one subject they diverge from their own level the particular paper will be reread by the original examiner or referred to one who has not seen it before. My own experience suggests that the idiosyncrasy is generally due to the examiner rather than the candidate. On the whole, therefore, you get a test of the knowledge and ability of the candidates which is independent and impersonal. I speak after a pretty considerable experience both of teaching and of examining. The contrast between such a system and that still prevailing in many American universities is as great as it is obvious. I understand, however, that in the American academic world it is coming to be recognized that there are certain advantages in the English plan and that in some quarters steps have been taken to readjust the former arrangements.

It is, however, the method of teaching rather than of examination that does most to secure that the honors man shall be treated as a case. I spoke just now of the private teaching known in Cambridge as classwork or supervision. I suppose that historically such individual instruction is connected with the origin and development of the office of tutor — those learned in academic history will speak to that. The plan, at any rate, is generally known as the tutorial system, and in Cambridge it appears to have been at least revived within the last thirty or forty years. What this really meant was that the colleges were taking over and organizing the work that had previously been done by coaches or private tutors. Now, at all events, coaching is regarded as a medicine rather than a food, and the regular teaching provided by the colleges suffices for most men.

At the beginning of each term every man is sent by his tutor to one or other of the college lecturers, who will act as his director of studies. This means that he will get expert advice in choosing among such alternatives as are allowed him and in selecting the lecturers whose courses he will attend. In many subjects there will be several lecturers, and a director will take account of his pupil as well as the lecturers before settling the combination.

More important than the choice of lecturers is the weekly task which is the main part of the director’s work. The way in which it is done will vary, of course, with different teachers and their subjects. In the literary subjects, the director, when he has arranged his pupil’s lectures, will assign him a fixed time for his weekly work — generally half an hour, though this, of course, may be exceeded if necessary — and a subject. Very likely he will begin the term’s work with a general essay, giving a choice of several subjects. This is useful, as it gives you at the outset some measure of your pupil’s capacity to think and write. Thereafter there will be problems formulated by the director, who will generally add references to relevant books and articles.

The men bring the finished work to the director’s rooms and read it aloud. Then you are confronted with a double problem: you must see that your pupil has got his facts fairly well, has presented them intelligibly, and has understood the critical difficulties in interpreting them; and you must see that he has understood the bearing of the particular question set him on the subject he is studying as a whole. The most effective way of doing all this is to question your pupil on the basis of the notes you have made during his reading, though there will probably be explanations and much additional information needed as well. Or the work may be a general essay raising some question of a moral, æsthetic, or political order, and criticism will then turn mainly to coherence of thought and grace of form. In any case you have the opportunity of helping the youngster to clear his thinking a little, to try to make his way about ‘mid worlds not realized’ with due respect and humility. The boy will probably find himself at the end with more questions than answers in his mind — but that is not an unwholesome state.

There remains the question of the young man’s use of his mother tongue, and this is the second part of the director’s problem. The late Barrett Wendell used to say toward the end of his life that the experiment in teaching English in which he had coöperated at Harvard with Professor A. S. Hill had been a failure. He considered that undergraduates could only be trained to write English in connection with all their academic work which involved any writing at all. I don’t think that anyone who had the advantage of working for Barrett Wendell will allow that his teaching was a failure, but my present point is that the condition he required is fulfilled at Oxford and Cambridge. Week by week you have to deal with manuscripts ranging from the fairly helpless to the positively graceful, but in all cases you have the writer and his work before you. Then it will often happen that you know the student in other ways as well — he may come in and smoke a pipe with you after dinner or ask you to tea in his rooms. And so you will have learned enough about him to know that there is a way to teach him which is very likely not the way you used when you began, and certainly not that which you would use for another man.

It may be objected that this is not the best way of training scholars. The objection, I think, would be both true and irrelevant. The system is intended to help toward a liberal education, and the universities that employ it have other and on the whole pretty effective means of training scholars — but they begin by educating them. The tutorial system is a costly one — that cannot be denied. One man cannot deal effectively with more than twenty-five pupils a week, and I believe that that is five too many for really good results. Very little time or effort is saved by taking the men in small groups or classes, unless you give up the principle of having each man do a piece of work each week and receive the individual criticism and attention which his case requires. That can indeed be maintained when you have several men together, but there is no saving of time or exertion, though there is an advantage if you have firstclass men who are keen about their work, for they will measure themselves against each other and profit by each other’s strength and weakness.

Then, the growing diversity of disciplines and specialization of scholars increase the difficulty and expense of this kind of teaching. I sometimes think, indeed, that the old fallacy that a university is a place where everything is taught is beginning to transform itself into a new and rather formidable truth. At any rate it is manifestly impossible to provide teaching by members of a college staff in, let us say, all branches of natural science or even the principal languages of contemporary Europe. A small college with a limited staff will be forced to neglect some subjects altogether and to treat others on a rather narrow basis. But there are ways and means of adjusting these difficulties, and the educational value of the system is great enough to make it worth keeping, even at considerable cost. A young man who, week by week and term by term, has had to measure his ability and knowledge against those of a trained scholar will learn, if he learns nothing else, intellectual humility and critical caution. ‘Did you ever reflect,’ Woodrow Wilson once said to a young colleague in historical research, ‘how many miles you have to traverse before you advance an inch?’ It is a wholesome lesson and one not readily to be learned from textbooks.

IV

It would be impossible, I think, to pass even a single term at Oxford or Cambridge without becoming aware that if you want to understand the life of the university you must begin by finding out something about the schools. The relation between the two goes very far back. William of Wykeham and Henry VI provided for the scholars of Winchester and Eton at Oxford and Cambridge respectively, and, although in these latter days King’s has ceased to be exclusively Etonian and New College Wykehamist, the connection between the foundations is still vital. Nothing else, indeed, would account for the restrictions that constitute university and college discipline. The lads who come to Oxford and Cambridge are courteously called men, but they are treated as schoolboys who have reached an age to be trusted with a good deal of independence though not with complete freedom. Most have learned in their schools both to obey and to command, and the colleges have been mindful of this in leaving them a good deal of room for individual activity while guarding as far as may be against serious disaster. Therefore, just as the colleges rely on the school training, so do they seek to complete it and send into the world men sufficiently equipped not to make fools of themselves without intending to do so.

Naturally not all the men who come to the university have been to what are called the public schools— nor are all the public schools of the same standard or organized on quite the same lines. But it seems possible to an alien observer to discern certain things, principles and ideals, common to them and beginning to diffuse themselves through the schools that cannot be called public in the English sense of the word. For one thing, they deal with the whole boy — soul, brain, and body. It is, as they say, a ’large order,’ and the nice adjustment of pressure among the three is not always successfully attained. So much is clear enough to the observer; the mystery lies in how the thing is done, and not done — how, for example, so many hours can be spent in form or division with no discernible intellectual result; how, on the other hand, principles and inhibitions can be worked into the very texture of a boy’s nature with apparently so little direct communication.

The school, of course, like the university, is a societas societatum in which the houses correspond to the academic colleges and have indeed, in the old foundations which began as endowed colleges, very much the same origin. Individuals, accordingly, are dealt, with in relatively small groups, for a house will seldom contain more than forty. Then a large share of responsibility is laid on the older boys. This has sometimes been described as a system of selfgovernment. But the more I see of the vigilance, the unselfishness, the idealism, and the sympathy of the housemasters, the more I am inclined to call it self-agency. By that I do not mean to suggest that it is merely the most effective method of enabling the housemaster to get his own way; rather is it the common effort of masters and boys alike to seize and apply what for generations the continuous life and aim of the school have meant and striven for. Every school, every group indeed, with a history, a purpose, and a life greater than that of the sum of those who for the moment compose it has its arcanum, and the measure of its success is the extent to which those who do for the moment compose it possess themselves of the secret. It is of the essence of such a secret that it can never be told — it can only be learned and kept. To find out even that much you must go to one or other of the great schools with a young man who knows and loves it, and as he takes you about you must watch him as well as what he shows you. You will never surprise the incommunicable secret, but you will be assured of its existence and will be able to refer to it a great deal that, you see about you in the university. You will begin to see then that you are dealing largely with initiates or adepts who know quite well why they do certain things and leave others undone, and expect you to understand that they have their reasons, though they cannot formulate, still less impart, them.

What I have been trying to get at, of course, is the best of the public-school training. It is n’t everyone who goes to a public school who gets the best or even the second best. Some boys are unsuitable material, and the system itself has something to answer for. A little more emphasis might well be laid on intellectual training. There is an old gibe that one may hear from many an Etonian: ‘You must choose between going to Eton and getting an education.’ There is this truth in it: that in the system which aims at moral and physical health as well as education in the narrower sense of the word the schools must probably attend most to the first and second, leaving the third to the university. But the schools may well be asked to send up boys adequately grounded and teachable in the sense of being open to an intellectual appeal, and in this respect, apart from the specially trained scholars, a good many of them fall short.

I go into all this by way of laboring my point that you cannot consider the universities and their ways without taking account of the schools. They work together in an educational system which sets out to train the whole boy throughout the whole of his boyhood and youth. Regarded from this point of view, the system of control and discipline prevailing in the English universities and colleges appears natural and reasonable. A boy coming from the far stricter system of the public school is less likely to resent the restrictions he finds at the university than to welcome the system as a large measure of freedom. If his school has taught him nothing else, it has at least made him understand that the society of which he forms a part rests on discipline and subordination. At the university he will see that he is part of a like society and subject to the same principle. If he gets into a scrape he will very likely resent the nature or amount of the penalty, but he will scarcely challenge the principle in virtue of which it has been imposed.

In America a boy going to the university considers that he is homo suœ potestatis, owing, indeed, certain obligations in respect of attendance at classes and examinations, submission of written work, and what not, but apart from such educational demands responsible only to his conscience — and the police. Such liberty is apt to be heady, and it is small wonder if, after four years of it, a young American coming to Oxford or Cambridge tends rather contemptuously to resent customs and restrictions which form part of an organization highly articulated and delicately adjusted to the accomplishment of a purpose which appears to him unintelligible — if indeed it appears to him at all. But then, you see, the young American is an intruder in the same sense that the mother of Triptolemus was — only he is often wiser than she and tiptoes away, leaving the baby to gain what he can on the coals. To Triptolemus, who has been through the mill of a public school, the process is perfectly natural — neither unexpected nor necessarily unpleasant. He slips easily into the formal and external life of his college and is the better able, therefore, to try to apprehend the spirit that animates it — the arcanum, in short. He may find it or he may not, but in either case he will hold his tongue.

I have said enough perhaps to make my immediate point, which is that you can’t hope to understand Oxford and Cambridge without knowing something about the public schools from which they are so largely recruited. There will be more than that to do if you mean really to get at them, and you will be wise to begin with the finished or nearly finished product. Make friends with him and you will see that the English simplicity is not nearly so simple as it looks. It is in fact a highly complicated thing, the result of processes that are worth studying even at the cost of patience, vigilance, and the suspension of many of the ideas and judgments by which you have hitherto lived.