LIFE AT OXFORD.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 285, 1 December 1934, Page 1 (Supplement)

LIFE AT OXFORD.

APPROACH AND ENTRY. A COLONIAL'S IMPRESSIONS. (By A NEW ZEALAND STUDENT.) (No. I.) A curious lack of definiteness always seems to surround discussion of Oxford, particularly in the colonies. In England, one imagines, it is merely taken for granted like the Nelson Monument; but even the Oxford Handbook begins one chapter, "The University of Oxford is an elusive mystical body, not easily discernible to the casual glance." One conceives of it almost as being in the category of things which the best people do not speak about. Talk with an Oxford man and there will be a half sentence about some glorious afternoon on the river, a vague reminiscence of the peculiarities of some old don—probably still there to-day and no less peculiar — and perhaps an anecdote of boat race night or the college ghost. But beyond that the seeker after a coherent account could seldom go, and to me, at least, it assumed a dream-like quality. This was aided by its strange reputation for a love of the unpractical —an Oxford theory killed by a Cambridge fact, is a well known (Cambridge) definition of tragedy; and beyond that, it seemed to be famed only for a curious accent, the fashion of wide flannel trousers, and a definite disinclination to fight for King and country. So that it was, perhaps, the reality and the worldliness of Oxford that I found surprising. The only mist that surrounds it conies up from the river in the early evening, stays till the late morning, is sometimes beautiful and always unpleasantly damp.

Town and College. As a university town it is perhaps disappointing to the casual visitor. Cambridge is more obviously laid out, as if with a view to being attractive — although one is told that this has not been done deliberately. Oxford, from the train, is apt to be lost among factories and brick houses, the towers ant} colleges are in the back-ground, and there is an absence of the colour that makes the Cambridge "backs" so pleasing. Oxford must be lived in to be fully appreciated, and then 011 rare days, from Shotover or the Cumner Hills one sees its "dreaming spires" and realises its beauty. It has . changed greatly in the last twenty years, I am told, and all the traffic and bustle of a market town threatens to engulf the university, but in college gardens behind high walls, there is still "uiet, complete and untouched. I came to Oxford by road through Eenley and Windsor. A day of fog and desolation in the docks and East London was blown away as we passed through tlie green countryside on a clear early winter morning. The leaves had already fallen from the trees, but the

grass and the hedges were fresh and fair. We passed Windsor with its castle, and Eton boys with top-hats and umbrellas on the road; then over the low-lying Chilterns and down to the Thames again and Oxford. One comes into the town very suddenly and without warning, across the Iffley bridge and beneath the high tower of Magdalen College. Everything was very quiet because it was Sunday morning; the shops were all shut and the undergraduates were not up —but it was Oxfort'.

The colleges of Oxford are complete in themselves; they have their own lands and money. Binding them together is the University of Oxford, which is an examining body and little more. The colleges are in different parts of the town, great old buildings with their chapels and gardens walled in from the outside world, and within these walls their undergraduates live. In the last year of a man's time at Oxford he has usually to take lodgings in the town, for the college cannot hold all its students, and then he merely comes to his college for dinner in the evenings, but during the years that he is in college it is his home.

Easy Beginnings. It is perhaps difficult for the colonial to realise how easy is the beginning of life at an Oxford college. One feels that the fact of being in a strange land and among strangers will add to the trials of a newcomer. In practice, I imagine some people have found more difficulty in entering on a course of lectures at a New Zealand university college than at Oxford. Always granted, of course, that the stranger has someone to direct him to his college, for the dignified reticence of the English does not allow tliem to place names over their gateways, and some colleges have an unpleasant habit of being close together and very much alike. My own experience was to deliver myself and my luggage at the wrong college, and then to feel hurt because they did not know me. Indeed, for my first few days at Oxford I entered my college warily and doubtful if I had come to the right place.

Picture, then, high stone walls like those of a prison, surmounted with iron spikes of a medieval savagery. There is only one entrance through an arched gateway, closed at night by a heavy wooden door. I enter this stronghold of the Middle Ages knd introduce myself to the porter who has his lodge beneath the archway. He knows my name and, as I come to find out, a great deal more, and at the moment he is able to tell me exactly what I am to do. He hands me a huge pile of letters, which is rather flattering, as if one's arrival had created a stir, until I find out that they are all advertisements from Oxford tradesmen. Then I go out to find my room and to meet my "scout." Inside the arcnway there are courtyards, called "quads," four-sided with buildings three storeys high, leading Ly narrow archways from one to the other, and at the top of a staircase in one of these quads, I find both my room and my scout. The Oxford scout, as a type, deserves a chapter to himself; this particular one whom I came to know so well, deserves several books. Generations of irresponsible young men have combined to make them as conservative as the "Morning Post," and as sharp as

an American page-boy. On top of this they seem each to develop some individual peculiarity as if '.they had. been reading Dickens. Each scout attends to the six or seven rooms on his staircase, sweeps and cleans, and brings breakfast and lunch to the rooms. So, when I first met my scout, he was able to tell me what I needed to do. Actually, the day being Sunday, there was nothing to be present for except dinner in hall at 7.30. I remember my first dinner in college very vividly, perhaps bccause of its strangeness, the long tables, old oil portrajts on the walls, high-rafted ceilings and the dons of the college in state at "high table." There was little ceremony about the meal. Somebody muttered a grace in Latin, said it, indeed, so quickly that the words ran into one another, and we sat down to a bare polished table and food was placed before us, to be eaten and replaced by something else. There are usually three courses without much choice, and the whole meal is over in under half an hour. ' The food itself is neither very "ood nor very bad. Protests against the frequency of cabbage or some similar matter, provide junior common room clubs with a subject for debate —which simply goes to show that students are the same the whole world over. Of the conversation I can remember little, except that it was loud and frequent. Indeed, there is little aristocratic elegance about these college dinners; the finer flowers of conversation ar.e reserved for a quieter setting. As they finished the under-graduates got up and left th" hall, to stand talking in the quads for a few minutes, and then to coffee in their rooms or elsewhere. L'ghts came on in the windows and made the gray stone walls more cheerful, while the cold quads became quiet and deserted.