Rhodes Scholars.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20103, 5 December 1930, Page 14

Rhodes Scholars.

We print to-day some extracts from the statement issued by the Rhodes Trust for the academic year 1929-1930. A day or so after the announcement of the two new Scholars from the Dominion, it is perhaps useful to be reminded of the scope of the Rhodes Scholarships. The New Zealand Scholars are a mere handful among the large number in residence, 187 for the year, including 68 new Scholars; and to these are to be added 21 exScttolars in residence for one term or longer. A hundred and one of the 187 were from the British Empire, 86 from the United States. It is not surprising, therefore, that the search for New Zealand names in the lists of those who have been awarded degrees or have distinguished themselves in athletics or in other fields should discover only four or five. But it is surprising to find, from the table showing the distribution of Scholars among the various subjects, that one in three takes Law, and that Law and Natural Science and Medicine together claim more than half. The figures in those two groups arc 61 and 39, the next highest being Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (25) and English Literature (23). Only 10 Scholars were taking Literae Humaniores (" including Philosophy or kindred " subjects pursued with a view to "Advanced Degrees") and only six were taking Mathematics. That the traditional studies would be so deserted can hardly have occurred to Cecil Rhodes; but the fact that they have been, which is to be explained almost entirely on economic groundsdoes not signify that Rhodes's purpose has failed. So far as it has failed, other causes are responsible; and two of them are beginning to be more clearly seen in New Zealand. The picked young men whom the Dominions send to Oxford as Rhodes Scholars are too often lost, because they have nothing to return to. New Zealand probably loses more heavily than her sister Dominions because she deserves to, having not yet learned the simple lesson that high capacity must be well paid and is worth paying for. The present summary contains none of the evidence; but it has been published before and shows that a Rhodes" Scholarship is more often the road to high appointments outside the Scholar's own country than to any within it. A second weakness, better recognised in New Zealand now than formerly, is that Scholars go Home too old to take their place easily in Oxford life, and this is so still, although the upper agehmit has been reduced. If they tend to stand apart and pursue their aims independently, being older men and often more set in purpose, they can neither get nor give all that they might. But the greatest problem of the Rhodes Trust has never been solved and may never be solved, whether it is essentially one of selection or of training. Rhodes hoped that the Scholars would become leaders in the Empire, and that their leadership would help to bind it. Even if V 0 agree that tha best leadership is

not always the most conspicuous, and is certainly not confined to brilliant public careers, it remains true that Rhodes Scholars who have devoted their lives directly to national or Imperial service have been curiously few and that many have retired from Oxford to succeed only in being prosperously obscure. It is easy and more or less persuasive, of course, to say that the success of Cie nystem is bound to be success of oil** roan in scox*c or in fjity, that ma ay are called and few art 1 chosen, and that it is absurd to expect anything else; but an explanation so v. Ide and soft can be doubted and ought always to be doubted.