OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE

Evening Star, Issue 19388, 23 October 1926, Page 10

OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE

A GLIMPSE AT THE RIVALS HAUNTS OF ANCIENT PEASE [Written by Piuir.ui, for tho ‘Evening Star.’] Beautiful city! So venerable, so lovely, so unravagod by tho fierce intellectual life of our century; so serene! “ There are our young barbarians all at play!” And yet, steeped in sentiment as she lies, spreading her gardens to the moonlight and whispering from her towers the List enchantments of tho Middle Ago, who will deny that Oxford, by her ineffable charm, keeps ever calling us nearer to the goal_ of all of us—to the ideal, to perfection —to beauty, in a word, which is only truth seen from another side?

Oxford men like to tell of a guide book’s references—prepared mainly for American visitors—to itself and its great rival. A summary of each university’s attractions was given, and at the end this note was appended: “ If time presses, Cambridge may bo omitted.” This is in lino with popular estimation. It is always “ Oxford and Cambridge,” never “Cambridge and Oxford.” At school we were Oxford supporters until our enthusiasm -was I damped by a Cambridge teacher enumerating the number of poets that had ccmo.from his university. Still, Oxford is the senior place, and it is fitting that a colonial visitor should go there first. We motored up from London, through some of the loveliest country imaginable, and got there just in time to dress for dinner in hall at Christ Church. It' was a highly impressive introduction to tho most famous seat of learning in the English-speaking world, for Christ Church is—well, Christ Church. It is the largest of the colleges; it is known as the House; its church is the Cathedral of Oxford; when you enter the precincts you pass under Wren’s Tom Tower; and its dining hall is one of tiie finest of tho old halls in the kingdom. To sit on the dais among the dons; to look at the young faces in the body of the hall; to see the portraits of famous Christ Church men down tho | centuries; to remember “tho festal ’ lights of Christ Church hall” in ‘The Scholar Gipsy ’; to reflect upon the procession of youth through this hall generation after generation, and all the scholarship, character, literature, and service that had been developed here —all this was very moving. For patriotic as well as personal reasons I was glad that my host was a New Zealander. It made a link with my native country, and showed that Oxford’s old attractions drew students from the most distant lands. OXFORD’S BEAUTY. This was in Whitsun Week, and by reason of the match with the Australians Oxford was especially full. I saw it again in quieter conditions, and was able to give more time to the “ ineffable charm” of the town and its neighborhood. On the second occasion I stayed at Boar’s Head, which commands a lovely view of Oxford, and, incidentally, has become a poet’s corner. Gilbert Murray was across the road; John Masefield a little distance away; Robert Bridges across the valley. Incidentally, also, one does not realise until,

one goes to England and hears men speak of him, how high a place Dr Bridges occupies in literature and in the affections of the writing world. At certain times the view of Oxford from this height is worth going across the world to see. Tho town lies in a cup, with wooded hills round it; stretching away into the distance _on every side is the untainted English landscape. London and all it stands for seems very distant indeed. From the town there rise spires and towers, and as the stranger looks at them across fields and woods and hedges, with tho morning or evening sun lighting up these beautiful manifestations of learning and religion —they may be described as prayers and justifications that have risen from tho fanes and halls below and have been struck into visible shape by tho hand of heaven—the stranger then catches something of tho soul _of Oxford, and something of that spirit which has defied time and change and the derision of man, and still stands for that ideal of beauty which, as Arnold so well says, is only truth seen from another side. The visitor will, of course, catch more of this spirit in tho town itself. I. am not going to make a catalogue of tho beauties of Oxford. In one thing nothing is more difficult to describe than the bewildering charm of these old colleges, with their beauty of stone and glass, their ancient gardens, their atmosphere of mellow tradition. Ho who has not seen tho old “ quads ” at Merton and tho lovely library there, with’ its perfect timbering and air of monastic seclusion; or the cloisters and | w'alled garden at New College (it is characteristic that New College is very old), has not seen England. The cloisters at Now College are ono of tho very perfect things in England. Their architecture is beyond praise; their suggestion of ancient peace indescribable. As I 1 ci* fnem tho first time I mot in tho doov»vay a turbanod Indian student, and wondered what reactions to Oxford were going on behind that impassive face. You find all races and nationalities at Oxford. CAMBRIDGE’S CHARACTERISTICS. Cambridge is in some respects very different. It lies on the edge of the fen country, and has no such delights of hill country as surround < Oxford—the Cotswolds, for example, of which, perhaps, more anon. Tho town is smaller than Oxford, and seems more remote. In Oxford tho “town,” .is opposed to the “ gown,” is more in evidence. Perhaps for that reason—and I must emphasise that I paid but fleeting visits to each place—Cambridge struck me as being more of a university town than Oxford. The atmosphere seemed to be more scholastic, the inducement to (Judy rather stronger. Tho question which has the greater treasure of beauty and tradition may bo left to Oxford and Cambridge men to argue about, but this opinion may lie expressed, deferentially, that while Oxford has a larger body of fine architecture, there are things in Cambridge just as fine as anything in Oxford. Tho glories of Oxford are in stone; Cambridge is the homo of the finest brick,work. Some of this Cambridge brick—in Queen’s College, for example —is sheer poetry. The design is perfect, and its coloring a cherished memory. My first day" in England made me determined to preach tho gospel of brick in my own country; Cambridge showed me how perfect such work could be. THE GLORY OF THE “BACHES.”

The greatest glory of Cambridge is the river and its surroundings. Oxford is very lovely in its river stretches, and to the oarsman It is the better place, but there is nothing in-Oxford so exquisite of its kind as the Cambridge “ bachs.” The Avon, in our own Christchurch, is _ like the Cam, and the proximity to it of Canterbury College makes another point of resemblance between Christchurch and Cambridge. Picture the Avon flowing he-

tween ancient colleges and college gardens, and for a stretch, lawns flowing from tho river batik away into tlie distance under noble trees. Some of these college buildings rise straight out of the water. St. John’s, where I was fortunate enough to bo a guest, stands on both sides, and the two parts are connected by a copy of the Bridge of Sighs. My host has rooms in the top floor above the river, and I shared his enthusiasm for his view over Cambridge. To go up the river on a fine summer afternoon when it is crowded with gaily-dressed young people—tho male undergraduate vies with his girl friends in the color of his attire—to pass these lovely old buildings and their walled gardens, to land and wander under tho trees over velvet lawns, is one of tho most delightful experiences to ho found in England. Better still is to stand on one of the bridges at tho close of day and watch the setting f,un strike through the trees. If you have not realised it before, you realise then what an incommunicative and deathless charm Cambridge exercises over its scholars. Oxford and Cambridge are unique, and likely to remain so. Even if it would, tho world could hardly reproduce this slowly-ripened fruit of the centuries. THE UNIVERSITY SPIRIT.

What is tho spirit of these universities? Conservatism is still strongly entrenched there, but not, one thinks, nearly so strongly as of old. Nor is there so much slackness in high places. The advice given by a tutor to a. father who seriously sought guidance for his ■ son just entering the university—that the young man should be careful not to buy his sherry in tho town—could hardly bo given The forces making for conservatism aro enormously strong. How strong one can scarcely rcali.se until one has walked between these mellow walls and breathed in tho ancient traditions of the place. Tho temptation to accept tho established and recline upon the cushions of life must bo powerful. Yet the eye and car catch signs of the progressive spirit. The “.sweet girl graduates, with their golden hair” (alas, it is bobbed and shingled and Eton cropped to-day), who flit about the streets on bicycles—wearing, I may add, a black cap that is much more becoming than the mortar-board worn in New Zealand—aro products of a new time. Even a bird of passage can bear behind the hum of athletics and tho chatter of seeming indifference that is so puzzling to the stranger, tho strong accent of the intellectual life. The university habit of deprecating seriousness is half a pose, half a genuine attitude towards life. It is part of the Englishman’s philosophy; he tries to guard against over-strain by a protective covering of indifference, and even flippancy. Experience shows that ho can stand strain as well as any people on earth—and perhaps rather better. The undergraduate who apparently refuses to take anything seriously m.iy be annoying, but you would have to know him well before you could safely say that ho had_ no serious outlook in life and no serious intent. Tho current that runs underneath may bo strong. Oxford and Cambridge have done much less than they might for England; but of what institutions can this not be said? The magnitude of their failures and weaknesses does not deprive them of _ their right to the leadership of English culture. In,the best of what they offer there is bright hope for England. In their antithesis, tho curriculum of the class war, designed by some misguided men for the education of the wage-earner and his leaders, there is nothing but despair and ruin.