UNIVERSITIES INDICTED

Evening Star, Issue 19952, 23 August 1928, Page 9

UNIVERSITIES INDICTED

WHAT AILS OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE ? CHARGE OF FEMINISATION Beating one’s mother is not a recognisable performance for applause. But a new English fashion seems to be to heat the twin alma maters On lord i ml Cambridge. It has been going on for some time in respect to Oxford, and when sho lost the boat race by some eight lengths she was jumped on with a vengeance. A chance was given for Cambridge sympathisers to crow. “ For a long period Oxford was_ afflicted bv a superiority complex,” says James" Douglas, in the London ' Daily Express.’ ‘'‘Oxford men,’ said an Oxford man before the war, 1 have Cambridge moments.’ The Cambridge wags are now saying ‘ Cambridge men have Oxford moments.’ ” But a still odder thing is that Manchester can hardly spare a moment to either, ft is asserted in these popular papers owned by Lord Beaverbrook that “Oxford and Cambridge are ceasing to niattcr. But Oxford doesn’t care. She _ appears to be revelling in her inferiority complex.” says Mr Douglas, who adds a good deal more. ‘‘She shrugs her ancient shoulders over Cambridge triumphs and with a bored smile languidly rests on her musty laurels and her processional oars. The home of lost causes and impossible loyalties is in a mood to despise beef and brawn. It may be that this is a sign of grace, andthat Oxford is move keenly interested in the intellectual arena. Sho may be breeding statesmen rather than sportsmen, loaders of thought rather than breakers (1 records. “There are some cynics who attribute the degeneracy of Oxford to the enervating influence of her undergraduates. Thev say that Oxford has been feminised and that her feminisation has produced effeminacy. Thcv point out that the Oxford manner lias declined into an Oxford mannerism that affects indifference, indolence, and disillusion. “Thev even detect a debasement in the Oxford accent. The manly drawl has been corrupted, they declare, mlo a girlish lisp. Cambridge, they say, has never condescended to produce or to practise a Cambridge intonation. Its men talk like men, nut like pale young curates. “1 have heard stout young women mimicking the Oxford sibilants and jeering at Oxford trousers. I hey are politely incredulous when 1 remind them that Cambridge invented Oxford bags and discarded them long heloiu Oxford swathed itself in their voluminous swaddlings. They retort that Cambridge vices are Oxford virtues. “One bright young maiden assures me that the effeminacy of Oxford is a revolt against the masculinity ot womanhood. The manly woman has evoked the womanly man. Wheieas the voung women to-day arc apostles of enthusiasm, the young men are apostles of ennui. ‘The young women are hard, the young men arc soli;.

KEMINiX.Fi SCUItX. “ ] iiml in most young women oi llio new generation a, cerFiiu contemptuous scorn of effete nml mofl'cctmil young: fiion. They are scathing eniies o! mascuiine affectations. They dcspiso masculine mediocrity. I liey ridicule masculine slang. They show no leniency or mercy for masculine incompetence. “Oxford is being converted into the. scapegoat of feminine, scorn lor all kinds of masculine muddling. .Us pn.Y; steal decadence is used as a symbol 01 tho general lethargy and lassitude or post-war manhood. Women seriously maintain that, our young men lnck_ initiative, energy, and audacity ‘i hey are mentally as well as physically lazy. They are intellectually as well as imaginatively indolent. Gxlorii is the flower oi: our youth, and it is a weed that is becoming weedier every day. “This spate of ceiivore is_ good for young Oxford. It will lorco it to gnd uj> its mind, as well as its loins. It will drive it into plain living and inch thinking. Tho more vigorously Oxiuim is kicked and cuffed nml cursed tho better it will bo. “Tho war involved a vast wastage of virility. After every great male calamity or catastrophe there is a phaso of mental, moral, and physical exhaustion. Oxford mirrors this phase more clearly than Cambridge, because its tradition attracts tiny .setter rntl more pampered elements of the nation. Its Rhodes scholars do not leaven tho lazy lump. “There are other malignant theories that explain tho legend ot Oxlovd s decline and fall. Her dreaming loners and spires are shaking in the blasts and blizazrds of blame and rebuke. “ But, in Milton’s words, nietlnnks I .sec iu my mind a noble and puissant university rousing horsed i like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks. Mcthinks 1 sco her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth and kindling her undazzlcd eyes at the full midday beam.”

A HARSHER JUDGMENT. Even so, much optimism is not hold by the northern conk'Uiponuy alluded to. In another issue of the ‘Daily Express’ L. dn Garde Pencil, M.A. (Manchester!, Rh.l). (Sheffield), .sees the north looking on pityingly while both Oxford and Cambridge an; “going dmvn hill." “The Rouble descent, has been long accomplished,’ lie assort., “and any further minute oscillations are unimportant.’ 1 'lbis in spile oi some appearances lo the conti'ary. “‘if this be the attitude T He north larvard Oxford and Cambridge, it. will be asked, ‘how account lor th) number of .successful northern industrial adventurers who send their sons to one of the, older ni.ivovsitiesi'’ “The answer lies deep in human nature; it. is a misdirected impulse of tho upward urge. In Lancashire we liar® a proverb about clogs and clogs, and one of the most pathetic of our exports is tho youth whoso father sends him to Oxford”or Cambridge to •make a gentleman of him.’ A term or two later the father journeys south to sec for himself how the mysterious process us going on, and, because lie is Lancashire and shrewd, ho soon realises that the place in which he finds himseli is sadly in need of repairs beyond the obvious ones of bricks and mortar, ami bo returns home convinced that Die real question is not how to make a gentleman of Arthur, hut how to make an efficient and useful institution or Oxford or Cambridge. “ When Henry Ford visited Oxford a week or so ago lie exactly ton minutes in contemplation of tlic cnanbling relics, mental and 1 physical, of medievalism, and then demanded to be shown tho noarcs,t way lo Cowley and tho twentieth century. Dreaming spires do not impress men whoso bread depends on smoking chimneys. “ Lancashiro and Yorkshire have, in short, realised that in a new world Oxford and Cambridge are simply ceasing to matter. They arc jailing behind in° tho rare. “‘All this,’ tho Oxford or Cambridge man will say, ‘ simply means that these northern barbarians know nothing about real culture, and care less.’ Rubbish. There is a keeggr and more critical appreciation of good music in Manchester than in any other town in England; in Liverpool to-day there is being built .the noblest example of modern architecture in the country; of the few London theatres even remotely connected with intelligent drama the most notable this season has been the Court, where Sir Barry Jackson and his Birmingham Repertory Company have Helped, to make the English theatre a little less despicable in the eyes of ihe rest of Europe.

RIVLAUY OF THE NORTH. “The only thing which Oxford and Cambridge mean to the man in the street is a boat race! In the north our sense of proportion keeps athletics in their place, and the result is significant; it is necessary to bring teams from Lancashire and Yorkshire respectively to play in the Association football final of all England. Oxford. however, is still supremo at pingpong. “ When a man has spent _tne first twenty-two yours’ of his life in receiving instruction at the expense, nil imatoly, of the community something more is expected of him than a conical outlook on life, a drawl, and a bizarre taste in trousers. “Ju the workshops and factories ol the industrial north there are everywhere men and women who have passed through the technical schools el the universities of Manchester or Liverpool, Leeds or Sheffield. “They have enough of the humanities to enable them to live and enjoy their lives to the full, to be keenly appreciative of the beauties, as well as the difficulties, of the modern world, and in addition they arc experts in a world in which experts matter.’' The author indulges in a little lyric of contentment; over northern aloofness : “ After a runaway beat race the ancient homes of learning hurl poets and statesmen, warriors and diplomatists st one another's heads; brawn is woighco against brain. "“And through it all the dreaming spires continue to dream, the Cam continues to flow, ami ilie north remains calm. “The imivor.dties ol Munchestci Mid Liverpool, of Leeds. Sheffield, and Birmingham are not riven, the eager stream of their activities is undollectcd. Hero is none to argue with I hem whether Oxford or Cambridge is going down bill; from the angle of Manchester or Liverpool this is a fact beyond argument.”