RHODES SCHOLARS

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 November 1944, Page 6

RHODES SCHOLARS

RESULT OF A “GREAT IDEA.”

Cecil Rhodes had one thing Jn common with Adolf Hitler: the time he allowed for the development of his “great idea!” but while Hitler put his trust in the forces of cruelty ana oppression by which to maintain his thousand years of new ( order in Europe, Rhodes—while he, 'too, set a term of a thousand years to his plan for the development and destiny of the British race—put his faith in the beneficent influence of education and culture and mutual understanding. “I contend that we are the first race in the world,” he wrote, “and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race . . ■ added to this, the absorption of the greater part of the world under one rule- simply means the end of all wars.”

To implement this vast programme, comments a writer in the Melbourne “Age,” Rhodes strove to kindle in every part of the Englishspeaking world a flame of devoted fellowship ana untiring perseverance in the minds of picked students, who would derive from Oxford the continuous stream of British idealism and so disseminate .it throughout the world. It was a gigantic dream, and not without results even greater than Rhodes himself could imagine, tor it was said by the head of an Oxford House that the remarkable resuscitation of the essential Oxford after the first World War was in no small measure due to the stimulating influence of the large number of Rhodes Scholars who then went into residence. Thus have they given to Oxford, as well as benefited from her, a reciprocal influence which would further have rewarded the tired mind of the great man who on his death-bed cried: “So little done! So much to do!”

After forty years of operation, the results of the “great idea” can be seen in former Rhodes Scholars distinguished in many walks of life in the world. Up to 1940' they aggregated 2190; about half British and half American, not including the German scholarships. Sixty-two of this number were killed in the last war; 17 have so far been lost in this war, while 135 have died from natural causes; The rest have entereS almost every avocation of civil life, although by far the largest single group has been claimed by education, either in universities or schools. Twenty presidents of universities and colleges attest their worth. At Harvard alone there are seven full professors, and eight instructors or tutors.

At Oxford itself there are the Dean of Christ Church ’and four professors. “It is interesting,” writes C. K. Allen, Warden of Rhodes House, Oxford, “to find that in Australia Rhodes Scholars preside over five of the principal public schools.” Altogether, the group of Rhodes Scholars who have entered lhe vocation of education numbers between 600 and 650, and many of them have reached positions of considerable eminence.

This is in keeping with the genius nf Rhodes’s life; for while he was a dynamic man of action, the lure of fcnolarship was at the back of his mind. He was twenty when he returned from Africa to study at Oxford. in 1873, and had already made up his mind that wealth was essential to his purposes. He did not distinguish himself at. the University; it might well have been wondered what this ambitious ‘and unusual young man from South Africa was deriving from his academic life. Perhaps the explanation is to be found in the object as expressed in his will . . . . “instruction in life and manners.” This resolute, practical man believed there was more in life than just living and striving.; there was a habit of mind to be obtained.

The next largest group, between 400 and 450, is in the lav/, where judges, King’s Counsel and .many other distinguished men stand high in their profession; the Assistant At-torney-General of the United States and the Chief Justice of Victoria are Rhodes scholars. BUSINESS REALM Although, as C. K. Allen points out, the scholarships cannot yet boast a millionaire, a fairly large number of scholars have risen in the realm of business, while in the realm of literature their writings have been extremely numerous—a bibliography compiled in 1932 of the writings of American Rhodes Scholars alone ran to 453 volumes. Rhodes, in his “great idea,” laid much stress on what he called “the performance of public duties,” which the trustees interpreted as the sense of responsibility and public spirit which alone can make a man useful in his particular community. Here again the record gives substance to the dream. Six British Rhodes Scholars have been knighted for public services. Many have entered the Colonial Service, In America nearly 150 are employed in Washington or on administrative posts abroad. Fifteen are engaged on post-war problems. At the present time eleven are members, in different capacities, of the Canadian war administration. Lieut-Colonel Sir- Edmund Herring (Victoria and New Collge, 1912), who was in command of the Australian. forces in New Guinea until his appointment to the Bench, held the highest, command in the field among Rhodes Scholars.

A distinguished personality very much in the public eye at the moment is Sir Howard Florey, the Adelaideborn scientist and co-discoverer of penicillin. He went to Oxford as South Australian Rhodes Scholar ir--1921, and since 1935 has been Professor of Pathology at the Oxford University. Mr Allen’s assertion that “they count, for something in the Englishspeaking world, and are likely to do so increasingly in the next chapter of history, when the concert of Anglo-Saxon policy must be the mainspring of peace and progress for all civilisation,” appears to be justified,

The will which made possible the actualisation of Rhodes’s “great idea” was the seventh and last of a series he had made through his life. He was not much over twenty when, travelling in an ox-waggon at 15 or 20 miles a day, he spent his time meditating on it. “It was his distinction,” writes W. T t . Stead, “to be the first of the new dynasty of money kings . . . if he- used the market he did so in order to secure the means of achieving political ends . . Rhodes told Lord Rosebery that when he was alone or in uncongenial society. “I shut my eyes and think of my great idea . . . It is the pleasantest companion I have.” When, however, the legal instrument came to operate it was found to be imperfectly drawn. But in spite of the difficulties the trustees have experienced they have developed the scheme broadly along the lines intended by the great founder. In 1901—after he had met the Kaiser—Rhodes added a codicil to the will to include five annual German scholarships. These were discontinued at the outbreak of the last war, and revived in 1929 at the rate of two a year. Distributed more or less equally between the British Empire and America, there is a maximum of 69 scholarships a year. As most of these are held for three years it \means that there are 200 Rhodes Scholars at Oxford. These are distributed through the various v.'l’.c-0.-. romivo £409 a year by

which to support themselves, and are chosen for their personal ■ and academic record, based on confidential testimonials and an interview with a committee of from five to seven persons, a majority of whom are former Rhodes Scholars. There are 85 such interviewing bodies, 56 in the United States alone, and they do their work voluntarily. When these selections have been made they must be confirmed by the trustees. Athletics as well as scholarship is taken into consideration, it being Rhodes's view that the men should be no “mere bookworms,” and in such balanced men are to be found many of the future leaders of the race.