"UNDERGRADUETTES”

Waipa Post, Volume 32, Issue 1778, 3 July 1926, Page 6

"UNDERGRADUETTES”

iSTRICT RULES AT OXFORD

Young men and, women students are

held very much aloof from one another at Oxford, and, as a consequence, there seems to be a certain degree of a kind of cold animosity between them. This, according to G. Brereton, writing in the Daily Sketch, i s sometimes expressed with college frankness:

Prigs, churls and boors are all terms I have heard applied to Oxford undergraduates in their attitude towards women students, usually styled under - graduettes, he writes. We have, it appears, completely lost all notions of chivalry. When we meet undergrad,u;ettes on the pavement we push them aside into the gutter, we sneer at them in our ’Varsity papers, and instead of going dutifully to dances we go and get drunk in exclusively male society. How much truth is there in this? Very little, of course, and yet I should be the first to admit that the relationship between the two sexes at Oxford is not half so friendly and sociable as it should be. The fault lies partly with the University authorities, and partly with the undergraduettes themselves. There are at Oxford eight hu,ndre girls who have just reached, an age ■when dancing and mild frivolity ought to appear the most interesting things in life, and yet the horizons of seven hundred and fifty of them are bounded by work and hockey. The University, of course, was first founded “for the pursuit of useful studies,” and the women have taken this fact'far more seriously to heart than the men.. They are always to be seen •bicycling to lectures with basketfuls of books on their handlebars. They flock to the libraries in their pursuit of knowledge. If report is to be believed, they rise at unearthly houys in the morning to begin their essays, and sit up late at night finishing them off unless some really finishlectual play draws them to the theatre for the benefit of their minds. Most girls come up to the ’Varsity to qualify as teachers, and one can do nothing but praise them for working hard since they have a serious object

in view. But they ought not to complain when we seem to ignore them and go in for purely “bachelor” amusements. It is rather hard to he either gallant or ungallant to girls whom one never catches a glimpse of except when they are flying breathlessly from lecture to lecture.

The Oxford undergrad, is not by na-

ture ungall’ant. He has in him a strong streak of chivalry which comes ou,t most conspicuously in the vacation and in “Eights” week, when he punts his own and other people’s sisters about on the river. If only he had more opportunities of getting to know undergraduettes he would prove his worth to them. But the difficulties are enough to discourage all but the most determined. The University authorities have seen to that.

(Undergraduettes are only allowed out to tea in pairs. A slight departure was made recently from the mid-Vic-

torian attitude of those Avho conti ol our destinies, and a grim and hideouslooking chaperon is no longer sary.But two undergraduettes there must be, arid if there are fewer than two you are breaking the rules, monsieur et madame, and are liable to he “sent doWn.”

This is not the only restriction. Undergraduettes have to be safe in their colleges by 11 p.m. Ehch women’s college is allowed, I believe, to give one dance a year, which must finish at tAvelve. Undergraduettes are not supposed to be seen in the company of men during the morning hours. Last term a certain popular cafe, where the careworn Oxonian goes to •brace himself with coffee before tottering home to lunch, Avas raided by the proctors, and, those detected in the crime of sitting at a table with a member of the opposite sex were punished with suitable fines. At the theatre a certain part of the house is reserved for undergraduettes, another for undergrads. We are put into separate pens like sheep and

goats. The crowning triumph of the authorities Avas the invention of a hideous black four-cornered cap, which all Avomen who attend lectures are obliged to wear.

No! Oxford is not ungallant. It contains three thousand young men ready to throw themselves at the feet of any pretty girl Avho appears. It is only force of circumstances Avhick makes them seem unsociable.