Correspondence
A Letter from Oxford
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.'
SIR,— On an unusually dry and pleasant Hilary has followed one of the latest, wettest and coldest Trinity terms on record. We usually arrive to find the chestnuts ready to flame into their towers of candelabra. This year we have had the advantage of seeing all the stages of spring in and around Oxford, if indeed we have ever braved the cold and flooded fields. Eights week was upon us before the summer, and with the weirs open and l'ort Meadow too deep under water for the usual aeroplane, but offering the sailing man an area he asked for in vain last winter, the Races were almost postponed duna &plat monis, and barges were not moved down to the Greener. But the vitality of Oxford rowing has never given a better lie to insinuations of decadence than by the appearance of fifty-six crews rowing in five divisions, none perhaps of conspicuous, but on the whole of better quality than usual. The honours go easily to Magdalen with the Headship, and thirteen bumps for her three crews.
Eights week was hardly itself without its usual dances; but at least we have not yet economized on music, though the tax-gatherers have raided the Musical Union and mulcted the members of 9d. a term. But Conunem. week, too, will be a solitude niisealled economy, except for one rebel college and a sober festivity of the L.N.U. Ex' icaenia will hardly make up in gaiety by its not very exciting list of honorary degrees. However, Sir Arthur Salter is among them. But it will be noted as the lust appearance on an important official occasion of two valued officers of the University. The Public Orator, Dr. A. B. Poynton, retires after five years of ingenious composition, and will be succeeded by Mr. Cyril Bailey, Fellow of Balliol, elected without contest. The Master of Pembroke, Dr. Homes Dudden, comm to the end of his three years as Vice-Chancellor. His presence of body and mind and his clear and decisive handling of business have been valued by the University in a period in which the most important problem has been the Bodleian Library. The gift of 92,300,000 from the Rockefeller Institute to the Bodleian has been announced already, and the thanks of the University admirably expressed by the Warden of New College. This munificence is princely, but it is conditional on the University's collection of the remaining £377,720.
The work recommended by the Commission has begun, though not outwardly visible. It will be long enough before the new building rises on the Broad and the tunnel is bored under it. Other buildings, however, are rising ; the Taylorian extension in the Giler is barely visible yet, but Sir Giles Scott's new buildings for L.M.II. have already the quiet and discreet air of an English country house into contrast to the older and redder buildings. Near by the dome of the chapel emerges from a net of steel scaffold- ing, Byzantine—or is it a mosque ?
We have had among our distinguished visitors this term Professor Einstein, Student of Christ Church, and Professor Gustav Cassel, the grand old man of economics, as Rhodes Lecturer.
Among undergraduate activities, the most noticeable hat been the October club (October after the then Revolution). Members are required to be interested in Communism, and there are more of them that of any of the other political clubs, but many, of COLLINS, belong to all four ! One Head of a House is said to have donned cap and gown and rent their notices from the board. But more effective is likely to be the visits to Russia which many Oxford men will make this Long Vac.
Our cultural activities have been chiefly the Haydn festival, three concerts and a characteristic oration by Professor Sir Hugh Allen. The German Club celebrated the Goethe centenary with a creditable production of Egmont, and the O.U.D.S. will produce the Oedipus Tyrannus in Greek.
It looks as if Schools would be done in cool and shade this year, but many of the candidates will be cast into a cold world which offers few jobs. We shall miss a few familiar and well-loved figures : one of our last top-hats will follow the retiring Warden cf.' All Souls into Shropshire.—I am, Sir,
YOUR OXFORD CORRESPONDENT.
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