BACK TO THE COLLEGES
By A CAMBRIDGE TUTOR
THE last fortnight has opened a new era in the life of both our ancient residential Universities—the era of post-war problems in their most. acute form. Pntil now science students— engineers, physicists, medicals—have predominated among the much- reduced ranks of undergraduates. "Art students," as they have been christened by the Ministry of Labour, consisted only of the very young, the decrepit, and the female sex : and "Arts," we must remember, included all studies save the most highly technical and utilitarian of the sciences, so that mathematics, geography, economics and such-like suffered no less than the humanities. Now, thanks to new facilities for the deferment of " Arts " students, and to the release of scholarship-holders from the Forces . and from civilian employment under Class B, the balance of population among under- graduates has been suddenly redressed. Total numbers in residence have risen by a high proportion, as yet unknown, but probably some 40-50 per cent.
This first post-war term will therefore be a crucial one in the development of both Oxford and Cambridge. The immediate reper- cussions are on the colleges. Throughout the Long Vacation since V-J Day governing bodies have been feverishly planning to house, feed and teach a body of young men about whose number little was known except that it would be large, and that it would continually increase, as men secured release or the awards which would ensure them deferment. College buildings, but lately emptied of Govern- ment departments or armed forces, needed repair, redecoration, clean- .ing and refurnishing to an extent which was virtually impossible because of labour-shortage. Teaching staff and domestic staff have gained release much more slowly than the students, so that colleges face the present term with severe strain on staffs already tired after their preparations for term, and still depleted in numbers—in some instances with even fewer than in the summer, because married women formerly prepared to work pan-time have now left to rejoin their husbands. Most college kitchens, offices and butteries are now recon- ciled to a term of extreme difficulty in the hope that by January more help may be available ; though whether the ever-increasing return of students will outrun the arrival of domestic staff remains to be seen. The normal annual entry of students, pent up for six years in most subjects, is now beginning to flow back to the Uni- versities. And it is only beginning ; October next year may well be the peak-period for total numbers.
This term brings, too, a new and important phenomenon, the ex-Service freshman of any age between twenty. and twenty-five. Most students who won awards or secured entrance in the war- years were granted no deferment. They now begin their University careers with three to six years of military or administrative experi- ence. Most men willing to face three further years of study arc keen. To a man they are intensely glad and eager to take up serious study again. But they are also anxious and a little impatient. They feel that they have forgotten everything they learned at school, and fear they may even have forgotten how to cope with academic work. That fear will go in a few weeks perhaps, when they find that lectures, books and classes do sometimes recall familiar things. But a certain anxiety will remain, for being intelligent and often hard- bitten young men they sense the competitiveness of life in the post- war years. The fact that nearly all are men with scholarships accentuates the atmosphere of earnest purpose ; and anxiety lest
they should not be able to "make the grade" lingers, I think, at the back of many minds. A great responsibility lies on their teachers and tutors to guide this feeling in the direction of that eager pursuit of learning which breathes life and vigour into the social life of Colleges. It can be a grand and exciting life, these next few years, if the men are handled properly.
The position of the youngster of seventeen or eighteen straight from school, who finds himself cheek-by-jowl with these war- veterans merely because he happens to have reached the right age and attainments this year to qualify for deferment, is a little pathetic. He is as self-conscious and shy at first, as such freshmen are wont to be, with the added shyness now that comes from feeling that he has been inordinately lucky. He clings to his contemporaries more closely because he cannot quite cope with the more robust war- reminiscences of the "new phenomenon." Here again, is something which calls for great tact on the part of his teachers and even more wisdom than usual from tutors and domestic staff alike.
The position and social habits of the women students—always in a minority at both Oxford and Cambridge and in a greater minority at Cambridge than at Oxford—will also be affected by these new conditions. Women students and their Colleges have been through less of an upheaval than the men. The age-level has altered little. Relations between the women students and colleagues con- siderably older in years and experience will be different from those of pre-war years: how much different, and in what respects different, remain to be seen.
There is one particular problem which seems likely to confront most tutors, that of the young man who has resolved during nis war-service to seek from the University not that liberal education which Oxford and Cambridge provide so well, nor that genial attain- ment of the cultured and well-stocked mind which most still vain:. so highly, but merely enough information and technical ability, or even the necessary paper qualification, to give him the flying start he now feels he needs in the quest for good, jobs when he goes down. There have always been such men, though they were not usually the men who held scholarships in the humanities. Now there are quite a number of them—young men in a hurry, brusque and somewhat ostentatiously utilitarian and materialistic in con- versation, and only slightly less so in outlook. One sign is their desire to change from Classics or History to Economics, Law, or even Engineering; to study only the most modern of historical subjects and only the most serviceable of modern languages. They arc minority, and they will be an unhappy minority until the atmosphere of our ancient Universities gets into their bones. But tired and overworked teackers and tutors will have to work hard to infect them with a more liberal spirit.
I have written only DE first impressions, and mainly of the most striking problems. It would be misleading to suggest that these first impressions are complete, or that the problems outnumber th.: joys and satisfaction of the first post-war term. The Universities have their greatest opportunity since 1919, and a concentrated col- lection of the finest material that any teacher could hope to 13:: blessed with. And when initial difficulties have been overcome there is every sign of "a good, an extremely good, new year."
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