A VICE-CHANCELLOR'S VOYAGE.*
THE Vice-Chancellor, who disguises himself not at all opaquely as "A. E. S.," made in the autumn of 1918 a tour of a very large number of American Universities and Colleges, seeing not only every type of educational institute, but quite a number of each, type. Some of his gleanings are harvested in this little book, very brightly and light-heartecliy written. No doubt he took his task seriously, as a member of the British University Mission; and perhaps he may favour British educators with the result of his investigations, set forth with the proper donnish austerity. But here we have A. E. S." with his gown off, sitting in his shirt-sleeves, with a Morning Glory in a tumbler at his elbow, and a Wheeling Stogie between his lips, talking with a pleasant humour, sometimes nicely acidulated, about what he has heard and seen.
He does not disdain newspaper headlines. We do not remem- ber any with a sharper American tang than that put upon the capture of Nazareth in a Southern journal—" British Capture Christ's Home Town." Another of a more personal nature was—" British Educators Visit Newcomb with Dinwiddie. ' Tubbing ' is Part of Britishers' Preliminaries for Tour of City." The Vice-Chancellor fills nearly two pages of small print with the daily menu of " a thoroughly comfortable hotel" in Toronto. Perhaps he does this to emphasize the unconscious irony of the announcement which follows shortly after a list of eight different kinds of cheese : that guests ought to consider the needs of Great Britain and the Allies, by eating as little as possible of wheat, beef, bacon, and food," and by avoiding waste.
There are some excellent samples of negro humour. One soldier, describing the effects of big shells, said that when he was about to enter a saloon in France a shell came "and tuk it right out o' ma hand." One who wanted to leave barracks without a pass, in the South, explained to the sentry : "Boss, It- ain't no sort o' use you stan'in' dere, 'cause I gwine out. I got a maw in Hebben, an' a pa in Hell, an' a sister in Memphis, and I gwine see one of 'em dis night."
Westward, as the ship cleared Rathlin, the Vice-Chancellor was reassured by an elderly steward—" You don't 'urry, Sir, you don't 'urry, there's always plenty of time." Fie had been torpedoed seven times. A younger steward, with a shorter list of sinkings, was rather disconcerting. "Well, this is about the place they generally gets me."
We need hardly say that the Vice-Chancellor tested to the
full the pleasures of American academic hospitality, which is surpassed by no other section of a nation very friendly to strangers. The guest suggests its warmth by citing in his closing pages the story about the padre with a past; who insisted on talking of his evil life to a blue-eyed subaltern. "I veritably believe I am the wickedest man in France." "Yes, Sir," said the boy, "but you must remember what a deuce of a good time you have had."
The Vice-Chancellor is not overawed by Mr. Ford, whose works are on a large scale, the workmen receiving fl a day :— "In addition their morals are carefully scrutinised. A woman
• The Voyaye of a iate-caanceuor. By A. R. S. Cambridge. at the Uni- versity Press. fes. net.1 cannot give her husband a black eye without Mr. Ford being 'phoned up, and he at once adjusts the domestic difference. . . . Mr. Ford is now out to win the war, and he has voluntarily and unostentatiously cut down his own income to what must be almost starvation rate for a multi-millionaire. I forget to how many hundred thousand pounds he reduced his annual income."
"A. E. S." was in Chicago when the Armistice news was confirmed. The city went mad and murdered sleep. "An elderly divine, who took part in these nocturnal celebrations, told us next morning that quite respectable ladies had put feathers down his neck": he added that after a time "one got quite used to it." The remark of a Bishop on board ship, that there could be no news if there was no one to read it, reminds the traveller of Mr. Knox's Limerick about the subjectiveness of existence.
"A. E. S.," as we have indicated above, had "a deuce of a good time" in the States. We have tried to suggest that his jolliness there is communicated to one reader at least.
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