MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOISON
THERE have been times when we have envied, all of us, the lives of dons. How easy and how pleasurable, at those moments when we fall among the thorns of life, appears to us the moss-grown path which leads away from the clangour and the strife of men into the green shadows of an academic grove ! How safe at night-time is the glow of the study lamp, when the fire flickers on the book-shelves and the fat old clock upon the mantelpiece grunts on till midnight ! How intimate become for one the voices of the bells, old voices and young voices, slow voices and quick voices, answering each other hour after hour from the spires ! And how convenient to know in advance that the vacations will recur at their appointed dates and that for a full third of the year one can plan one's voyages and relaxations ! Yet even at those rare moments of lassitude when I long for the slower rhythm, I am conscious that all professions provide to man a similar proportion of drudgery and irksomeness. The amount of pain or pleasure, of combat and worry, which human beings can absorb is fairly evenly distributed ; and I doubt whether the anxiety experienced by those who mould the fate of Empires is really greater in degree than that which will assail the fellows and tutors of a university. I do not seriously desire to pass the months quietly in an arm-chair, watching the ripening of the plums and listening to the bells scanning the passage of time. Indeed the most intolerable of all inevitable ills, the advent of old age, is bitterly emphasised in such cloistered existences ; one becomes as a man leaning for ever over a bridge and watching the gay water stirring the weeds below one and passing on and passing on. Dio and Phaedrus, Lysis and Charmides lose so soon their adolescent sparkle ; their necks, their loins and •even their voices thicken ; one is left alone upon the bridge as the dull dusk gathers ; even the weeds seem blackened and decayed.
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Yet although my regret at not being a don is intermittent rather than constant, although I am aware that dons also are exposed to the asperity of human dissensions, I retain my reverence for the academic way of life and my respect for learning as an end in itself. On the infrequent occasions when I establish contact with the corporate life of a university I derive solace and elation from the slow grandeur of these academic ceremonies. I was present last week at the installation of Dr. Trevelyan as Chancellor of the University of Durham. It was indeed fitting that our greatest living historian should thus be honoured in the cathedral city which guards the tomb of the father of English history. The north-east wind, on that Thursday afternoon, was cold and heavy with Northumbrian clouds, and the amber of the castle and the cathedral was shadowed to a darker hue. Against this sombre background, dwarfed by the vast precipices of the buildings, the thin file of university and civic dignitaries wound two by two towards the enormous portala. Tiny figures they seemed in gold and scarlet, in orange and purple, passing sedate and unhurried from castle to cathedral with only the sound of the slow bells and the high wind to accompany their silence. There- after, in that massive nave, the organ and the anthems thundered, the gentle evensong was celebrated and, between the tomb of St. Cuthbert in the east, and in the west the tomb of Bede, came reverence for the thought and piety of fourteen hundred years. In this angry and distracted age it is in truth a soothing experience to pause for a while and to feel calm gratitude for our traditions. In an age of harsh materialism it is comforting to be reminded that, in a free community, the standards of scholarship remain changeless.
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The University of Durham is a strange and encouraging federa- tion. The old Durham College at (Word, which Mr. John Betjeman has denounced as a " monkish foundation," was suppressed in 1544. Some of the old buildings, and notably the library with its stained glass, have been incorporated into Trinity. For many centuries thereafter Durham remained without a collegiate centre of its own. It was not until the reign of William IV that the existing university was founded, and it was only in comparatively recent times that it expanded to include King's College at Newcastle. This expansion has been astonishing. The students in the two divisions of Durham and Newcastle are today two and a half times more numerous than they were in 1939. At Durham the old collegiate system has been preserved and the students are housed in residential hostels and colleges ; they have the great advantage of possessing two ancient castles, both Durham and Lumley ; the great cathedral and the bells echoing from the hill dominate their hours. At Newcastle, although under the guidance of their present Rector, Lord Eustace Percy, great efforts are being made to create residential centres, the stimulus of social life is provided mainly by the college Union. It is significant that, whereas the young men and women at Durham call themselves " undergraduates," those of Newcastle are content to be termed " students." In theory also the Durham division specialises in theology and the humanities, whereas the Newcastle division is famous for its engineering and medical schools. Yet although there- exists a healthy rivalry between the two branches of the Federation, there also exists a strong and increasing corporate sense. As an example of federal fusion, the co-operation between these two competitive divisions might well be followed by other centrifugal bodies. It shows how much can be accomplished by moderation, modesty and tact.
The main cohesive elements are furnished by intense local patriotism combined with a deep sense of the responsibility towards young and ardent generations of those who teach. " All know- ledge," said Lord Eustace Percy in speaking for his own division, " must be humane " ; the purpose of Newcastle is not merely to train technicians but to teach the good life to boys and girls. The very diversity, the separate specialisations, of the two divisions are so directed as to enhance harmony and not to maintain duality; the aim of the University of Durham is, as Dr. Trevelyan affirmed, not to seek uniformity but to strive for excellence. It was with this in mind that he chose for the lesson which he read at the ever memorable evensong the resonant words of lob 28. Surely the " stones of darkness " now oppress us, and where shall wisdom be found ? " It cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx or the sapphire. . . . The topaz of Ethiopia shall not equai it. . . . Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom ; and to depart from evil is understanding." These jewelled words, pro- nounced in Dr. Trevelyan's powerful voice, rang out across the nave, above the tombs of Bede the scholar, of St. Cuthbert the anchorite. Surely it is true, as Dr. Trevelyan said in his inaugural address, that in an egalitarian society only the universities can maintain a standard of quality. And surely if that quality becomes disregarded, or prostituted for political or social purposes, the human mind will suffer degradation and the heavy clouds, no longer driven by the wind of emulation, will settle immobile, oppressive, dark The two divisions of Durham University, under the wise direction of Sir James Duff and Lord Eustace Percy, and with Dr. Trevelyan as. their revered and authoritative Chancellor, will exercise an ever- increasing influence upon our English education. The southern visitor derives even from a fleeting visit the impression of bracing vitality, of powerful incentive. He returns with a sense of tremen- dous effort fruitfully employed. The difficulties are varied and obstinate, but there is here no scepticism or dismay. The visitor returns to his lax climate invigorated by this stimulating experience and encouraged by the thought that these wise and vigorous men have no doubts at all that they have succeeded and will continue to succeed. Durham assuredly is an antidote to pessimism And with it all remains the memory of sound and colour, of a high wind blowing, of a great institution looking to the past with reverence and to the future without a qualm.
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