Academick miscegenation
Mercurius Oxoniensis
Good brother Londiniensis, It grieves me to have missed you on your late (unannounced) visit to Oxon, but alas! 'twas an ill-chosen day, for my brethren and I were that afternoon all close pent in our college conclave, earnestly debating the great topick of today, viz: whether, after so many ages, we shall or shall not open our gates to women also, and thus ruine the poor women's colleges, so painfully establish'd amongst us. Truly, a college, like Nature herself, abhors a void, and if one folly ceases, another will quickly usurp its place. Our modern dons, it seems, so love to yield that if the young men cease from pushing 'em about, they must needs be push'd by the young women. But enough of generalities: I will now give you a succinct and true history of the whale matter.
The first college to raise this quaere was New coll., an antient foundation which, having for six hundred years been the cozy nest of the Wykehamicall brethren, has by now taken both shape and tinct from the regular succession of those pink, conformable bottoms. There, some years past, this idea was first put forth, and being canyass'd busily round the nest, was, by a plurality of chirrups (especially of the young fledglings), at last agreed upon; but before it could be realiz'd, behold! what with an untimely death here, and a sudden repentance there, and their Warden, Sir William Hayter, the coryphaeus of the Wykehamicall party, opposing it, as not yet approved by the Party headquarters of the Elect, the previous vote was suddenly overturn'd and all that gallant project vanish'd in smoak. Whereupon in other coils too the few faint squeaks which had been utter'd died down, and the fanatiques then beginning to shout, our brethren hastily turn'd about and offer'd to yield to them instead.
But now that the fanatiques in their turn are silent (rather by their own exhaustion than our firmness), that old animall cry for Women •has been raised again, and whence should it first issue but once again from New coll., where, some new eggs having hatch'd in the interim, and Master Warden, on advice from the Garden Suburb, or some such place, having wheel'd about, by one vote (being that of the Junior Fellow), that inconstant college has legally decided to change its statutes, and its customs, and to adjust its architecture, and half-fill itself with girls.
When the tide is turned back in Newcollege lane (a narrow funnel), be sure that the reflux will be felt in Broad-street, and then 'tis garde a reau in my quiet backwater of Turd-street. Good Lord, what swirling of stinking waters we have had these last weeks! First the deluge hit Lincoln coll, would now enter a brave new worthy Rector, Master Oakeshott, was at that time on leave of absence, among his books and manuscripts, of which he is a great virtuoso; of whose absence the withit gang in the college took uncivil advantage, pushing through their plot in great haste, by a simple plurality of voices; after which they wasted not their time in telling their Rector, but ran straight up to Grubstreet, in an ecstasy, hooting all the way, and thence shouted to the world that Lincoln coll. would now enter a brave new world, with community of women, etc. etc.; which, they said, would vastly enliven that place, if gay girls could be persuaded to enter it. Which the Rector, reading it for the first time in the publick prints, over a poach'd egg on toast, took mightily ill, and forthwith resigned his office, and left 'em to shift for themselves, as graceless cattle not deserving a civill herdsman.
Lincoln coll, being thus a-wash, how can its neighbour Exeter coll., being contiguous to it, escape the inundation? Those who pass down Turl-street, in punts and gondolas, report strange noises within that place. 'Tis said that there too the with-it gang have prevail'd and that thence too the Rector has been driven out, as Antediluvian, Antipodean, and other ill names, and has slipp'd away in a privy launch, disguis'd as a college scout. If that be true (which most doubt), Jesus coll, alone in that street preserves its antient monarchy; but from that coll. I have no certain news, not speaking Welsh.
Meanwhile the Flood of Folly has warped up Broad-street to BMliol coll., and roll'd out of Turl-street into High-street, where it laps the northern shoar of Oriel coll, and has even flowed through the gothique gates of Magalen coll. The last bulletins tell me that in Balliol coll. it has been stemm'd, the men of sense there having at last grown weary of the juncto that has ruled 'em so long, and having been rallied by the eloquence of Master Cobb, the forman Ranter, who (I forgot to tell you) is now reform'd, and a great preacher of orthodoxy from pulpits throughout the land; and there is more rejoicing over a sinner that repenteth, etc. etc. In Magdalen coll. I hear that our sex has been saved by the two votes of their worthy President (a bachelour). As for Oriel coll., I know not what happens there, and perhaps 'tis little matter; for though it be swallow'd up and drown'd, yet behind it stand those three solid breakwaters of Christ-church, Corpus Christi coll., and Merton coll, against which many a moonstruck tide has lashed in vain.
And indeed perhaps even now the first force of the flood is spent. For now that men have had occasion to look around, and survay the damage, there have been (as it seems) some second thoughts; and first of all in Lincoln coll., where the folly had risen to such height. For after the with-it gang there had boasted of their triumph, and chas'd out their Rector, they learned, somewhat late, what they should have known long ago, and what any man fit to be a governour of a college could have told 'em, viz: that their vote was invalid, being by a simple plurality of voices, whereas the law of the land requires that no college statute be changed save by the vote of two parts in three of the Fellows voting. So they were forced to put the matter to the vote again, and this time lost it, and so are made ridiculous; but New coll., it seems, the sole originator of this project, is still resolv'd to push on with it, and that briskly, Master Warden (mutatus Curio) being resolv'd that it shall be cornpleated in his reign, that he may leave some worthy exploit to be remember'd by.
But now you will ask, by what arguments are men sway'd in these great debates on Women? To which I must answer that neither in this nor in any other matter are dons sway'd by rationall arguments; but there are certain well-tried slogans which serve to rally 'em for the battle. Thus, 'tis said by some that women were created by God to be a temptation and a snare to men (as Eve, Jezebel, etc.), and though tolerated, as a necessary evil, for the purpose of procreation (subject to the rules of the Church), should be kept out of cloisters, clubs, colleges, etc. as a danger to moral's; to which it is reply'd by others that, on the contrary, women are rationall beings who have too long been enslav'd and should now be set free and admitted into all places indifferently, and wear the breeches, and rule the roast, and determine all things by their superior wisdom. And in some dim coils, where the boys, being naturally dull or indifferently taught, get but third class degrees, 'tis said that such a change will miraculously cure that fault: for instead of hard disciplines, as philosophy, mathematiques, chymistry, etc., the girls will all read English (an easy school, to which that sex flock, like starlings), and get second class degrees in it (as all do), which will mightily elevate the reputation of such poor colleges; which conclusion, how rationall it is, I leave to your judgment.
But if you ask my verdict in this matter, it is this: that Oxon has these many years been a university for both men and women, who are divided, for convenience, by colleges; and that to change it into a set of mix'd colleges, divided inwardly by quadrangles, or dormitories, is a purposeless fragmentation, clean contrary to the movement of the times (which require larger, not smaller bodies, for convenience of oeconomy and government), and not worth the cost of it, or the necessary adjustment of the lavatories. And further, I observe that colleges are ever in need of money, and some are even now appealing to their old members, for vast summs, which those old members may perhaps give to the colleges that they remember; but whether they will give 'em to newmodell'd girls' schools which they can no longer recognise as the places in which they had their education, is a question.
Howsoever, there remains one generall lesson from this last deluge of academick folly: which is, that Fellows of colleges have at last discover'd a ready and easy way to remove Heads out of colleges; of which all Heads must now take notice, and especially such as take leave of absence. And indeed I hear that our old friend Master Warden Sparrow is even now hurrying back to the Old-soules' club, whence he too had retir'd, with the permission of the Club, to devote himself to matters of high publick concernment. For you must know that after his great victory in Oxon, whereby he will now banish all stinking motor-cars from Radcliffe Square, his zeal has been mightily quicken'd, and he has now transported himself to Venice, full of publick spirit, being resolv'd to purge that exquisite city of an even greater nuisance, viz: dogs, of which he complains (see his grave letter to your London Times) that, being by law muzzled at one end only, they are, in that city, 'disgusting engines of pollution ': a harsh phrase, which I can hardly bring my pen to write, seeing my own two comfortable old basset-hounds, Dactyl and Spondee, quietly snoring on my hearth-rug. But whether Master Warden's eloquence will prove as powerful with the Grand Council of that city as it has done with our Congregation in Oxon, is a question which I must leave suspended, lest I become taedious; and so I bid you farewell, subscribing myself Your loving friend Mercurius Oxoniensis P.S. The poor fanatiques are now sunk so low that they have held but one great rally this term, and that only to declare their detestation of a pack of innocent beagles. 'Tis pity Master Warden is not back to be reconcil'd at last with his old enemies in common detestation of the canine race.
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