ALMA MATER TERTIA [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
S1R,—The suggestion by Dr. Wells, on retiring from the Vice-Chancellorship at Oxford, that more colleges are wanted there, was, we may safely assume, then made for the first time ex cathedra or perhaps at all in a long story. Hitherto, in our unique Universities, colleges have grown and have not been made. We cannot imagine their springing up in obedience to a scheme like County Council houses. The experiments of the sort, almost commercial, which haVe been tried, have been failures. An English college is a work of art and cannot be turned out like a Ford car.
But why only colleges ? Why not a new University ? A new Oxbridge (if we may be flippant with Thackemy) ? It must he ancient, from the start, so to say : that is the one thing necessary—a colony, an apoikia, an understudy, a microcosm —what you will—of Oxford, but standing on the old ways and no other. What is wanted is not a bigger Teaching Stores, there arc lots of provincial Universities and to spare—perhaps, not to spare. Their tuition is excellent, but the one thing necessary is wanting, the secret of Oxford (and Cambridge), which it :took centuries to discover, viz. : association, living together in one abode. It is idle to tell the youths who want to settle on Isis (or Cam) that they can go to the Mersey or the Ship Canal. What they want is to bathe in tradition and they cannot do it in those waters.
Oxford (and Cambridge) have long been congested areas : Probably there are as many undergraduates living in lodgings as in the home of their, .soeiety which was built and endowed for their reception ; what. would the magnanimous founders say ? And, as Dr.. Wells naturally remarked on the same topic, there are too many " undergraduettes " in Oxford. Long before. he spoke with authority, it had been said= without—" The evil is aggravated by the crowds of women who besiege the two Capitols." The present writer has no doubt whatever that when the evil becomes intolerable the first alleviation will be gained by sweeping the women out of Oxford—whither they never- should have come—into a new academic world of their own and the expatriated men will take • their halls. For' our new University must be male—it must recover that much of the Middle Ages when Oxford and Cambridge were at their best—or even of the early nineteenth century. Its only right' to exist will be its ancientry—that is, a deliberate attempt to create consciously what our ascendants did unconsciously-when they paid for the building of nurseries ()thigh minds and great characters, with books for instruments. Tillie has added its betterment to these• edifices and their
descendants enjoy an accrued asset, a high social tone, with the experience of centuries behind it. Might not the new University boast " I am an ancestor," as its contribution to ancientry ? But " where is the money to come from " ? It is odd that one feels that the United States are the only country where this question would not be asked. It is not inconceivable —though it cannot honestly be put higher—that the idea might catch on in this country. Building there must be for the men from home and overseas who cannot get into the old historic intellectual haunts. The great exemplars grew from small hostels, sometimes dominated by a central teacher. There was always a river hard by and few distractions. Is it impossible to restore these conditions ? To begin in a small way with the hope of growing in a great one ? Originality is not " played out." With a good start, that is a sufficient endowment, a thinking head and a small band of reading youths, tradition would grow from year to year. We have seen Public Schools founded in our time on " the old lines," and why not a University ? The essence of the proposal is common life under one roof, not in competition with but in imitation of the old models. They have, it seems, reached the limits of their capacity : indeed, the huge aggregations of buildings which have grown up around them have made them the mainsprings of large towns, whereas they ought to be the ornaments of small ones. With our growing population it is certain that more residential Universities will be needed in the future. The chief obstacle is, of course, money, but the race of enlightened benefactors, open to new ideas, is not extinct. —I am, Sir, &c., C.
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