The Oxford Degree Ceremony. By J. Wells. (The Clarendon Press.
1s. 6d. net.)—Mr. Wells has taken sundry books, among which he specially recognises Dr. Rashdall's " Universitios•of the Middle Ages" and Mr. Andrew Clark's "Register of the University of Oxford," and, so to speak, " boiled down " their learning into a very agreeable and digestible dish. Commemo- ration, the occasion on which the outside world commonly sees the degree ceremony, looks very modern, but it really is full of survivals. There is nothing done that cannot claim a more than respectable antiquity. It is true that the degrees which are con- ferred at the Encaenia are more or less show. The " D.C.L." is given to all kinds of people who have nothing to do with law, civil or other. But the whole affair is redolent of antiquity. As Mr. Wells puts it, " the charm of Oxford lies in the fact that her youth is at home among survivals, historic, theological, and academical ; and the old survives, while the new flourishes." The road which brings the M.A. of to-day to his degree lies along fresh woods and pastures now, but there are the old signs by the wayside and at the halting-places. We see that Mr. Wells rejects the old legend of "plucking,"—the unpaid creditor "plucking" at the Proctor's gown. But he does not really explain what a prince among Oxford humourists calls "the boding Constellation of the Plough."
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