Oxford Days

Frederic Edward Weatherly

Frederic Edward Weatherly

Oxford Days or How Ross Got His Degree

PREFACE

“Oxford Days” is not shaped on the lines of either Verdant Green or Tom Brown at Oxford. Its purpose, rather, is to furnish a practical guide to all the features of University life; but it has been thought that, by adopting the narrative form, the dry bones of a handbook may be made to live.

В В В В Oxford, 1879.

CHAPTER I

GONE TO OXFORD

There was a long discussion between the Vicar of Porchester and Mr. Ross, the lawyer, as they walked together after evening service to the vicarage. Frank Ross was just eighteen, the eldest of six brothers. He was still at school, but it was time for him to go to the University. Oxford had been chosen—not from any notion of superiority to Cambridge, but simply because of school and home associations. The difficulty was the choice of a college. The vicar—a well-to-do bachelor—an old Eton and Christ-Church man, advised his own college. But Mr. Ross was frightened. “Christ-Church” to him had ever been a terror, and meant waste of time and money, in the shape of cards, drink, and horse-flesh; and all the vicar’s eloquence could not shake his unfounded prejudice. The result of the discussion was that Mr. Ross decided to write to a friend at Oxford, settled there as a “coach;” and also to Mr. Rickards, a country doctor, with a family larger even than his own. The doctor’s answer was as follows:—

“Dear Ross,—My boy is going to Brasenose: at least, he goes up in May to try for a close scholarship. I can give you no advice, as I know nothing about the place. I sent him to the Hereford Cathedral School by a fluke some years ago; and as there are scholarships and exhibitions from the school to Brasenose, I am saved the difficulty of choosing a college.

    “Yours truly,

    “W. Rickards.”

The vicar explained that a “close” scholarship was, like other scholarships, a sum of money paid annually for four or five years as a prize, but differed from them in being confined to competition among boys from certain schools; and that the value of them varied from 45l. to 80l. per annum, part being paid in money, and part made up in allowances in the way of diminished fees. The letter from the “coach” was more valuable:—

“Dear Mr. Ross,—So much depends on your son’s abilities, your own means and wishes, that I cannot answer your question as to the best college, off-hand. I think I may assume that you do not want him to spend more money than is absolutely necessary; and possibly that you would wish him to �go in for honours’ instead of taking a Pass Degree, that is, offering the smallest possible number of subjects for examination. I need hardly say that a high degree in honours opens the way to a Fellowship, or at any rate to good masterships in schools; and is, in fact, a distinct help, directly and indirectly, not only in educational, but in all professions.

“It is far better for a lad to go to a good college, even though he is unable to obtain a scholarship or any other college endowment, than to go to an inferior college, where he may succeed in getting pecuniary assistance. To illustrate what I mean: I believe, in the long run, it would be wiser to send your son as a commoner to Balliol than as a scholar to Wadham. If, from a pecuniary point of view, you do not care for him to get a scholarship, nor want him to read for honours, and are not particular as to whether he spends 300l. or 500l. a year (or even more), I should send him to Christ-Church, Brasenose, Exeter, or University. The first two especially were in my day emphatically popular colleges, and I believe are so still. But I would not send him to either unless you are fully prepared for the amount of expenditure which I have named. Possibly you might like our only denominational college—Keble. He would be most carefully looked after in every way, and his expenses kept within a fixed limit. The War