Education: Pinkerton Academy

It has become the fashion for critics of higher education in the U. S. to point with pride to Oxford, whether they have ever been there or not, as the archetype of all that is liberal and humanistic in a university. Nor is the comparison without color on many academic counts. On the social side, however, much is left unsaid. On Oxford’s rule-books stand many quaint restrictions hanging over from the crabbed past—curfew hours, the wearing of gowns (however abbreviated and however disreputably tattered), places to be seen in and not to be seen in, absence from town and other critical matters. Last fortnight a little grey pamphlet made its appearance in Oxford, containing many of these old rules, resurrected from ancient domesday books and dusted off, or written freshly to meet modern conditions. The booklet was entitled Memorandum on the Conduct and Discipline of Junior Members of the University (i.e., undergraduates) and set forth:

That students might not attend public race meetings or public subscription dances.

That severe penalties attached to visiting public bars or “loitering” on public streets, at coffee stalls or the stage doors of theatres.

That to engage a motor vehicle for longer than an hour, or proceed in one more than five miles from Oxford, or fly in an airplane, was fractious.

That men and women undergraduates must not exchange visits, go on hikes or rides together (except by permission and with “at least two women in the party”), or otherwise seek each other’s society freely.

That male undergraduates might not, on pain of going without food, enter the dining halls attired in “what are vulgarly termed Oxford bags” (sloppy grey trousers) or other “unseemly” apparel.

To all of which the rather unrepresentative and in fact unique undergraduate magazine, Isis, made reply: “Oxford University has become a Pinkerton academy* and we are children indeed.” The authorities were accused of having overdeveloped their humor or behaved like the mistresses of a Victorian girl’s school.

“Women,” railed Isis, “are segregated with as much care as in a Turkish harem and a man who has any female friends is viewed with suspicion.”

This last lament contained food for thought. It was a genuine lament; many an Oxonian would feel injured, if only in principle, by fresh curtailment of his freedom to be with Oxoniennes. But many another Oxonian—for Oxford’s flower, full-blown these many centuries, is here and there wilted to a decadence unknown in U. S. universities, as yet—would shrug and smile secretly to think that in their concern for the conduct of mixed company in Oxford, the authorities had continued to disregard well-known practices among athletes and poets, dons, esthetes and choir boys.

Notes

Amherst. Hinting that he was fatigued with age, George Daniel Olds, 73, President since 1924 of Amherst College, last week resigned. Kindly, gentle, popular, he had several times been acting president of Amherst before, also Dean (1909-22). His election to his definite presidency was as immediate successor to Alexander Meiklejohn, tempestuous radical, who now teaches in the University of Wisconsin.

As everyone knows, President Coolidge is an alumnus of Amherst. He is also a close personal friend of retiring Dr. Olds, whose first year of teaching at Amherst (Mathematics) coincided with the matriculation there of Mr. Coolidge. “Coolidge for President!” cried some alumni last week.

Octagonal. The University of Pennsylvania last week sounded a novel note in U. S. collegiate architecture. Designs for its new auditorium, seating 2,500, have been changed to octagonal perpendicular Gothic, of solid yet soaring effect, somewhat ecclesiastical, topped by a gossamer-thin spire which rises sharp from the pointed apex of a central square tower.

Wheels. Two schools on wheels are about to roll through Canada, according to announcement just made by Ontario’s Minister of Education. Specially equipped railway cars will penetrate remote districts, pausing a week for instruction in classrooms fitted on board; will assign home work, roll on, return every five weeks.

Campus Character. George E. Tinker, operator of Jimmie’s Lunch nearby the Harvard Yard, won a bet from two Harvard undergraduates last week. They presented him with a quart of gin, bet he could not drink it down. He won, fell under the counter in agony, died later without naming the losers.

Closed Forum. No shadow of aspersion shall be cast on the Volstead Law by South Dakota’s colleges, according to despatches last week from Dakota Wesleyan University and Northern State Teachers’ College. Debate teams will not be groomed to argue modification, but only enforcement.

“Pullman’s Pride,” 3.7-pound White Leghorn hen, went to Washington State Agricultural College, where she learned to eat standard college laying-rations. Last week she laid her 337th egg in 365 days, nearly a world’s record.*

* Attended by the young ladies of Thackeray’s Vanity Fair.

*The University of British Columbia has an academic hen which laid 348 eggs in a year, the record (TIME, Nov. 8).