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Oxibridge of a bygone area
I have posted items on discipline in Russian and pre-Castro
Cuban schools. My account of the role of bulldogs and proctors at Oxbridge is
dated. George Sassoon said "It can't be so much fun now that all of this
has gone!" Richard Brent comments: "No, it seems I got to Oxford a
few years too late. Now the proctors are more worried about whether academics
keep to the rules in the "Grey Book" (as it is called nowadays) when
setting examinations".
George Sassoon counters: "You might not have thought it so much fun in
the old days if you had been appointed University Proctor! All the dons hated
the job. Myself, I was only "progged" once, when they asked if I was
a senior
member of the university as I exited a pub. Having by then got my MA, I was
able to reply in the affirmative. Being mistaken for an undergrad, I felt was
a compliment, seven years on. Maybe you might like to enlighten Professor Hilton
about the strictures of the Grey Book".
RH: I gather that the Grey Book is similar to the blue books in which American students write their examinations. At Stanford we have the honor code, During examinations the instructor must leave the room. Some claim the system does not work. At Oxford during exams a proctor, a dour man, kept a beady eye on us to make sure that the rules were obeyed. We were given a number so that there could be no charge of favoritism. The main difference between Oxbridge and American universities was that the D. Phil (Ph.D) was scorned as a device to hide a mediocre record. None of the great professors under whom I studied had one. This was once true in US universities until Johns Hopkins imitated the German doctoral system. The faculty of other great universities like Harvard, Yale and Princeton were outraged. There was a heated polemic when Woodrow Wilson, who had studied at Johns Hopkins, established a graduate school at Princeton. I have very mixed feelings about the Ph.D. system. In the oral exams candidates parrot what they have heard in their seminars, and the vast majority of them never do any real research afterwards. The best student I had was so tense in the oral exam that he almost fainted, and one examiner said he should have failed. We passed him summa cum misericordia. He went on to become a distinguished scholar of whom I am especially proud. However, now British universities have adopted the American sequence of degrees, In my days there was a small number of select students. Now Tony Blair proposes that half of young people get higher education. Higher, but inevitably lower.
Oxbridge keeps the old language oddities. "Setting examinations"?
In the US students sit for an examination, or take an exam.
I innocently copied some items I received about Oxbridge language. Paul Preston
protests: "I don't know about Cambridge but, as far as Oxford is concerned,
you are wrong to say 'Oxbridge keeps the old language oddities. "Setting
examinations"? In the US students sit for an examination, or take an exam.'
The oddity is that you sit or take 'schools', not examinations. George Sassoon
says: "Surely it is the examiners who "set" the papers and the
students who "sit" them". RH: Well, being emeritus, I neither
set nor sit them. I just sit.
Paul Preston described the role of bulldogs and proctors at Oxford. George Sassoon
says: "It was the same in my days (and nights) at Cambridge. One don and
two bulldogs prowled the streets by night in search of undergraduates not wearing
gowns after dusk and committing other offences. One of the bulldogs carried
a copy of the University Statutes in Latin on a chain, a heavy brass-bound volume
which it was said he could hurl with unerring accuracy to bring down a running
offender. Fines were in multiples of 6s. 8d., a third of a pound. It can't be
so much fun now that all of this has gone!"
RH: Now I understand why Paul called the bulldogs "thugs": he probably could not run fast enough. But why call the proctors thought police? Gowns, long for scholars, short for commoners, were worn to university occasions, such as lectures. I once called on the Dean of Christ Church. He immediately said "You do not have your gown on!" I apologized and said I would get it. "Don't bother" he said on a spirit of Christian charity (The Dean of the Cathedral is also the head of Christ Church).
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