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Oxford University
The friend of George Sassoon mentioned in the last posting on
spam is Professor Richard Brent, a leading expert on computer cryptography at
the Oxford University Computer Laboratory. I have wondered about the problem
of wiring Oxford University for computers. Most of the buildings are of thick
stone, and drilling through it would be a problem. Nevertheless, it has been
done. There are other problems. At Christ Church, the bathrooms were in the
basement of another building, so to get to them we had to face the cold, rain
and dark. When Salvador de Madariaga was appointed professor at Oxford, he was
so daunted by the situation at Lincoln College that he went to live in a hotel.
Oxford now offers college buildings for summer conferences, and some rooms are
described as being en suite, i.e. having a bathroom attached. That would seem
impossible in many old buildings. Oxford has become very democratic. In my time
everyone had a little apartment with two, or sometimes three rooms, whereas
in the US often three people are stuffed into one room. In the Christ Church
building where I lived there were four stories. The most expensive rooms were
on the first floor, i.e. one up. The least expensive, where I lived, were on
the top floor. It was an undemocratic arrangement, and I do not see how it could
be changed. At Stanford, fraternities were simply abolished as being undemocratic,
but you cannot abolish Oxford buildings. Oxford University is an agglomeration
of colleges, so what is said here may not apply to all of them. Another issue:
the big bell in the graceful Tom Tower of Christ Church rang 99 times every
evening at 9 p.m. When I came to Stanford, the carillon on Hoover Tower chimed
regularly. People objected to the "noise", so now it rings only on
special occasions, like Commencement. Does Big Tom still sound out every night
at 9 p.m.? Perhaps Tony Smith has some comments on this.
We are grateful to Anthony Smith, president of Magdalen College, Oxford, for
commenting on the posting about Oxford University and modernization: "Most
student rooms in Oxford are now wired for ethernet, and have been
for some years. In some colleges all student rooms are en suite, but in most
a considerable proportion are. The problem on installing modern plumbing in
medieval buildings had proved fairly easy to overcome and we have had, after
all, some centuries of experience now in improving them generation by generation.
The summer vacation conference trade is a major income-earner for most colleges
and the guests all demand first rate facilities - which they get.
At Oxford no-one would dare suggest that a student share his or her room with another, and I am surprised when I visit US universities and see the poor and crowded conditions for students in so many of them. We have in fact, at my own college, increased the number of two-room sets in recent years: students require a separate bedroom if their sitting-room is rather small. It makes it much easier for them to hold private parties and, of course, to be able to clear clutter away during the hours of study.
I also rather object to the notion that we are 'undemocratic'; in most colleges the weekly rent of all student rooms is the same- the allocation os done by lottery not by price, and those who do poorly in the lottery in one year automatically are awarded a better ticket for the following year. All these systems are designed with the full participation of students.Their elected representatives appear on the major committees of all, or nearly all, colleges and also on the main committee of the University. Such arrangements were established many years ago - news travels slowly across the continent of America, it would appear".
RH: The posting referred of course to the Oxford I knew, from 1929 to 1937. As for its being undemocratic, it referred to those times. As I have said, things have changed. One matter I did not mention is that practically all colleges have gone co-educational. In my days, women were housed in four separate colleges of fairly recent foundation. There has been a similar development at Stanford. Originally women students were restricted to 500, whereas now their numbers almost equal those of men. At the same time, most traditionally women's colleges like Vassar have gone co-educational. There has been a similar development regarding the faculty. Women were rare on the faculty at Oxford, and at Stanford, as elsewhere in the US, it was assumed that women would never rise above the level of assistant professor. Of course that has changed.
In US universities there was a complicated ethnic/religious pattern. Major universities had an unannounced numerus clausus, by which only a certain number of Jews would be admitted. Minority students, once rare, have become much more numerous. Unfortunately, affirmative action, which applies primarily to Blacks and Mexican Americans but not to Asians or poor whites, has led to the admission of unqualified students. Faculty members often hesitate to grade them properly for fear of being denounced as racist. In the Oxford before my time, the only comparable thing was that students had to believe in the Trinity. When I was there, we still had to take an exam on the scriptures. commonly known as "divvers". I took it and passed, which was rather stupid of me; had I kept up with the news I would have known that the examination was to be abolished and that I did not need to take it.
I still do not know if Big Tom rings 99 times each evening at 9 p.m.
Commenting on my account of Oxford as I knew it (1939-37), Paul Preston, speaking
of a later time, says: "In my day the University police were officially
known as the bulldogs, and Evelyn Waugh's Oxford novels, Decline and Fall and
Brideshead Revisted use the same term. They were the thugs, their chiefs, the
thought police, were the Proctors". RH: Paul is normally a mild person,
so his derogatory terms, "thugs" and "thought police" for
honorable gentlemen, suggests that he had some problem with them. Being an admirably
law-abiding person, I had none.
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