Transcriber's Note:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the originaldocument have been preserved.
AN AMERICAN AT
OXFORD
BY
JOHN CORBIN
AUTHOR OF "SCHOOLBOY LIFE IN ENGLAND"
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1903
COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY JOHN CORBIN
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published May, 1902
TO
A. F. C.
PREFACE
By a curious coincidence, the day on which thelast proof of this book was sent to theprinter saw the publication of the will of the lateCecil Rhodes, providing that each of the UnitedStates is forever to be represented at Oxford bytwo carefully selected undergraduate students.That the plan will result in any speedy realizationof the ideals of the great exponent of Englishpower in the new worlds is perhaps not tobe expected. For the future of American education,on the other hand, few things could be morefortunate. Native and independent as our nationalgenius has always been, and seems likely toremain, it has always been highly assimilative.In the past, we have received much needed alimentfrom the German universities. For the present,the elements of which we have most need may best,as I think, be assimilated from England.
Whether or not Americans at Oxford becomeimbued with Mr. Rhodes's conceptions as to thedestiny of the English peoples, they can scarcelyvifail to observe that Oxford affords to its undergraduatesa very sensibly ordered and invigoratinglife, a very sensibly ordered and invigorating education.This, as I have endeavored to point outin the following pages, our American universitiesdo not now afford, nor are they likely to afford ituntil the social and the educational systems aremore perfectly organized than they have everbeen, or seem likely to be, under the dominanceof German ideals. If, however, the new Oxford-trainedAmericans should ever become an importantfactor in our university life, the future isbright with hope. We have assimilated, or areassimilating, the best spirit of German education;and if we were to make a similar draft on thebest educational spirit in England, our universitieswould become far superior as regards their organizationand ideals, and probably also as regardswhat they accomplish, to any in Europe. The purposeand result of an introduction of Englishmethods would of course not be to imitate foreigncustom, but to give fuller scope to our native character,so that if the American educational idealsin the end approximate the English more closelythan they do at present, such a result would bemerely incid