Produced by Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold text by =equal signs=. [Illustration: TEA ON THE LAWN AT THE OXFORD UNION (page 63)] 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 the last proof of this book was sent to the printer saw the publication of the will of the late Cecil Rhodes, providing that each of the United States is forever to be represented at Oxford by two carefully selected undergraduate students. That the plan will result in any speedy realization of the ideals of the great exponent of English power in the new worlds is perhaps not to be expected. For the future of American education, on the other hand, few things could be more fortunate. Native and independent as our national genius has always been, and seems likely to remain, it has always been highly assimilative. In the past, we have received much needed aliment from the German universities. For the present, the elements of which we have most need may best, as I think, be assimilated from England.