Americans -- England -- Oxford; Education -- United States; Education, Higher -- England -- Oxford; University of Oxford
more than the one that was broken." "Yes, sir; but when I had taken
that, sir, the 'arf dozen was broke." According to Oxford traditions
the student had no recourse; and be it set down to his praise, he
never blamed the scout. He bemoaned the fate that bound them together
in suffering, and vented his spleen on total abstinence and
vegetarianism. It may be supposed that the scout's antiquity and
importance makes him a bad servant; in the land of the free I fear
that it would; but at Oxford nothing could be more unlikely. The only
mark that distinguishes the scout from any other class of waiters is
that his attentions to your comfort are carried off with greater ease
and dignity. It may be true that he is president of the Oxford
Society of College Servants--the Bones or the Hasty Pudding of the
scouts; that he stroked the scouts' eight in the townie's bumping
races, during the long vac, and afterward rowed against the scouts'
eight from Cambridge; that he captained the scouts' cricket eleven;
that in consequence he is a "double blue" and wears the Oxford
'varsity color on his hat with no less pride than any other "blue."
Yet he is all the more bound, out of consideration for his own
dignity, to show you every respect and attention.
After the scout, the hosts of the college are the dons. As soon as the
freshman is settled in his rooms, or sometimes even before, his tutor
meets him and arranges for a formal presentation to the dean and
master. All three are apt to show their interest in a freshman by
advising him as to trying for the athletic teams, joining the college
clubs and societies, and in a word as to all the concerns of
undergraduate life except his studies--these come later. If a man has
any particular gift, athletic or otherwise, the tutor introduces him
to the men he should know, or, when this is not feasible, gives a word
to the upper classmen, who take the matter into their own hands. If a
freshman has no especial gift, the tutor is quite as sure to say the
proper word to the fellows who have most talent for drawing out
newcomers.
In the first weeks of a freshman's residence he finds sundry
pasteboards tucked beneath his door: the upper classman's call is
never more than the formal dropping of a card. The freshman is
expected to return these calls at once, and is debarred by a happy
custom from leaving his card if he does not find his man. He goes
again and again until he does find him. By direct introduction from
the tutor or by this formality of calling, the freshman soon meets
half a dozen upper classmen, generally second-year men, and in due
time he receives little notes like this:--
DEAR SMITH,--Come to my rooms if you can to breakfast with Brown
and me on Wednesday at 8.30.
Yours sincerely,
A. ROBINSON.
At table the freshman finds other freshmen whose interests are
presumably similar to his own.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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