The Scholarship will be paid quarterly. The first payment (£75) will be made in the course of the first week of the Michaelmas Term (October). No request for any earlier payment can be considered. After a Scholar has been once accepted by a College he should conduct all further correspondence as to residence, studies, &c., directly with the College in question.[43] A Scholar must arrive in Oxford not later than the day on which his College assembles; and it will in most cases be advantageous to arrive a few days earlier. PART II CHAPTER V OXFORD AS IT IS OR AS IT HAS SEEMED TO A RHODES SCHOLAR [Sidenote: Difficulty of describing Oxford.] What manner of place is Oxford? Every one knows Oxford; and yet, how little is Oxford understood—even by those who enjoy a period of residence within its gates! Tourists come for a day or a week, ask numerous questions, consult a guide or a book, see a few buildings and a picture postcard, and are ready to tell ‘all about Oxford’. Yet the longer one stays in Oxford the more one hesitates to attempt description. The University has its ‘Statutes’, its ‘Handbook’, its ‘Calendar’, its ‘Examination Statutes’, its ‘Programmes’ and ‘Lecture Lists’, which contain the official information which an American inquirer expects to find in his University ‘Catalogues’, ‘Bulletins’, and ‘College Annuals’. Then there are numberless books which deal with various phases of Oxford life, some of them serious, some merely impressionist sketches. But no one book professes to give a really comprehensive description of Oxford or to touch on all its phases; few persons have time or opportunity or inclination to read all; and still fewer, after reading of Oxford or living in Oxford, or doing both, agree in their impressions of what Oxford _really_ is. Oxford changes slowly, very slowly—and yet what one writes of Oxford to-day may seem inaccurate to his readers to-morrow; Oxford mills grind exceeding fine, yet what one person thinks wheat may seem to another chaff. It depends on the point of view. This is where the difficulty lies, and herein one feels his presumption when trying to make Oxford real and comprehensible to the uninitiated. [Sidenote: Two ideas: the abstract and the concrete.] Really ‘Oxford’ means two things—it is the name of a place, and it represents an idea. Bonaparte said of himself that he was ‘not a man but an event’, and yet he was both. The word ‘Napoleon’ represents to us a _man_ and an _idea_. The difficulty is to differentiate, to say how far the concrete and the abstract may be separated, and how far each is necessary to the proper understanding of the other. The technical purpose for which these chapters are intended suggests that this attempt to outline certain salient features of Oxford custom and practice shall be limited to the concrete, avoiding as far as possible the ideal side, especially where bordering on the lines of controversy. [Sidenote: Oxford. Unique character.]