Moral force of character is a qualification which cannot be too much insisted upon. Cut off from home ties and home influences for three years, with six months of each spent in travel and among strangers, with the opportunity and at the same time the necessity to decide nearly all questions which arise without check and with little counsel, moral force and will power are not only invaluable, but indispensable assets. The question of age has here an important bearing. No definite age can be set as absolutely the best, but the general experience so far would seem to point to a desirability that the men be mature. By that we mean that a man should have arrived at a point where his experience, his knowledge of himself and of men, and his knowledge both of books and of business, render him capable of forming quick, accurate, and independent judgements, of choosing his work, of initiating and pursuing his own plans, of working without a task-master and independent of mere textbooks; of carrying his plans to fulfilment, and of accomplishing his work in spite of a multitude of distractions and side interests which will make constant bids for his attention. There is, however, danger in choosing too mature a man. He may be so advanced in his studies or so old in his habits as to find Oxford unprofitable or uncongenial. He may be so deeply interested in his definite line of work, or ‘take himself so seriously’, as not to ‘mix’ well. He may be so set in his ways as to be unadaptable to Oxford ways. There is such a thing as too much self-reliance. The Rhodes Scholar should have ‘independence of character’ and should have ‘principles’, but he should not assert an aggressive individuality. He should be able and ready to get into sympathy with English life and English ideals; he should remember ‘when in Rome to do as the Romans’, in so far as the customs of the Romans do not conflict with his principles and ideals; he should ‘catch on’, be able if necessary to rearrange his wardrobe and his vocabulary, and to readjust his political and social vision. All this a man may do without losing one particle of his own local or national patriotism. Rhodes’s favourite maxim was ‘do the comparative’. That would perhaps be his first injunction to Rhodes Scholars. He asked for _men_—the greater their ability the better; he did not demand the superlative; but he did object to less than the ‘comparative’ _in any respect_. Choice of a College.