Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 20th century; Great Britain -- Social conditions; World War, 1914-1918
Of the three thousand who for three or four years gloried in that
kingdom, a few did no work at all and, when their days of grace
expired, went down for good or until they had passed the necessary
examinations; those who hoped for a high class in an honour school
perforce worked hard during term and harder in vacation; the
average man of average intelligence, reading a pass school, could
be content with four or six hours' work a day and an untroubled
vacation.
More than six hours is not easy to maintain, for, though the
term is but eight weeks long, a man is living at high pressure
in a low-lying city. Those who had their schools at heart would
get up at half-past seven and keep a chapel at eight, read the
morning paper, breakfast with friends or by themselves and begin
work at nine or ten; on most days they would have lectures or a
"private hour" with their tutors and for the rest of the morning
they worked in their rooms or in the library. At one o'clock the
quadrangle woke to sudden life with men returning from lectures,
men on their way out to luncheon, men in stocks and breeches
assembling at Canterbury Gate to drive in brakes to a meet of the
House beagles. They exchanged the news and badinage of the day,
from the middle of Peck to an attic window, and from one window to
another; the quadrangle emptied and sank again to silence, as they
repaired to the common-room for a light repast of bananas and milk
or toast and honey. And in turn the common room, which had filled
suddenly, as suddenly emptied; within a quarter of an hour all had
dispersed to the football ground or the House barge, a private
gravel tennis-court or the hockey ground; one or two went sailing
on the Upper River, one or two more hacked slowly out of Oxford
for a gallop on Port Meadow or Shotover; and, as every generation
discovered for itself the beauty of the surrounding country and
fell anew under its spell at the whisper of the old unforgettable
names, the pedestrians struck north-west or south-west to "the
warm, green-muffled Cumner Hills", "the stripling Thames at
Bablock-hithe", "Godstow Bridge, when hay-time's here in June",
"the skirts of Bagley Wood" or "Hinksey and its wintry ridge".
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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