The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-01-27


 If may use bold analogy, and liken the University to the United States. and its component colleges to the States themselves, the American reader will at once consider that it Is with his own college the Oxford stu dent is more concerned, Around it's. name cluster all z those associations that so sendear college life, and to it adhere all those sentiments of love for and pride in ones own that in mans. as yet gproyincial frame of mind, more comprehensive term could never elicit Under its aegis takes place those thousand little activities of mind and body that constitute modern schol- istic life, while fostered within It's lofty walls the man develops in his many sides at once. The size of the Oxford college presents that same ab- sence of a fixed rule and order that their long internal and independent growth, and which so upsets the Amer ican with his preconceived canons of a definite external organization. It varies from one college with over four hundred members to another with less than two score. The average member ship, should say. was about one hum dred and fifty. of whom some twenty the remainder, all undergraduates, about two-thirds, will live in collegio, and the others in lodgings near its walls. Every member of the college Is assigned to d one OI Ine eIQeT fellows of the college, who stands to him henceforth in loco parentis. He may or may not be also his chief in- structor that depending upon the CO., incidence of the Don's special subject with that which his young protege wishes to pursue. It is mostly, how ever, for practical advice that the stu dent seeks his tutor, and whenever it may come it is to the we'll known door of his tutors study that he hur- ries for assistance. It "ives me pleas ure to assert that he seldom knocks in grief or worry alone that this paternal portal opens. The pupil is often his tutors guest at a feast less intellec- tual. perhaps, but equally substantial, when the topic of conversation is hap pily more impersonal. l need not dwell on the inestimable benefit accruing to the young man from such constant and sympathetic intercourse with the older and more experienced members of his little world, nor upon the in eVitable advantage to their common institution from the identity of inter- ests which such association engenderS should like, in passing. to pay my lit- tle-all of tribute to the tutorial sys- tenn as I have seen it practiced in an Oxford college.
 Another feature of college life at Oxford is the custom and ibi plusque boni mores valent quam alibi bonae legese of each and every member of college dining together in the spacious college hall. from the grey head of international repute to the meekest freshman, for whom Caesar Is yet possessed of mysteries. if not of ter TOTS. However reticent or retiring one may be, he cannot but come out of his shell when conversation begins to buzz, men 10 share their thoughts. and the fine old college ale to circulate Noth- ing can be pleasanter than such an @ hour spent in the society of one's -fel- lows, and nothing so instructive
 Life at Oxford is essentially social. C'ne might almost say that the chief offices discharged by its students were those of host and guest. Whether one occupy rooms in college or in dig gings." his apartments consist invar- iably of a large sitting or living room and smailer bed room. The furni- ture varies in quantity and quality according to the means and taste, not so much Of the present occupant as of the long line of predecessors from whom he inherits them. Each meal is made an occasion for entertaining, and if these normally four in number. do not satisfy ones craving for the so- ciety of his fellows, another Is intro- duced Into the tedium, stretching from 'HGlf to bedtIm-, wh e.. is known as Coffee but is not always characte- rized by so modest a beverage. Of all the meals of the day, the one par ex- cellencc society Is tea. A regular part of the Englishman's daily substance, this little afternoon-feed Is rendered peculiarly necessary at Oxford by the lightness of a lunch which immed- iatelH preCedes hard exercises. It is. however above all things social function. IL is there that assemble. not only the little coterie of ipttmates whom common tastes and equal abill- [ ties invariably segregates from the