New-York tribune., 1910-12-10

OXFORD FROM WITHIN. By Hugh DE
Selincourt- Illustrated by 1oshfo MAI
kno In box Svo. PIP. VII, 1s. PhiadeE
phla: Jacobs & Co.
This handsome volume Is not, one has
tens to agree with the publishers an
nounceaent on the slip cover, simply
an addition to the already long list OF
volumes dealing with oxford from the
standpoint of topography" 1t Is that,
but is also much more. Mr.. de Selfn-
court, one of the university sons, re-
turns to it in middle age. to find the
old charm, the charm of alma mater
for her children, one Of the few senti-
npents that endure through life. In mid
die age he seeks to analyze it. to flnd
it still living among the youth or the
present generation, and in his musings
he wanders back into the past. back into
the days of Oxford's founding, and
thence into the future, to find a defini-
ton Of what she must be. will be in the
rev life of the nation, in the revolution
lied conditions of its developing new
civilization. demanding new standards.
new aims of education. He goes. influ-
enced by the world without, as a man
divided against himself:
alma mater, home Of lost causes, whis-
pering the last enchantment of the Middle
Ages the industrious writer dreamed.
"A stagnant marsh of useless knowledge,
Withdrawn from the flowing river of life;
where Young men learn to be prlgs and are
inoculated with the poison of respectabflity;
where the Medusa head of tradition is pol
mother of curates and schoclmasters and
dons: a stepmother to poets. A place of
sloth and superiority; a trap baited by the
tions which are moribund. 1t is supposed to
be the home of learning. but the learning IS
of such an order that the rich and the ath-
@ teach Young ~ men how to become pedants or
cricketers. but IL cannot teach them how to
live.
Thus, with the voice of loyalty and
the voice Of doubt warning within him,
Mr.. Ge Selincourt sets forth to find the
inwardness of the spirit of oxford. At
Burford he meets an oxford man, un
mistakably stamped with its stamp, who
Hives there because no self respecting
person could go and sit in an office after
living among the last enchantment of the
Middle Ages
The pilgrim finds the origin of the
spirit in the Middle Ages, when the in-
stitution set scholars quietly apart from
the knowledge of mankind, monks with
out the conditions of T1onastic life. He
proceeds geographically and historically
through the ages, talking with quiet ap-
probation Of beauty of building and site,
ever recurring TO the spirit and its con-
servative development, then plunges into
memories of his own days as an under
graduate and in residence. Some of the
glamour has been lost. but much remains.
and the tyranny of ''the right thing
leads him to draw upon his term at
G6ttingen for comparison between Eng
ush and German student life. Not from
the educational point of view, but from
the social side-a chapter suggestive ana
illuminating. but too long and too closely
knit to go into at any length here
There is great charm I'm the book, but
il is remote, static like the spirit of OK
ford. II is n glimpse into the past. Ihe
FIXTURE of the university, Mr. de Selin-
co,,rt holds. lies in its adaptation to the
modern. scientific, practical theory of
education, in its recognition to the 1uil
Of the triumph of knowledge. The pill
grim muses.
And at Oxford The advance there had
been great but not sufficiently great TO
keen proper pace with the large advance
ttat science itself had made Here was an
immense opportunity for the university or
which she had not avaled he herself with
Sufficient alacrity. to satisfy her most ar,
dent followers. There was still a survival
of the classical boys superior attitude
toward "stinks. dating from the ,ine al;a ~ns''
a smattering Of the classics wa; was consid-
eren mart Of q gentleman's outfit :.
CSfa,a instead of being the home of lost
causes. the dim and shadowy denial o!
ito wrapped in a melancholy beauty. must
become the forcing ground of the laughing
future.
These be. however. local considera-
tions. The wider beauty of the book lies
in its literary quality. in its recognition
of the imposing dignity of the spirit OF
oxford. obsolete though it may have
been made by new conditions. Mr.. Mar
kino's twenty illustrations in color and
monochrome strikingly reflect this dig