Rhodes Scholars, Oxford, and the Creation of an American Elite. Thomas J. Schaeper
With the naive, gung-ho spirit that filled many bright young men in 1914, the Americans in Oxford were enthusiastic about this war to end all wars. Virtually every American there devoted his vacations to working for the Red Cross, the YMCA and other groups that provided ambulances, cared for the wounded, and distributed food. Some obtained leaves of absence from Oxford so that they could remain in France or Belgium. A handful of current and past Rhodes Scholars, impatient with their government's neutrality, joined the British Army. One of these, William Fleet, was killed in action in May 1918 while serving in the Grenadier Guards. Dozens more volunteered for the U.S. Army after the United States entered the war. Twelve American Rhodes Scholars died in the war, while doing relief work or serving in uniform. Nearly three hundred either joined the armed forces or held war-related jobs in Washington. In addition to the dozen Americans, fifty-eight Rhodes Scholars from elsewhere also died in the fighting.29
If the Americans, on the whole, valued their Oxford experience, the reaction of Oxford was decidedly more mixed. At one extreme there was an article that appeared in the Oxford Magazine late in 1904. It admitted that the Rhodes Scholars had not brought the revolutionary changes that many had feared. The article also expressed the hope that the Americans' impression of Oxford was as favorable as Oxford's view of them.30
Others in Oxford, however, shared the opinions of Max Beerbohm. His farcical 1911 novel Zuleika Dobson is an Oxford classic. It concerns the lovely Zuleika, who comes to Oxford to live with her grandfather, the head of the fictional Judas College. She is a femme fatale in the most literal sense. She breaks the hearts of so many young men that finally every male student in Oxford drowns himself in the Isis. At the end of the story she sets off to conquer Cambridge too. One of the secondary characters is an American Rhodes Scholar, one Abimelech V. Oover. He is so obtuse and earnest that he grates on everyone's nerves. When the snuff is passed around after dinner he enthusiastically outperforms all Englishmen in its use. One of his “friends” among the British students avers that “Americans have a perfect right to exist. But he did often find himself wishing Mr. Rhodes had not enabled them to exercise that right in Oxford.”31
It would be most accurate, however, to state that a majority of dons and students showed little feeling about the newcomers one way or the other. To have showered attention on the Americans would have been a most un-Oxonian thing to do. For centuries the university had received visitors and students from among the most illustrious families in the world. The Rhodes Scholars were novelties, but, except for an occasional problem here or there, they were nothing to cause excitement.
Even if many in Oxford might wish to deny it, however, the Rhodes Scholars were already forcing the venerable institution to make adjustments. The university slowly realized that laboratories and faculty in the sciences and in law would have to be improved, because of the heavy demand in these areas by Americans. In addition, the desire by some Rhodes Scholars to obtain advanced degrees forced the university to give more structure and substance to its B.Litt. and B.Sc. programs. Additional changes would come in the years ahead.
NOTES
1. Frank Aydelotte, The Oxford Stamp (Freeport, NY, 1967; orig. ed. 1917), 22-40; Aydelotte, American Rhodes Scholarships, 73-74; Blanshard, Aydelotte, 130; Alumni Magazine, 3 (January 1910): 13-16; TAO, 2 (1915): 14; Ashby, “American Rhodes's Scholar,” 183-84.
2. Robert Hale, “Oxford Again – A Rhodes Scholar Goes Back,” The Outlook, 11 July 1923, 378; Aydelotte, American Rhodes Scholarships, 60; Alumni Magazine, 1 (December 1907): 15.
3. NYT, 2 October 1910, 12, and 16 October 1910, sec. 5, 9.
4. TAO, 1 (1914): 33, 21 (1934): 130.
5. TAO, 65 (1978): 112.
6. TAO, 1 (1914): 20-35.
7. TAO, 1 (1914): 25. Also see 81 (1994): 10.
8. TAO, 3 (1918): 107; 65 (1978): 113; Register of Rhodes Scholars, 4-12.
9. Aydelotte, American Rhodes Scholarships, 55.
10. Alumni Magazine, 1 (December 1907): 4.
11. TAO, 1 (1914): 11.
12. NYT, 12 March 1911, sec. 5, 5.
13. Parkin, Rhodes Scholarships, 228.
14. Aydelotte, American Rhodes Scholarships, 62; Parkin, Rhodes Scholarships, 159. One who did successfully combine reading and travel was John Crowe Ransom. See Young and Core, Selected Letters, 58.
15. NYT, 5 July 1907, 7; TAO, 57 (1970): 578.
16. Elton, First Fifty Years, 105-6.
17. Alumni Magazine, 1 (December 1907): 14-15.
18. Thomas Daniel Young, Gentleman in a Dustcoat: A Biography of John Crowe Ransom (Baton Rouge, 1976), 41.
19. TAO, 34 (1947): 214.
20. TAO, 58 (1971): 51.
21. TAO, 68 (1981): 159. Also see 65 (1978): 110.
22. NYT, 6 December 1906, 8.
23. Parkin, Rhodes Scholarships, 214-15.
24. At graduation ceremonies (called Encaenia) the university always awarded several honorary doctorates, and by 1900 about a dozen prominent Americans were among the hundreds who had received them. Oxford also granted doctoral degrees called D.Litt. (for any field in the humanities) and D.Sc. (for the natural sciences). These were slightly more substantial than honorary degrees, but far removed from the Ph.D.'s awarded in German and American universities. A D.Litt., for example, might be bestowed on a man who had received a B.A. at Oxford at least ten years earlier and who was now a don at one of the colleges. The D.Litt. would be a reward for especially noteworthy scholarly accomplishments. Most dons, however, had only a B.A. and the non-academic M.A.
25. For some discussion of Rhodes Scholars besides those of the United States, see Elton, First Fifty Years, and Carleton Kemp Allen, Forty Years of the Rhodes Scholarships (Oxford, 1944).
26. Elton, First Fifty Years, 78-79.
27. Elton, First Fifty Years, 109-10.
28. Harrison, Twentieth Century, 3-5.
29. NYT, 5 December 1914, 3; 13 December 1914, 4; 28 October 1915, 3; 24 December 1915, 2; 30 June 1918, sec. 3, 6; 3 November 1919, 8. Elton, First Fifty Years, 104-6, 220-21. TAO, 1 (1914): 92, 100; 2 (1915): 45-58, 138; 3 (1916): 35-36, 51-60, 116-18; 4 (1917): 52-53; 5 (1918): 96, 116; 7 (1920): 161.
30. Quoted in TAO, 21 (1934): 131.
31. Zuleika Dobson: An Oxford Love Story (London, 1991; orig. ed. 1911), 86.
PROGRAMMATIC CHANGES
What men get out of Oxford is like what they get from most other opportunities, pretty proportioned to what they put into it: the eye sees that it has brought with it the power of seeing, and students learn mostly only the answers to questions which they already have in their minds. More than most universities is this true of Oxford. Here, it may truly be said, is God's plenty in the way of educational opportunity; but here also the student is left in the utmost degree of freedom to take or to leave, according to his choice. Good things are not forced upon him. He must have the will to take, he must know what he wants, and he must be wise enough not to try to seize too much.
Frank Aydelotte,