Rhodes Scholars, Oxford, and the Creation of an American Elite. Thomas J. Schaeper

Rhodes Scholars, Oxford, and the Creation of an American Elite - Thomas J. Schaeper


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millions of pounds to the Oxford colleges and libraries and to the university as a whole. The Trust has also endowed several chairs and created special lectureships.

      Nevertheless, the scholarships were the central feature of the will. Rhodes chose Oxford because it was his alma mater, but also because it was the oldest and still one of the best universities in the English-speaking world. He also liked its system of residential colleges. Oxford, like the “other” place (Cambridge) was not so much a university as a confederation of small, independent colleges. In his day there were twenty men's colleges in Oxford, each with between one hundred and three hundred students. In the small, enclosed atmosphere of one's college a student gained an education. Equally important, however, were the close, lasting friendships that one formed. Rhodes wanted future leaders from around the world to mix with future British leaders, thereby ensuring a united effort for peace and prosperity.

      As formulated in his final will, Rhodes listed four main criteria to be used in selecting candidates:

      My desire being that the students who shall be elected to the scholarships shall not be merely bookworms I direct that in the election of a student to a Scholarship regard shall be had to

      1. his literary and scholastic attainments

      2. his fondness of and success in manly outdoor sports such as cricket, football and the like

      3. his qualities of manhood, truth, courage, devotion to duty, sympathy for and protection of the weak, kindliness unselfishness and fellowship

      4. his exhibition during school days of moral force of character and of instincts to lead and to take an interest in his schoolmates for those latter attributes will be likely in afterlife to guide him to esteem the performance of public duties as his highest aim.

      What made these scholarships extraordinary was that they were to be based not just on academic merit but on other criteria as well. Rhodes hoped that those doing the evaluating would use good judgment and intuition in spotting candidates who had a special spark of character and greatness. To guide selectors, Rhodes provided a gauge for the importance of each of the four criteria he listed. In the final tally for every candidate, 3/10 should go for scholarship, 2/10 for manly sports, 3/10 for concern about one's fellow human beings, and 2/10 for character and leadership.

      As will become clear in the chapters that follow, Rhodes' criteria and his arithmetical marking system were anything but clear to future selection committees. What, for example, did one mean by “manly outdoor sports” or “public service?” Obviously, Rhodes wanted multi-talented, energetic, forceful leaders who would somehow make the world a better place. However, the precise formula for selecting such persons would be open to discussion.

      What were Rhodes' motives in establishing the scholarships? He himself claimed that he wanted to produce men who would use their Oxford education and friendships to create world harmony and progress. Some authors have scoffed at this, saying that he did it purely for public relations and for eternal fame. As early as 1891 he told a friend “I find I am human and should like to be living after my death.” At another time he wrote that he wanted to “leave a monument to posterity which shall convince mankind that [I] had really lived.”37 Very probably, as with so much else in his life, he did it for a combination of altruistic and selfish reasons.

      Rhodes' interest in manly vigor, sports, and energetic Anglo-Saxon leadership was something that he shared with several other world leaders of that era. The two most famous were Theodore Roosevelt and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. Like Rhodes, Roosevelt was considered to be a sickly child; his adventures as a cowboy, a

      Rough Rider, and an African hunter may have meant for him what South African conquests signified for Rhodes. Roosevelt preached the cult of masculinity in several of his books, especially The Strenuous Life. Wilhelm II had a deformed left arm. Many authorities have concluded that the Kaiser's zeal to compensate for this handicap contributed to his dismissal of Bismarck, his drive to build up the German navy, and his imperialistic dreams.

      Rhodes' stipulation that the scholarships were for men only was sexist, but perfectly acceptable by standards of his day. In 1900 if one spoke of well-educated leaders in government and other fields, one was speaking almost exclusively of men. In 1902 no women's groups in the United States or elsewhere protested their ineligibility for the scholarships. Not until the 1970s would there arise a strong movement to alter this part of the will.

      Another interesting clause in the will is the one stating that neither “race or religious opinions” should be a factor in the selection process. Within just a few years after the publication of the will the question arose as to whether blacks were eligible. The trustees cited this clause and decided that blacks indeed could be appointed. In doing so the trustees and selection committees violated what they all probably knew were Rhodes' intentions. Like most of his contemporaries, Rhodes often used the word “race” to mean what we today would take for “culture” or “nation.” When he put this clause in his will he intended to indicate that the Dutch and British “races” in South Africa and the American and German “races” could all enjoy his scholarships. He never expected that blacks would apply, much less be selected. Sir Edgar Williams, who for nearly three decades served as warden of Rhodes House in Oxford, has aptly stated that Rhodes built “better than he knew.”38 The trustees were able to follow the letter rather than the spirit of the law to make the scholarships more inclusive than their founder had anticipated.

      The current warden of Rhodes House, Sir Anthony Kenny, has provided perhaps the best analysis of the seeming contradictions between Rhodes the man and the scholarships he established. In his speech at Georgetown University during a reunion of North American Rhodes Scholars in 1993, Kenny said that, apart from the stress on “manliness,” the four criteria Rhodes listed for his scholars “are to this day valuable and important human qualities.” Rhodes wanted evidence of high scholastic attainments, yet he himself required eight years to obtain a mere pass degree. He demanded physical vigor, as manifested in sports. Yet while at Oriel he was undistinguished in athletics. Though he showed much stamina through his career, his health was always a matter of some concern. Rhodes was one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time, and yet there was no mention of entrepreneurship among the qualities he sought in his candidates. Instead, he wanted sympathy for, and protection of, the weak. He was an unabashed believer in the superiority of the English race, and yet he said race should play no part in the selection process. Finally, although he himself promoted more than one avoidable war, he declared his ultimate goal to be the pursuit of world peace through the international sharing of education.

      In short, we might disagree about Rhodes' motives and actions. But, as Kenny concluded, we can admire that fact that “he was certainly not the man to believe that the way to make the world a better place was to make everyone else just like himself.”39

      NOTES

      1. Robert I. Rotberg, The Founder: Cecil Rhodes and the Pursuit of Power (New York, 1988), 74, 78, 658–62, 675–77.

      2. See G.N. Clark, Cecil Rhodes and His College (Oxford, 1953), 7; and Rotberg, The Founder, 86–87.

      3. Rotberg, The Founder, 89.

      4. Oxford Magazine, 13 (23 January 1895): 167.

      5. Quoted in Clark, Cecil Rhodes, 5.

      6. Ibid.

      7. Ronald Currey, Cecil Rhodes: A Biographical Footnote (private printing, 1946), 11–12.

      8. Quoted in Frank Aydelotte, The American Rhodes Scholarships: A Review of the First Forty Years (Princeton, 1946), 3.

      9. Rotberg, The Founder, 94–95.

      10. See Richard Symonds, Oxford and Empire: The Last Lost Cause? (Oxford, 1991), passim.

      11. Ibid., 27–29.

      12. J.A. Hobson, Imperialism: A Study (London, 1902).

      13. Hans Konig, “The Eleventh Edition,” The


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