“Classical scholars are expected to go in for Greats, and if you fail to do so, we shall have to consider the taking away of your scholarship.”
I was astute in my generation; I went to Gore (the Bishop), who was my friend, and always met undergraduates as if he were one of themselves, and said to him, “Will you do something for me, Gore?”
“It depends on what it is,” he replied, with his curious smile.
“Tell the Common-room (i. e. the Dons, who used to meet in the Common-room every night after dinner) that I really mean to go in for History whether they take away my scholarship or not, but that if they do take it away, I shall take my name off the books of Trinity and go and ask Jowett if he will admit me at Balliol. You were a Balliol undergrad; you know the kind of answer that Jowett would make to a man who was willing to give up an eighty pounds a year scholarship in order to go in for the School which interested him.”
“Jowett will take you,” he said, “but I will see what can be done here.”
That night I received the most unpleasant note an undergraduate can receive—a command to meet the Common-room at ten o’clock the next morning. They were all present when I went in. The President invited me to take a seat, and my tutor (the Rev. H. G. Woods, now Master of the Temple, of whom I still see something) said—
“Are you quite determined to go in for the School of History, Mr. Sladen?”
“Quite,” I replied.
“Then we hope that the degree you take will justify us in assenting to such a very unusual procedure.”
Then they all smiled very pleasantly, and I thanked them and went out.