My Autobiography: A Fragment

by F. Max Müller

For a young scholar, like myself, who came to live at Oxford in those distant days, the peace and serenity of life were most congenial, though several of my friends were among the first who began to fret, and wished for more work to be done and for better use to be made of the wealth and the opportunities of the University. My impression at that time was the same as it has been ever since, that a reform of the Universities was impossible till the public schools had been thoroughly reformed. The Universities must take what the schools send them. There is every year a limited number of boys from the best schools who would do credit to any University. But a large number of the young men who are sent up to matriculate at Oxford are not up to an academic standard. Unless the colleges agree to stand empty for a year or two, they cannot help themselves, but have to keep the standard of the matriculation examination low, and in fact do, to a great extent, the work that ought to have been done at school. Think of boys being sent up to Oxford, who, after having spent on an average six years at a public school, are yet unable to read a line of Greek or Latin which they have not seen before. Yet so it was, and so it is, unless I am very much misinformed. It is easy for some colleges who keep up a high standard of matriculation to turn out first-class men; the real burden falls on the colleges and tutors who have to work hard to bring their pupils up to the standard of a pass degree, and few people have any idea how little a pass degree may mean. Those tutors have indeed hard work to do and get little credit for it, though their devotion to their college and their pupils is highly creditable. Fifty years ago even a pass degree was more difficult than it is now, because candidates were not allowed to pass in different subjects at different times, but the whole examination had to be done all at once, or not at all.

I had naturally made it a rule at Oxford to stand aloof from the conflict of parties, whether academical, theological, or political. I had my own work to do, and it did not seem to me good taste to obtrude my opinions, which naturally were different from those prevalent at Oxford. Most people like to wash their dirty linen among themselves; and though I gladly talked over such matters with my friends who often consulted me, I did not feel called upon to join in the fray. I lived through several severe crises at Oxford, and though I had some intimate friends on either side, I remained throughout a looker on.

Seldom has a University passed through such a complete change as Oxford has since the year 1854. And yet the change was never violent, and the University has passed through its ordeal really rejuvenated and reinvigorated. It has been said that our constitution has now become too democratic, and that a University should be ruled by a Senatus rather than by a Juventus. This is true to a certain extent. There has been too much unrest, too constant changes, and a lack of continuity in the studies and in the government of the University. Every three years a new wave of young masters came in, carried a reform in the system of teaching and examining, and then left to make room for a new wave which brought new ideas, before the old ones had a fair trial. Senior members of the University, heads of houses and professors, have no more voting power than the young men who have just taken their degrees, nay, have in reality less influence than these young Masters, who always meet together and form a kind of compact phalanx when votes are to be taken. There was even a Non-placet club, ready to throw out any measure that seemed to emanate from the reforming party, or threatened to change any established customs, whether beneficial or otherwise to the University. The University, as such, was far less considered than the colleges, and money drawn from the colleges for University purposes was looked upon as robbery, though of course the colleges profited by the improvement of the University, and the interests of the two ought never to have been divided, as little as the interests of an army can be divided from the interests of each regiment.

When I came to Oxford there was still practically no society except that of the Heads of Houses, and there were no young ladies to grace their dinners. Each head took his turn in succession, and had twice or three times during term to feed his colleagues. These dinners were sumptuous repasts, though they often took place as early as five. To be invited to them was considered a great distinction, and, though a very young man, I was allowed now and then to be present, and I highly appreciated the honour. The company consisted almost entirely of Heads of Houses, Canons, and Professors; sometimes there was a sprinkling of distinguished persons from London, and even of ladies of various ages and degrees. I confess I often sat among them, as we say in German, verrathen und verkauft. After dinner I saw a number of young men streaming in, and thought the evening would now become more lively. But far from it. These young men with white ties and in evening dress stood in their scanty gowns huddled together on one side of the room. They received a cup of tea, but no one noticed them or spoke to them, and they hardly dared to speak among themselves. This, as I was told, was called “doing the perpendicular,” and they must have felt much relieved when towards ten o’clock they were allowed to depart, and exchange the perpendicular for a more comfortable position, indulging in songs and pleasant talk, which I sometimes was invited to join.

At that time I remember only very few houses outside the circle of Heads of Houses, where there was a lady and a certain amount of social life—the houses of Dr. Acland, Dr. Greenhill, Professor Baden-Powell, Professor Donkin, and Mr. Greswell. In their houses there was less of the strict academical etiquette, and as they were fond of music, particularly the Donkins, I spent some really delightful evenings with them. Nay, as I played on the pianoforte, even the Heads of Houses began to patronize music at their evening parties, though no gentleman at that time would have played at Oxford. I being a German, and Professor Donkin being a confirmed invalid, we were allowed to play, and we certainly had an appreciative, though not always a silent, audience.

In one respect, the old system of Oxford Fellowships was still very perceptible in the society of the University. No Fellows were allowed to marry, and the natural consequence was that most of them waited for a college living, a professorship or librarianship, which generally came to them when they were no longer young men. Headships of colleges also had so long to be waited for that most of them were generally filled by very senior and mostly unmarried men. Besides, headships were but seldom given for excellence in scholarship, science, or even divinity, but for the sake of personal popularity, and for business habits. Some of the Fellows gave pleasant and, as I thought, very Lucullic dinners in college; and I still remember my surprise when I was asked to the first dinner in Common Room at Jesus College. My host was Mr. Ffoulkes, who afterwards became a Roman Catholic, and then an Anglican clergyman again. The carpets, the curtains, the whole furniture and the plate quite confounded me, and I became still more confounded when I was suddenly called upon to make a speech at a time when I could hardly put two words together in English.

The City society was completely separated from the University society, so that even rich bankers and other gentlemen would never have ventured to ask members of the University to dine.

Considering the position then held by the Heads of Houses, I feel I ought to devote some pages to describing some of the most prominent of them. At my age I may well hold to the maxim seniores priores, and will therefore begin with Dr. Routh, the centenarian President of Magdalen, as, though, the headship of a house seems to be an excellent prescription for longevity, there was no one to dispute the venerable doctor’s claim to precedence in this respect. He was then nearly a hundred years old, and he died in his hundredth year, and obtained his wish to have the C, anno centesimo, on his gravestone, for, though tired of life, he often declared, so I was told, that he would not be outdone in this respect by another very old man, who was a dissenter; he never liked to see the Church beaten. I might have made his personal acquaintance, some friends of the old President offering to present me to him. But I did not avail myself of their offer, because I knew the old man did not like to be shown as a curiosity. When I saw him sitting at his window he always wore a wig, and few had seen him without his wig and without his academic gown. He was certainly an exceptional man, and I believe he stood alone in the whole history of literature, as having published books at an interval of seventy years. His edition of the Enthymemes and Gorgias of Plato was published in 1784, his papers on the Ignatian Epistles in 1854. His Reliquia Sacra first appeared in 1814, and they are a work which at that time would have made the reputation of any scholar and divine. His editions of historical works, such as Burnet’s History of his own Time and the History of the reign of King James, show his considerable acquaintance with English history. I have already mentioned how he used to speak of events long before his time, such as the execution of Charles I, as if he had been present; nor did he hesitate to declare that even Bishop Burnet was a great liar. He certainly had seen many things which connected him with the past. He had seen Samuel Johnson mounting the steps of the Clarendon building in Broad Street, and though he had not himself seen Charles I when he held his Parliament at Oxford, he had known a lady whose mother had seen the king walking round the Parks at Oxford.

However, we must not forget that many stories about the old President were more or less mythical, as indeed many Oxford stories are. I was told that he actually slept in wig, cap and gown, so that once when an alarm of fire was raised in the quadrangle of his College, he put his head out of window in an incredibly short time, fully equipped as above. Many of these stories or “Common-Roomers” as they were called, still lived in the Common Rooms in my time, when the Fellows of each College assembled regularly after dinner, to take wine and dessert, and to talk on anything but what was called Shop, i. e. Greek and Latin. No one inquired about the truth of these stories, as long as they were well told. In a place like Oxford there exists a regular descent, by inheritance, of good stories. I remember stories told of Dr. Jenkins, as Master of Balliol, and afterwards transferred to his successor, Mr. Jowett. Bodleian stories descended in like manner from Dr. Bandinell to Mr. Coxe, and will probably be told of successive librarians till they become quite incongruous. I am old enough to have watched the descent of stories at Oxford, just as one recognizes the same furniture in college rooms occupied by successive generations of undergraduates. To me they sometimes seem threadbare like the old Turkish carpets in the college rooms, but I never spoil them by betraying their age, and, if well told, I can enjoy them as much as if I had never heard them before.

Dr. Hawkins, Provost of Oriel, was quite a representative of Old Oxford, and a well-known character in the University. I had been introduced to him by Baron Bunsen, and he showed me much hospitality. I was warned that I should find him very stiff and forbidding. His own Fellows called him the East-wind. But though he certainly was condescending, he treated me with great urbanity. He had a very peculiar habit; when he had to shake hands with people whom he considered his inferiors, he stretched out two fingers, and if some of them who knew this peculiarity of his, tendered him two fingers in return, the shaking of hands became rather awkward. One of the Fellows of his college told me that, as long as he was only a Fellow, he never received more than two fingers; when, however, he became Head Master of a school, he was rewarded with three fingers, or even with the whole hand, but, as soon as he gave up this place, and returned to live in college, he was at once reduced to the statutable two fingers. I don’t recollect exactly how many fingers I was treated to, and I may have shaken them with my whole hand. Anyhow, I am quite conscious now of how many times I must have offended against academic etiquette. How, for instance, is a man to know that people who live at Oxford during term-time never shake hands except once during term? I doubt, in fact, whether that etiquette existed when I first came to Oxford, but it certainly had existed for some time before I discovered it.