Would it be impossible, among so many good rules, to make cap and gown obligatory at both universities between the hours of 9 and 12? The spectacle of youths hugging golf clubs on the Oxford station at ten o’clock in the morning cannot be extraneous to examination results which show that not 3 men in 4 who matriculate, take the B.A. At Cambridge there is good promise in the large increase of scientific students who take advantage of the facilities afforded by its laboratories: more men entered for the “doctors’ college” in October 1905 than for any other, except of course Trinity; and even “the sporting college” has been a principal contributor to the number of medical graduates. Since 1883 there has been a board of Indian Civil Service studies, and the universities between them send up far the larger number of candidates for this service. A board of agricultural studies was instituted in 1899, a diploma in agriculture is now awarded, also one in sanitation, and geographical studies are encouraged by prizes. Since 1899, when the tripos was divided, the Historical has become one of the larger triposes and in 1905 had the highest number of entries after the Natural Sciences.[370]
University athletics.
The traditional rivalry in sports has of course been that between the two universities. The inter-university boat race was begun in 1836, and the first 4 races were won by Cambridge, as was also the first race rowed in outriggers in ’46. Of the 64 races run, Oxford has won 6 more than Cambridge; Cambridge has won 5 out of the last 6, and has also won by the greater number of lengths (in ’49 by “many,” and in 1900 by 20).[371] The great inferiority of the ‘Cam’ to the ‘Isis’ is partly compensated by the excellent style of rowing which Eton
traditions carry on into Cambridge. The happy connexion between Cambridge and Eton established by Henry VI. has never ceased to link the most aristocratic English school with the more democratic of the English universities, and many boys come to the “light blue” university already wearing her favours. In football and golf the two universities have shown equal prowess; Cambridge cricket is superior (the inter-university match was started in 1839 and Cambridge won the first 6 matches), and in athletics (1868-1906) Cambridge took the lead until the Rhodes scholars arrived at the sister university.
The Union Society forms another distraction well calculated to turn out the English ideal of a university man—a man, id est, ready for public affairs. It was founded in 1815 by the union of three already existing debating societies, the present building was erected in 1866 and fitted up as a club. Stratford Canning (Lord Stratford de Redcliffe) and Blomfield, afterwards Bishop of London, belonged to one of these earlier “spouting clubs” in 1806, where Palmerston and Ellenborough both “laid the foundation” of their parliamentary fame. The college ball and the college concert are also crowded into the student’s seven weeks of residence in the May term, taking the place of the plays which formed the staple entertainment in the xvi and xvii centuries. The modern “A.D.C.” has been rendered famous by the “Greek Plays” which were inaugurated twenty-five years ago with a performance of “Ajax.”