Such men are rare, but a single one of them,
when found, is worth ten "executives" and a dozen "organisers."
The excellence of Oxford, then, as I see it, lies in the peculiar
vagueness of the organisation of its work. It starts from the
assumption that the professor is a really learned man whose sole
interest lies in his own sphere: and that a student, or at least the
only student with whom the university cares to reckon seriously, is a
young man who desires to know. This is an ancient mediaeval attitude
long since buried in more up-to-date places under successive strata
of compulsory education, state teaching, the democratisation of
knowledge and the substitution of the shadow for the substance, and
the casket for the gem. No doubt, in newer places the thing has got
to be so. Higher education in America flourishes chiefly as a
qualification for entrance into a money-making profession, and not as
a thing in itself. But in Oxford one can still see the surviving
outline of a nobler type of structure and a higher inspiration.
I do not mean to say, however, that my judgment of Oxford is one
undiluted stream of praise. In one respect at least I think that
Oxford has fallen away from the high ideals of the Middle Ages. I
refer to the fact that it admits women students to its studies. In
the Middle Ages women were regarded with a peculiar chivalry long
since lost.
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