XI.

Lambkin’s Remarks on the End of Term

Delivered in Hall on Saturday, Dec. 6th, 1887, the morning upon which the College went down.

My dear Friends; my dear Undergraduate members of this College,

The end of Term is approaching—nay, is here. A little more, and we shall meet each other no longer for six weeks. It is a solemn and a sacred thought. It is not the sadness, and even the regret, that takes us at the beginning of the Long Vacation. This is no definitive close. We lose (I hope) no friends; none leave us for ever, unless I may allude to the young man whom few of you knew, but through whose criminal folly the head of this foundation has lost the use of one eye.

This is not a time of exaltation, so should it not be a time for too absolute a mourning. This is not the end of the Easter Term, nor of the Summer Term. It is the end of Michaelmas Term. That is the fact, and facts must be looked in the face. What are we to do with the approaching vacation? What have we done with the past term?

In the past term (I think I can answer for some of you) a much deeper meaning has entered into your lives. Especially you, the young freshmen (happily I have had the control of many, the teaching of some), I know that life has become fuller for you. That half-hour a week to which you pay so little heed will mean much in later years. You have come to me in batches for half-an-hour a week, and each of you has thus enjoyed collectively the beginning of that private control and moulding of the character which is the object of all our efforts here in Oxford. And can you not, as you look back, see what a great change has passed over you in the short few months? I do not mean the corporeal change involvedby our climate or our prandial habits; neither do I allude to the change in your dress and outward appearance. I refer to the mental transformation.

You arrived sure of a number of things which you had learnt at school or at your mother’s knee. Of what are you certain now? Of nothing! It is necessary in the mysterious scheme of education that this blind faith or certitude should be laid as a foundation in early youth. But it is imperative that a man—if he is to be a man and not a monster—should lose it at the outset of his career. My young friends, I have given you the pearl of great price. You have begun to doubt.

Half-an-hour a week—four hours in all the term ... could any positive, empirical, or dogmatic teaching have been conveyed in that time, or with so much fullness as the great scheme of negation can be? I trow not.

So much for knowledge and tutorship. What of morals? It is a delicate subject, but I will treat of it boldly. You all remember how, shortly after the month ofOctober, the College celebrated Guy Fawkes’ day: the elders, by a dinner in honour of their founder, the juniors by lighting a bonfire in the quadrangle. You all know what followed. I do not wish to refer again—certainly not with bitterness—to the excesses of that evening; but the loss of eyesight is a serious thing, and one that the victim may forgive, but hardly can forget. I hope the lesson will suffice, and that in future no fellow of this College will have to regret so serious a disfigurement at the hands of a student.

To pass to lighter things. The Smoking Concert on All Souls’ Day was a great success. I had hoped to organise some similar jollity on Good Friday, but I find that it falls in the Easter vacation. It is, however, an excellent precedent, and we will not fail to have one on some other festal occasion. To the action of one of our least responsible members I will not refer. But surely there is neither good breeding nor decency in dressing up as an old lady, in assuming the name of one of our Greatest Families, and in so taking advantage of thechivalry, and perhaps the devotion, of one’s superiors. The offence is one that can not lightly be passed over, and the culprit will surely be discovered.

Of the success of the College at hockey and in the inter-University draughts competition, I am as proud as yourselves. [Loud cheers, lasting for several minutes.] They were games of which in my youth I was myself proud. On the river I see no reason to be ashamed; next term we have the Torpids, and after that the Eights. We have no cause to despair. It is my experience (an experience based on ten years of close observation), that no college can permanently remain at the bottom of the river. There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads on to fortune, let us therefore taking heart of grace and screw our courage to the sticking point. We have the lightest cox. in the ’Varsity and an excellent coach. Much may be done with these things.

As to the religious state of the college it is, as you all know, excellent—I wish I could say the same for the InorganicChemistry. This province falls under the guidance of Mr. Large, but the deficiency in our standing is entirely the fault of his pupils. There are not twenty men in the University better fitted to teach Inorganic Chemistry than my colleague. At any rate it is a very grave matter and one by which a college ultimately stands or falls.

We have had no deaths to deplore during this term, and in my opinion the attack of mumps that affected the college during November can hardly be called an epidemic. The drains will be thoroughly overhauled during the vacation, and the expense of this, spread as it will be among all undergraduate members whether in residence or not, will form a very trifling addition to Battells. I doubt if its effect will be felt.

There is one last thing that I shall touch upon. We have been constantly annoyed by the way in which undergraduates tread down the lawn. The Oxford turf is one of the best signs of our antiquity as a university. There is no turf like it in the world. The habit of continually walking upon it is fatal to its appearance. Such an actionwould certainly never be permitted in a gentleman’s seat, and there is some talk of building a wall round the quadrangle to prevent the practice in question. I need hardly tell you what a disfigurement such a step would involve, but if there is one thing in the management of the college that I am more determined upon than another it is that no one be he scholar or be he commoner shall walk upon the grass!

I wish you a very Merry Christmas at the various country houses you may be visiting, and hope and pray that you may find united there all the members of your own family.

Mr. Gurge will remain behind and speak to me for a few moments.

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