The Hindu Business Line : Dreaming spires

News has it that Oxford, the cradle of British statesmen who spread the empire over half the globe, is in for a new look. Shedding its proverbial reserve and disdain for anything remotely mundane, the 800-year-old university is all set to woo the wealthy and the munificent in an effort to vie with its much younger and better endowed counterparts across the Atlantic.

What a change of times from the days when kings and nobles flocked to bestow favours on the mediaeval seat of learning to the present when the mountain has to go to Mohammed!

Respect for age

Oxford had always prided itself on its independence and eccentricity. What accounts for this singular trait of this university? Surely not money, as its sack cloth and ashes would show. It could probably be its age for no other existing seat of higher education in the world, with the respectful exception of Cambridge, is as old or older.

Some of the universities on the Continent, such as Italy’s Padua and Pisa or Poland’s Cracow, can match Oxford’s vintage but none can boast either of being known as universally or as cosmopolitan in its student community or faculty. Universities in the US are younger by many centuries.

Certainly, age has conferred on Oxford an aura and bred customs and traditions quaint but exceedingly engaging. Just take the oath at the Duke Humphrey’s library not to set fire to the woodwork while taking notes or watch the Encaenia procession at the end of the academic year and you would know what quaintness and aura mean.

Age alone may not be enough to warrant independence in thought and action. Oxford owes its independence much to the royal patronage it enjoyed in its early years. In those days, in disputes between the University and the town authority (the disputants being referred to as “town and gown’) the crown always favoured the gown. That earned the sovereign the University’s loyalty for a while. But even rulers could not take the University for granted.

During the Civil War, Oxford stood by the King to the last while the townsmen entertained a sneaking sympathy for the Parliamentarians. Not for long though. Being what it wanted to be, that is, fiercely independent, soon after the war was over, the University accepted Oliver Cromwell as its Chancellor from 1651 to 1657. The Stuarts enjoyed its support in the beginning but when James II tried to impose a Roman Catholic nominee as a Fellow of Magdalen, the protestant college rebelled and had its way on October 25, 1688, a day still celebrated as “ Restoration Day’ by the college.

Defying kings, prime ministers

If Oxford could defy kings, it could well afford to defy prime ministers. Thus, it voted down a resolution to confer the D.Litt. degree on one of its alumni and Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher. Piqued by the rebuff, the Iron Lady pruned government grants to universities weakening their research and expansion activities significantly.

Along with its age, eccentricity and independence, Oxford has always had excellence. Look at any field of humanities or sciences, you will find outstanding contributors from Oxford.

As Oxford takes its hat around the world to collect grants and donations, it may, in the words of the bard (who, incidentally, lived not far away), “sit and mock the good housewife Fortune from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally.” That is, equally with Harvard and Yale.

(The writer was a Visiting Fellow at Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford.)

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