before
him; the pleasure of each generation is increased by the reflection
of the other's pleasure. What traditional feeling in Oxford means
may, perhaps, be illustrated by the story of an old English worthy,
though one only of the second rank. Jonathan Trelawney, one of the
Seven Bishops who defied James II, was a stout Whig, but when it was
proposed to punish Oxford for her devotion to the Pretender, the
Government found they could not reckon on his vote, though he was
usually a safe party man. "I must be excused from giving my vote for
altering the methods of election into Christ Church, where I had my
bread for twenty years. I would rather see my son a link boy than a
student of Christ Church in such a manner as tears up by the roots
that constitution."

But the days of hereditary tradition are over, and Trelawney belongs
to an age long past; Oxford now is exposed to an influence compared
to which the arbitrary proceedings of a king are feeble. A democratic
Parliament with a growing Labour party has far more power to change
Oxford than the Stuarts ever had, and even at this moment (1919) a
third Royal Commission is beginning to sit. Will it modify, will it--
transform Oxford?

The first answer seems to be that the very stones of Oxford are
charged with her traditions. During the War the colleges have been
full of officer-cadets; they were men of all ranks of life and of
every kind of education; they came from all parts of the world; they
were of all ages, from eighteen to forty, at least. Their training
was a strenuous one by strict rule, a complete contrast to the free
and easy life of academic Oxford. Yet in their few months of
residence, most of them became imbued with the college spirit; they
considered themselves members of the place they lived in; they tried
to do most of the things undergraduates do. If Oxford thus, to some
extent, moulded to her pattern men who, welcome as they were, were
only accidental, surely the college spirit may be trusted to
assimilate whatever material the changed conditions of social or of
political life furnish to it. The hope of many at Oxford is that
there will be a great development and a great change. On one side it
will be good if Oxford becomes to a much greater extent not only an
all-British, but also a world university; on another side it is to be
hoped that far more than ever before men of all classes in England
will come to Oxford. It would surprise many of the Univer