Oxford - university - oldest in GB, probably 12th century (Cambridge slightly la

ter, set up by Oxford students who migrated there).

"Spirit of..." - Pre-modern values - therefore not
market, consumer preference, efficiency, profit ...
See facts on students + income
Contains a Centre for Hindu Studies (which is one of the focus points of your vi
sit) - and you're going to have a talk by Gavin Flood, who runs it... - Oxford l
inks to India, esp, the India Institute (which was housed on the corner of Broad
Street and Holywell Street - you can still see the carved elephant which is act
ually its weathercock - During the Raj, the British generally preferred the Mosl
ems to the Hindus:
[It was almost an orthodoxy to believe that Hinduism was, if not an evil force,
at least spent and worthless. Islam, on the other hand, was a religion the west
could understand and with whose political leaders it could do business.
Rudyard Kipling, the great chronicler of the Raj, had long made clear his fondne
ss for Muslims and his distrust of Hindus. He was appalled by the Ramayana and t
he Mahabharata, the two great Hindu classics, and repulsed by the jumble of the
faithâ s beliefs. In contrast, Kipling claimed that he had never met an Englishman wh
o hated Islam and its people, for "where there are Muslims there is a comprehens
ive civilisation". This view was also reflected in Oxford.]
Earlier this year there was an exhibition on Indians in Oxford. "The first India
n students to take Oxford degrees arrived in 1871 and over the next two decades
about 50 graduated ... The University now has around 320 Indian students, along
with more than 900 Indian alumni and six alumni branches in India. Famous Indian
alumni include Indiaâ s first female Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, as well as its c
urrent Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Bollywood film star Soha Ali Khan." The
"Indian", as you might say, who I knew best was Benazir Bhutto, when she was he
re (in the mid-1970s) as a student (and party-giver), including being President
of the Oxford Union.
To return to Oxford itself:
Key point: pre-modern spirit can partially endure because of endowments ... 300
million St John's richest - University also has endowments (500 million) but 38
colleges are the key (total 2 billion of top 15) ... makes it possible for them
to do - in part - what they want, not needing to obey the government in everythi
ng -
About 30% of total teaching costs from government (in NL near to 100%); this wil
l be reduced to nearly nothing by the present government - Oxford (and Cambridge
) will probably become completely "private" - but with a public mission (not pro
fit but academic values)
Spirit built up through the centuries ... But to begin with a material reality -
the buildings - stone (spirit of permanence) ... Cf. Vatican and wooden Protest
ant churches...
Teaching system: tutorials (+ lectures at university level)
Expensive - in euros 20000 per year per student, compared with 11000 NL, 9000 Ge
rmany etc. Subsidized by the college endowments, esp. cost of college tutors. Co
lleges also "home" - students live there, eat there, study there, have tutorials
, use the library; there is a chapel, choir, bar etc. Plus "loyalty" - first to
the college, then to the university.
-> Self-confidence.
Cf. recruitment - 1/2 private (public) schools, 1/2 state schools...
History of Oxford - halls (of residence) -> colleges; mixture of disciplines, fo
r students and teachers + living-in...
Oxford is very decentralized: there is the university, the central administratio
n, which in many fields no no power at all - e.g. students can only be admitted
by a college, not by the university; so the colleges are in many ways more impor
tant; but there are also innumerable centres of specialized research study, whic
h are semi-independent and often have their own money. As well as a half dozen P
PHs, which are religious semi-colleges, where students can study for university
degrees - the Dominicans, Benedictines, Jesuits etc.
Politically the Oxford spirit is traditionally monarchist, even Jacobite (suppor
ting King Charles I during the Civil War of the 1640s - Charles lived in Oxford
after fleeing from London - and after that the Stuart line, which was ended with
the 1688 imposition of William (of Orange) and Mary; but Oxford remained sympat
hetic to the Stuarts; as opposed to Cambridge, which supported Cromwell and the
Parliamentarians during the Civil War.
But the Oxford spirit also has to do with the buildings and surroundings, and al
so the presence of so many young people, the students. Here are a few lines from
the novel by Max Beerbohm, called Zuleika Dobson: "I floated out into the unten
anted meadows. Over them was the usual coverlet of white vapour, trailed from th
e Isis right up to Merton Wall. The scent of these meadows' moisture is the scen
t of Oxford. Even in hottest noon, one feels that the sun has not dried THEM. Al
ways there is moisture drifting across them, drifting into the Colleges. It, one
suspects, must have had much to do with the evocation of what is called the Oxf
ord spirit--that gentlest spirit, so lingering and searching, so dear to them wh
o as youths were brought into ken of
it, so exasperating to them who were not. Yes, certainly, it is this mild, miasm
al air, not less than the grey beauty and gravity of the buildings, that has hel
ped Oxford to produce, and foster eternally, her peculiar race of artist-scholar
s, scholar-artists."
There are practically no drop-outs from Oxford - if you start here as a student,
you finish. And you finish three years after you begin. There is no accumulatio
n of "studiepunten"; there are no "herkansingen". You take a number of written e
xaminations after three years here, you get given a grade for them and that's it
. Almost no-one fails, but you can get a very low grade, which some people do, i
ncluding students who later become famous, great writers or prime ministers or w
hatever. You might get a low grade because you have spent too much time on other
activities, like sport (rowing, rugby) or play-acting or something else.
All over the world there are clubs and societies for Oxford alumni, including in
the Netherlands, the general idea being that all Oxford alumni are part of one
big family. And every year there are Gaudies - big dinners or feasts - organized
by the colleges for their ex-students, who come back to Oxford to attend them.
In fact, students here already get used to festive dinners while they are underg
raduates - there are lots of them in each college, black tie and formal dress, l
ots of champagne and so on: very formal, with wearing of black gowns being requi
red. Students generally like this old-fashioned formality and when they are poll
ed about it, a big majority voted that they wanted to stay as old-fashioned as p
ossible.
I suppose this is also part of the Oxford spirit.