Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from In Praise of Oxford: An Anthology in Prose and Verse
But for all that the adjustment of Oxford to the needs of the national life has been perhaps far more complete and efficient than its critics, or even than those who seek to remedy its defects by engineering schools and working-men students, imagine. In its earlier ages Oxford was an European school, swarming with poor students and hungry foreigners prepared to vindicate its claim of supremacy over Paris or Bologna by an immediate appeal to the knife. By the time of Elizabeth Oxford appears to have learned the lesson of the Norman Conquest, that Englishmen need governors. It endeavoured to supply them on national lines by becoming the nursery of the rich. It has succeeded ever since to a certain extent in subjecting the sons of the rich to a more or less voluntary discipline as a preparation for those places on the quarter-deck of the vessel of state which it inculcates, by means chie?y of an appeal to experience, that they have every right to expect. It aims far less at the creation than at the communication of ideas (already well aired in the world) through the personal in?uence of the Oxford coach - Oxford's prime product of the last century, who at the expense of much private ex haustion and public indifference consecrates his best hours not to the University Press but to his particular pupils. This is the Oxford system to dispossess or disinherit which will require the most strenuous and unremitting labour on the part of the ages.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
