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 University's
critics to find how much had already been done in these directions.
It is certainly not true now that, as one of Oxford's critics wrote,
"Too long, too long men saw thee sit apart
From all the living pulses of the hour."
On the contrary, the Oxford of the last generation has already become
markedly more cosmopolitan, and she has been drawing to her an ever-
increasing number of able men of every class.
But these developments, thus begun, will certainly be carried much
further in the near future. Oxford will be altered. Some of her
customs will be changed. This may well issue in great and lasting
good, though there will be loss as well as gain. But an Oxford man
may be pardoned if he believes and hopes that his university will
remain the university he has loved. There is a saying current in
Oxford about Oxford men, which may not be out of place here--"If you
meet a stranger, and if after a time you say to him, 'I think you
were at Oxford,' he accepts it, as a matter of course, and is
pleased.
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