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Chapter 2

GETTING STARTED

Having discussed the matter with many Oxford men, I have not the least hesitation in saying that the Colonials and Americans who may benefit under Mr. Rhodes' Will may rest assured that Oxford will offer them a hearty welcome.

Letter to the editor, Varsity, 29 April 1902

We cannot quite agree with Mr. Rhodes' policy of encouraging the influx of transatlantic Anglo-Saxons into this country. The pushful Yank may be fond of us (if he is, he manages to conceal it fairly well), but we never knew an instance of his visiting our shores without pocketing a good pile of the less nimble Britisher's money before returning home. In view of this, it seems at first blush a trifle rash to pay others to come and continue the practice.

Article by an Oxford student, Isis, 3 May 1902

Reactions to the Will

The Rhodes Scholarship today is certainly the most famous and most prestigious student award in the United States – and perhaps the world. Each year's crop of new scholars is lionized in the national press and even more in each student's college and home-town newspapers. Winning one of these coveted prizes is often considered to be a ticket to success in later life.

Yet in 1902 when Cecil Rhodes' bequest became known, the reception was decidedly mixed on both sides of the Atlantic. Newspapers and magazines across the United States and Britain lauded Rhodes' vision and generosity but questioned the wisdom of the scholarship plan.¹

Most Oxford administrators and dons were flattered that their institution had been singled out in the will. They groused, however, that the money would have been better spent if Rhodes had simply donated it all to the university. Only £100,000 went directly to the university, and it was restricted to Rhodes' alma mater, Oriel. Even worse, several persons noted that the arrival of dozens of new foreign students each year would place a financial burden on the colleges. The scholarship would pay for each student's fees (including room and board), but the amount charged to each student was actually less then the cost of educating and housing them. To make up the difference, the colleges relied on their endowments. Several members of the university discreetly mentioned this to the Rhodes Trustees and expressed the hope that the latter would in the years to come make contributions above the ordinary expenses of each student.²

Many other dons and students voiced more serious misgivings. Some joked that these “perfect men” would be too good for the mere mortals of Oxford. They feared that the oldest university in the English-speaking world was about to be invaded by a horde of cowboy barbarians. Several dons complained that the scholarships would bring an end to Latin and Greek studies, which were the pride of the university. Every applicant had to pass an examination (called Responsions) in both these languages plus mathematics, before being admitted to one of the colleges. Rhodes Scholars from abroad, especially those from the vast American wilderness, would certainly be deficient in classical studies and would thus contribute to a lowering of standards. One writer expostulated that without Greek in Oxford “the human mind will decay” and feared that civilization everywhere would descend into chaos.³

Numerous other critics asserted that uncouth American yahoos would not only lower academic standards but also endanger the lives of serious students. Through their brute strength these frontiersmen would dominate college sports – thereby destroying the chances of ordinary British students to compete in healthful amateur athletic contests. One Oriel don consoled himself with the thought that American savages would be so busy on the sports fields that at least they would have little impact on the rest of college life.⁴ The Oxford Union, the oldest student debating society in the world, discussed a motion to condemn the scholarships. The motion was defeated, but it revealed that a sizable proportion of the student body had doubts about the plan.⁵

One Oxford magazine, Varsity, printed cartoons depicting the American invasion. The newcomers were pictured organizing formal cheering at rugby matches (unheard of in British amateur sports), setting up lunch counters to serve buckwheat cakes, lynching the dons, and turning part of the university library into a skyscraper.⁶

Americans might have taken some comfort from the fact that these critics also expressed similar misgivings about Rhodes Scholars coming from elsewhere. Isis, a student publication, lampooned Australians as good-for-nothings who badly needed education. The university's Public Orator feared an outbreak of boomerang throwing in the quads. Varsity warned that a handful of German Rhodes Scholars would initiate a Teutonic invasion. A poem in Oxford Magazine feared that some of the arriving colonials would be primitive head-hunters set on decapitating the dons or “mussulmen” who would insist on bringing along their “thirty-seven moon-eyed wives.”⁷

In the United States the response to the will likewise was divided, but for different reasons. Most newspapers and magazines were mildly favorable. Only a handful of writers were enthusiastic. One of these was Louis Dyer, whose article in The Outlook expressed the hope that the program would foster further international student exchanges and help the United States to fulfill the Renaissance dream of a “Republic of Letters.”⁸

Many American academic and business leaders were dubious. Several university presidents said that students would be better off studying at American universities. This was especially true for those interested in science, an area in which even Oxford admitted it lagged far behind the better American institutions. Moreover, several university presidents noted that Oxford was still primarily an undergraduate teaching institution. Only in the 1890s had it instituted some advanced degrees, which did not as yet include a doctorate.

Harvard President Charles William Eliot suggested that Rhodes Scholars would benefit much more if they studied in German universities. Stanford President David Starr Jordan resigned himself to the existence of the program by noting that “the chief value of a scholarship at Oxford is the opportunity of studying in Germany during the vacation.”⁹ The universities there were reputed to be the best in Europe, especially for students pursuing doctorates. Thousands of Americans had already obtained advanced degrees in Berlin, Heidelberg, and elsewhere – compared to a much smaller number of Americans in Oxford and Cambridge. Most of the founders and early leaders of the American Historical Association in the 1880s and 1890s, for example, were products of German universities. As American universities expanded in the twentieth century, they would mostly follow German models. (It should be noted that within a few years, except for Eliot, Jordan and most other college officials surrendered their doubts and became ardent proponents of the Rhodes Scholarships.)

Other Americans raised yet additional objections. Some claimed that virile young men would be corrupted by the effete, sterile classicism of Oxford. The number of Anglophobes in the United States was higher than usual when the will was made public, owing to the Boer War. Many Americans thus objected to any scheme that would foster closer relations with Britain and perhaps even weaken the patriotism of young Americans for their native country. Andrew Carnegie stoutly proclaimed that no young Americans would even want the scholarships. Americans, he said, were interested in money and could not afford to postpone their careers by spending three years at Oxford. The zealous Anglophile Henry James also opposed the scholarships, though for a starkly different reason. He agreed with many in Britain that Oxford would be sullied by the advent of unwashed, unlettered rustics.¹⁰

The subsequent history of the Rhodes Scholarships would show that some of the apprehensions expressed on both sides of the Atlantic were groundless but that others were prophetic.

Selecting the “Perfect Men”

In the spring of 1902 the Rhodes Trustees held their first meetings under the leadership of Lord Rosebery, who had served as British prime minister from 1894 to 1895. The trustees took charge of disposing of Rhodes' real estate and investing the liquid capital. They quickly decided that they themselves would not be able to handle the actual management of the scholarship program. Therefore they appointed two other individuals to perform those duties. They were Dr. George Parkin and Francis Wylie. Parkin would be Organizing Secretary and Wylie the Oxford Secretary. The trustees could not have made better choices. The Rhodes Scholarships were not a sure thing in 1902. That the program survived and prospered was in no small part due to Parkin and Wylie. Each of them over the years was often called the second founder of the scholarships. Eventually their work was recognized by the government, with each man being knighted.

Parkin's selection seemed odd at first to some observers. He was a fifty-six-year old Canadian. Prior to his appointment as Organizing Secretary he was serving in Toronto as headmaster of Upper Canada College, a prep school along the lines of the best British public schools. But Parkin proved ideal for his new job. He was an Oxford graduate. In fact, he had matriculated on the same day as Cecil Rhodes in 1873, though there is no evidence that the two knew each other then or later. In his first term at Oxford Parkin had been elected secretary of the Union, and in its chambers he won fame for his debates on behalf of the British Empire. Following graduation he pursued a career in Canada, Australia, and England as a spokesman for the Church of England and for the Imperial Federation League. His interest in bringing colonials into closer relations with Britain made him ideally suited to carry out Rhodes' dream of Anglo-Saxon unity and world peace. His eloquence, good humor, and personal charm would also be important. From 1902 until his retirement in 1920, Parkin administered the program and spent much of his time traveling to the United States, Germany, and the dominions and colonies within the Empire.

When it became clear that Parkin would not be able to watch over the scholars once they had arrived at the university, early in 1903 the trustees appointed Wylie to the post of Oxford Secretary.¹¹ Wylie was a fellow of Brasenose College, where he tutored and lectured in philosophy. He gave up the security and perquisites of an Oxford don to take on the risky challenges of making Rhodes' plan work. The fact that he was a well-respected, academic “insider” would prove to be of immense importance for his new work. Until his retirement in 1931 it was he who labored to gain admittance for Rhodes Scholars into the various colleges – for the latter insisted that the foreigners meet the same requirements as other students. Wylie and his wife would also serve as confessors, mentors, travel advisors, and tea party hosts.

Parkin's immediate task in 1902 and 1903 was to establish a system for selecting the scholars. Germany presented no problem, for Rhodes' will stipulated that the Kaiser would choose the five annual winners. South Africa also had a fairly simple mechanism for its seven scholars. Rhodes had specified that the four scholars from Cape Colony would come from four schools that he listed. The heads of those schools could nominate one of their students each year. Natal had one scholarship and Rhodesia three. Parkin immediately appointed the Directors of Education in those two territories to select the winners. As for Canada, Jamaica, Bermuda, and the United States, Rhodes had outlined no selection procedure. For this and for most other aspects of the administration of the program Rhodes gave his trustees – and through them Parkin – great leeway.

Parkin immediately corrected what he saw as several flaws in Rhodes' scheme. Concluding that Canada had been given too few scholarships, he increased its number from three to nine.¹² Regarding the United States, the will had simply specified two per state.

Some detractors have accused Rhodes of being so ignorant about the United States that he assumed there were still only thirteen states. However, his financial calculations indicate that he anticipated supporting up to one hundred Americans. After his death the trustees and Parkin quickly decided that they could support thirty-two new Americans per year, this making ninety-six residing in Oxford at any given time.¹³ One final revision Parkin and others deemed necessary concerned the age of the scholars. Rhodes clearly expected that they would come to Oxford straight from secondary school. In Oxford they would join other eighteen-year-old “freshers” for three years of study. Parkin wisely judged that most eighteen-year-old high school graduates from the United States and elsewhere would be unprepared emotionally and academically for the experience. He decided that all scholars must have completed at least two years of university study prior to going to Oxford. Their added maturity and training would better prepare them for separation from their families and for the rigors of Oxford.

Henceforth candidates in the United States and most other constituencies would have to be between the ages of nineteen and twenty-five. They also had to be unmarried. Oxford colleges were not equipped to house married students. Moreover, a married student, living in a flat somewhere in town, would miss much of the social life of his college-thereby destroying Rhodes' hope that future world leaders would mix together fully while in residence.

As to the methods of selection, Parkin decided to allot that task to committees composed of political and academic leaders in each country or dominion. He spent most of 1903 and 1904 traveling the globe. He met hundreds of officials and worked to establish committees in Canada, the United States, South Africa, Rhodesia, New Zealand, Australia, Bermuda, and Jamaica. The United States presented his greatest challenge. It had far more territory, more people, and more colleges and universities than any of the others. It would also send more scholars – more than half of the total.

Due to the difficulties of getting the mechanism up and running, Parkin concluded that in the United States and most of the dominions it would not be possible to send students to Oxford in 1903. Therefore the first American scholars did not reach England until the fall of 1904. One immediate puzzle in the United States was how to send thirty-two scholars from forty-eight states. (Actually, there were only forty-five states, but the territories of Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona were allowed to participate. Oklahoma achieved statehood in 1907; the other two in 1912.)

One had to keep in mind that Rhodes wanted students from each of the states. After consulting with many university and civic leaders, Parkin concluded that the best solution would be to send one scholar from each state in 1904 and 1905, but no Americans at all in 1906. A rotation like this would produce a three-year cycle of 48, 48, and 0 – an average of 32 per year. The colleges in Oxford eventually complained that this system created housing and other problems, when in some years they had to find room for over forty Americans and in others none. Thus in 1915 Parkin devised a new scheme. Henceforth in any given year only two-thirds of the states would elect scholars, producing thirty-two traveling to Oxford each autumn.

In every state Parkin assembled a committee. It generally consisted of the presidents of the four or five most prominent universities in the state. In some states the governors also participated. This happened even though President Theodore Roosevelt had advised Parkin against it. Roosevelt warned that governors would always be looking ahead to the next election and that this might influence their choice of winners.¹⁴ In other countries during the early years of the program government representatives played an even greater role. In Canada, for example, the committees included the lieutenant-governor, the chief justice, and the chief superintendent of education, as well as college presidents.

By the spring of 1904 the machinery was set up and the first batch of scholars was selected. The process would remain little changed until after the First World War. A candidate first had to declare the state in which he was applying. This could be the state in which he resided or the state in which he went to school. Of course, a student who was from Massachusetts and attended Harvard University had but one choice to make. However, a student from North Dakota who attended Harvard had two options. This remains true to the present day.

Following this, each student had to pass a qualifying examination in Greek, Latin, and mathematics. Then, upon recommendation by his college or university, he and other candidates met with the selection committee for an interview. After a day of interviewing the finalists, the committee notified the winner. The future Rhodes Scholar then listed several Oxford colleges, in order of preference. This list was sent to Wylie, who did his best to win admittance for the student in one of the preferred colleges. The following autumn the student traveled to Oxford, at his own expense. (Nowadays the Rhodes Trust pays for transportation.) Once in Oxford, he received a yearly stipend-set initially at £300. This sum was sufficient for college lodging and other fees plus all personal expenses, but only if the student was frugal.

A process for selecting Rhodes Scholars that looked fine on paper proved to be anything but that during the next dozen years or so. One problem resulted from the criteria mentioned in the will. Rhodes Scholarships differed from all others in that the recipients had to demonstrate more than just academic ability. They also had to show character, concern for their fellow human beings, leadership potential, and an interest in “fighting the world's fight” in some form of public service. How could one evaluate all these intangibles? Parkin and the committees agreed that each scholar must be “superior” in at least one of the areas and “good” in the others. But whereas one could assess academic performance by grades and other solid evidence, how could one gauge character and leadership ability? Addressing a conference of university and college presidents in Chicago in 1903, Parkin answered this query in straightforward fashion. All that committee members had to do was select the man whom they envisaged becoming president of the United States, chief justice of the Supreme Court, or U.S. ambassador to Great Britain!¹⁵ This advice provided a lofty ideal. It would also haunt the program in later years, as the careers of Rhodes Scholars came to be measured against it.

Despite the initial flurry of publicity the program received when Rhodes' will was made public, recruitment remained a nagging problem through the First World War. Again and again the selection committees and Parkin lamented the fact that many potential applicants were not aware of the scholarships. Indeed, most Americans quickly forgot about them or became hazy about their details. This was true even of the New York Times. In 1909 the newspaper misleadingly announced the appointment of a woman Rhodes Scholar.¹⁶ Of course, having a female scholar would have violated Rhodes' will. Not until 1976 would an Act of Parliament permit amending the will in that fashion. What had happened in 1909 was that an organization called the Society of American Women established a fund to send one female student per year to study in Britain. There was no connection to the Rhodes Scholarships at all.

Besides insufficient publicity, another serious obstacle was the qualifying exam. Between 1904 and 1918 some two thousand students took it, but only about half passed.¹⁷ Of course, many other likely candidates shied away from the examination and never applied at all. Most candidates had little problem with the mathematics or the Latin; the big hurdle for most was the Greek. Virtually all British students had studied both of the classical languages in secondary school. In the United States most applicants had studied Latin in high school or college, but few outside of classics majors had taken Greek. Some successful candidates claimed that the language exams were not too difficult and that any intelligent young man could easily pass that section of the test if he studied Greek privately for a few months beforehand.¹⁸ Nevertheless, not too many wanted to invest so much time preparing for an examination, particularly when a passing grade in itself did not guarantee winning a scholarship. After years of complaining, Parkin was able to get the Oxford colleges and the Rhodes Trustees to agree to a compromise. After 1909 candidates could take the initial qualifying exam in mathematics and Latin and postpone the Greek part until after they were notified of their appointment to a scholarship.¹⁹ The new Rhodes Scholars, however, were still required to take the Greek section prior to arrival in Oxford.

Even with this compromise, however, the number of applicants did not increase markedly. Through the First World War the number of qualified applicants who could be considered by the committees averaged only about one hundred per year. That was an average of two or three candidates for each scholarship. In some states, especially the less populated ones, the number of candidates might be none or one. In situations where only one or two candidates presented themselves, the committees sometimes judged that no one was worthy. This meant no scholar was appointed that year. From 1904 to 1918, when the selection system was changed, there was only one year (1916) when all of the available scholarships were distributed.²⁰ In 1905 ten of the available forty-eight slots went unfilled. In short, some of the recipients won their scholarships virtually by default.

To make matters worse, there were many examples of blatant abuse or laxity by the committees. In many states the appointment of Rhodes Scholars became a rather cozy, gentlemanly rotation among the handful of prominent universities. Thus in a given year the scholarship might go to the candidate from university “A,” the next year to the choice of university “B,” and so on until the series began again.²¹ Parkin did his best to curtail this practice, but with only limited success.

Few of the committee members had any first-hand experience of Oxford, and this hampered them when they tried to pick students who would thrive in a foreign country and a different educational system. When the committees conducted their interviews and their deliberations the results sometimes were capricious. The will spoke of “moral force of character” as a criterion. In more than one instance committees who had to choose between two or more candidates used this as a basis for picking whichever young man happened not to smoke or play cards.²² Elmer Davis later regaled people with the story of how he emerged a winner. In the fall of 1909 five Indiana candidates took the qualifying examination. Three passed it, but one of them became ill. Davis and another young man were thereupon invited to meet with the selection committee. Davis summarized his “interview” as follows:

I presumed that they wanted to test our general knowledge, and I fortified myself with all sorts of reading. But when the educators sat down at table they ignored us and began to trade ideas on what a tough job being a college president was. I didn't know anything about that and kept still. But the other fellow was hell-bent and resourceful. He talked. I got the appointment.²³

Thanks to this rather quixotic manner of winning his scholarship, Davis entered Oxford in 1910 and went on to become one of the most popular and distinguished American novelists, newspaper journalists, and radio commentators from the 1920s through the 1940s. He headed the Office of War Information during the Second World War and following that gained admiration as one of Joseph McCarthy's earliest and most vehement critics.

On numerous occasions Parkin let it be known that he did not think the United States was sending its best men to Oxford. In later years some of the first Rhodes Scholars themselves admitted that their quality had not been not uniformly high in the first two decades of the program. They have also acknowledged that many of the early committees tended to select “he-men,” thus favoring the captains of the varsity sports teams over the superior students. Not surprisingly, no Rhodes Scholar himself later admitted that he was one of the mediocre ones. It was always some “others” who came from the bottom of the barrel! Nevertheless, it is safe to say that the average Rhodes Scholar from these early years was an above-average student at the university from which he came. Some, indeed, were outstanding intellectuals – as was demonstrated by their academic records in America and Oxford and by their professional careers. Only above-average students would have desired additional schooling in Oxford and would have been able to pass the qualifying examination. But certainly, as a whole, these pioneer Rhodes Scholars were not supermen.²⁴

They were, however, a fairly representative cross section of American society. As far as can be determined, none was the scion of a extremely wealthy family – but such students did not usually apply for scholarships. They came from middle and working-class families. Some had worked their way through college. One member of the 1904 class, Lawrence Henry Gipson of Idaho, had been both a stagecoach driver and a printer's “devil” and typesetter at his father's small-town newspaper.²⁵ The fathers of these early Rhodes Scholars included bankers, physicians, insurance salesmen, teachers, lawyers, businessmen, and farmers. There were Jews, Catholics, Mormons, and representatives of every major Protestant denomination. The class of 1907 included one black, Alain Locke (who will be discussed further in the next chapter). There was even a set of three brothers: Christopher, Felix, and Frank Morley (1910, 1917, 1919).

The scholars represented a wide array of universities and colleges. There were forty-three Americans in the class of 1904 – no candidates passed the qualifying examination in five states. These forty-three men came from forty-three different institutions. This kind of even dispersal no longer occurs. Changes in the selection process plus other factors in later decades have helped Ivy League and a few other elite universities to claim more than half of the scholars in any given year. Early in the century there was a greater tendency for a bright Nebraska or Wyoming boy to attend a university in his home state rather than elsewhere. Moreover, the college presidents in each state generally preferred to give the scholarships to students who had remained in their home state for their education. Thus the 1904 scholar from Kentucky was a student at Kentucky State University, the Kansan came from the University of Kansas, the Georgian from the University of Georgia, and so on. Not that the elite schools were excluded. The Massachusetts representative, for example, came from Harvard, and the New York winner was a Cornell man.

One ominous question loomed ahead for this melting pot of rambunctious Americans: What would happen to Cecil Rhodes' grand scheme for producing the best men for the world's fight once the scholars reached Oxford?

NOTES

1. For example, see NYT, 5 April 1902, 1; 6 April 1902, 5; 7 April 1902, 1; 25 January 1903, 7; 2 February 1903, 1; 19 July 1903, 9; 9 October 1903, 8; 11 October 1903, 4; 24 March 1904, 5.

2. Lord Elton, ed., The First Fifty Years of the Rhodes Trust and the Rhodes Scholarships (Oxford, 1955), 11, 61; TAO, 51 (1964): 74–83.

3. Thomas Case, “The Influence of Mr. Rhodes' Will on Oxford,” National Review, 39 (1902): 424. Also Elton, First Fifty Years, 59–60.

4. NYT, 9 October 1903, 8. Also see TAO, 2 (1915): 34–44, 21 (1934): 123–31.

5. The Times, 9 May 1902, 10C.

6. See TAO, 21 (1934): 127.

7. TAO, 21 (1934), 126–27; Graham Topping, “The Best Men for the World's Fight?” Oxford Today, Trinity Issue, 1993, 6.

8. Louis Dyer, “The Rhodes Scholarships,” The Outlook, 13 December 1902, 885–86.

9. TAO, 42 (1955): 21 and 52 (1965): 87.

10. Elton, First Fifty Years, 4, 10, 59; TAO, 5 (1918): 81–83, 32 (1945): 8–9, 50 (1963): 64–66, 51 (1964): 76–78, 81 (1994): 3.

11. Initially his title was “agent,” but that was soon changed to “secretary.”

12. That is, eight for Canada proper and one for Newfoundland.

13. See Wylie's article in TAO, 31 (1944): 65–69.

14. Elton, First Fifty Years, 8; TAO, 37 (1950): 65; 54 (1967): 103.

15. Elton, First Fifty Years, 9.

16. NYT, 30 January 1909, 2. Also see 28 January 1914, sec. 4, 2.

17. Aydelotte, American Rhodes Scholarships, 26; TAO, 81 (1994): 8.

18. Elton, First Fifty Years, 186; Frances Margaret Blanshard, Frank Aydelotte of Swarthmore (Middletown, CT, 1970), 49.

19. Elton, First Fifty Years, 63–64.

20. Aydelotte, American Rhodes Scholarships, 25; TAO, 1 (1914): 63–83. Of course, through the entire history of the program there have also been instances where persons who received the scholarships ended up not using them. A handful of students have died sometime in the months before arriving in Oxford. Over the past ninety years there have also been several students who accepted the scholarships and then later, for personal or academic reasons, decided not to go. The program has never selected alternates or replacements, and thus these positions have gone unfilled.

21. Blanshard, Aydelotte, 51; Alumni Magazine (by the Alumni Association of American Rhodes Scholars), 3 (January 1910): 2.

22. TAO, 37 (1950): 65–66; 44 (1957): 55.

23. Quoted in Milton Mackaye, “What Happens to Our Rhodes Scholars?” Scribner's Magazine, January 1938, 9.

24. Elton, First Fifty Years, 21, 187; Aydelotte, American Rhodes Scholarships, 25–30; George Parkin, The Rhodes Scholarships (Boston, 1912), 216–17; TAO, 1 (1914): 63; 39 (1952): 114; 40 (1953): 185; 54 (1967): 39.

25. Leslie V. Brock, “Lawrence Henry Gipson: Historian. The Early Idaho Years,” Idaho Yesterdays, 22 (1978): 9; Diane Windham Shaw, comp., Guide to the Papers of Lawrence Henry Gipson (Bethlehem, PA, 1984), 1.