Oxford and the Untamed West

                                                      Oxford and the Untamed West

 

        When I arrived in Colorado from Canada, A number of things surprised me. Many boarding schools in Canada (probably most) closely resemble nineteenth century British public schools, places where, had he been sent to the colonies, Tom Brown might have spent his school days and felt quite at home. There are uniforms, strict rules, curious traditions and pains, both chronic and acute. So when I arrived at Colorado Academy to teach, I was dismayed at first to see jeans with holes, T-shirts and reversed baseball caps, replacing the blazers, ties and tunics I was used to. Teachers were addressed by their first names and there were no bells and no obvious rules. Was it possible to teach in these conditions? When the disciplinary committee met to deal with a misbehaving student (something that happened perhaps twice a year) we sat in gentle judgment and each time reinvented the wheel. There was nothing resembling a formal book of rules. It is true that Colorado Academy is a relatively posh and very expensive school. All graduates go on to universities, many in the top rank. It is not an inner city school full of social disruption. It is both  selective and scrupulous. I am writing this essay in the Bodleian Library of Oxford University. This institution is also fussy about its clientele.

        I am transposed once again, this time from Colorado to Exeter College, Oxford. I am living in a room if not actually once the home of J.R.R.Tolkien, then at least someplace he may have visited for a pre dinner sherry. The halls, the quad, the fellows garden all tug at my imagination causing to think of Martin Amis, Richard Burton, Alan Bennett and Philip Pullman along with a score of other graduates whose ghosts stalk the premises. And now I wonder how they behaved themselves? I’ll tell you why I wonder.

        This morning I had my shower in a tiny cubicle across the hall from my room. There was a notice that read: “Hang up the mat on the heated rail for the next student’s use.” It was signed, “Scout”. Scout has left a number of messages here and there. He or she is making sure about the things we do and don’t do, and that’s fine. But the administration has given us a second long list of reminders to append to the one already sent to us at home. Our new list has 17 bulleted points describing possible areas of transgression. For example: we ought not to occupy or use, or attempt to occupy or use, any property or facilities of the university or of any college, except as may be expressly or impliedly (good word) authorized by the university or college authorities concerned. I don’t recall any such list anywhere else I have been. They are also taking no chances of the rules being misinterpreted. A legal scholar may have been consulted. 

        Even my Canadian boarding school assumed in its students some fundamental sense of what was right and wrong. And this was a school where some of the boarders may have verged on the psychopathic. Nowhere else have “they” felt I had to be reminded not to damage, deface or destroy, or to forge or falsify. I have never been reminded not to engage in violent, disorderly, indecent, threatening, or offensive behavior etc. etc. It goes on for a page of fine, thesaurus driven, type. It is curious.

        Following my shower (I hung up the mat) I walked over to the dining hall for breakfast. I did not step on the grass, and I resisted the temptation to disrupt, or attempt to disrupt, teaching or study or research or administrative, sporting, social, cultural or other activities of the university. I am glad they itemized these concepts, though I do wonder about trying to convert someone I might meet to say, Satanism. It isn’t actually mentioned, and I bet it’s not allowed. It does say not to obstruct, or attempt to obstruct, the lawful exercise of freedom of speech by members, students and employees of the university or by visiting speakers. 

        I would like to say, “Oh shut up!” to whoever prepared this proscriptive list, but that would be rude. In fact I am somewhat worried about this essay. In the wild untamed west of Colorado there seems to be an expectation of morality, while in a setting that basks in 700 years of the civilizing influence of careful readers, writers and thinkers, the expectations of students are very carefully catalogued. I’m not sure what to make of this, or what it says about society. I suppose one is permitted to be baffle