This state of things has produced the demand for the "Endowment of
Research." It is not necessary to go into that controversy.
Englishmen, as a rule, believe that endowed cats catch no mice. They
would rather endow a theatre than a Gelehrter, if endow something
they must. They have a British sympathy with these beautiful, if
useless beings, the heads of houses, whom it would be necessary to
abolish if Researchers were to get the few tens of thousands they
require. Finally, it is asked whether the learned might not find
great endowment in economy; for it is a fact that a Frenchman, a
German, or an Italian will "research" for life on no larger income
than a simple fellowship bestows.
The great obstacle to this "plain living" is perhaps to be found in
the traditional hospitality of Oxford. All her doors are open, and
every stranger is kindly entreated by her, and she is like the
"discreet housewife" in Homer -
[Greek text which cannot be reproduced]
In some languages the same word serves for "stranger" and "enemy,"
but in the Oxford dialect "stranger" and "guest" are synonymous.
Such is the custom of the place, and it does not make plain living
very easy. Some critics will be anxious here to attack the
"aesthetic" movement. One will be expected to say that, after the
ideas of Newman, after the ideas of Arnold, and of Jowett, came those
of the wicked, the extravagant, the effeminate, the immoral "Blue
China School.
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