Lectures Start on Monday

Lectures start on the first Monday of term. Lecturers are sometimes in fashion; lectures as such are never in fashion.

Why take notes when you couldas well read it all in a book? The question is unanswerable.

In some subjects the lecture-list is itself carefully organized by the Faculty, so that all the necessary lectures are given and given in the terms in which undergraduates need them. In other faculties the freedom of the lecturer is not so rigidly curtailed.* Let a lecturer lecture on whatever subject he chosen. If he hopes for an audience, he will choose a subject useful to undergraduates, and he will lecture on it twice a week. If he does not care about the size of his audience and prefers to lecture on some small field of learning on which he is researching or writing a learned paper, he will lecture one hour a week. "Thursday at 11, Mr Smooth, 'Plutarch, On the Virtue of Women.' "**

Dons*** in general hate lectures as much as undergraduates. That is why they lecture so badly. Nobody has ever taught them how to lecture well. There is a Delegacy**** in Oxford for the training of schoolmasters; there is no delegacy for the training of dons.

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* to be rigidly curtailed – быть строго ограниченным

** Плутарх «О женской добродетели»

*** a don – преподаватель

**** Delegacy of Training – Управлениепо подготовке школьных Учителей

On the first Monday the lecturer has his largest audience for the term. Where there are a hundred young men and women today, there will, in eight weeks times, be no more than five or six. Where there is an audience of two today, there will perhaps be one next week and, after that, no audience at all.

A professor's lecture is sometimes like the "pas scul" of a prima ballerina. He appears; he lectures; he retires. And then after an interval, he lectures again. But the College tutor's public lecture is an interruption in a week otherwise devoted to teaching pupils in his rooms, listening to their essays and talking about them. These are "private hours" – "tutes," as the undergraduates call them, or tutorials. Sometimes a pupil comes along, sometimes in a pair, sometimes with two or three others.

Young tutors find the hour too long, old tutors find it too short. Undergraduates find it very long indeed and if there is no clock in the room, they find it even longer. When you reach a tutor's age, it is less easy to listen than to talk, and observant undergraduates quickly realize that their tutors criticize in detail the final sentences of their essays but give little evidence of having observed the rest*. There is a splendid story of the great Ingram Bywater**.

"Ah," he said, in greeting, to his pupil, "what is the subject of you essay? Expediency? Splendid. Then will you read what you have written?"

At the end, he roused himself. He said, "For the next week, will you write an essay on– er – Expediency? That is all."

Had he slept through the whole of the essay? Or was he uttering the most devastating criticism?*** The pupils never knew.

II. End of Term Collections****

Term is ending. On Friday and on Saturday the undergraduates are themselves collected. "End of Term Collections" is the

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* but give little evidence of having observed the rest – но почти не чувствуется, что они прочли все остальное

** Ingram Bywater– оксфордский ученый, специалист по средне-и новогреческому языкам

*** Or was he uttering the most devastating criticism? – Илион полностью раскритиковал его?

**** Term Collections – «семестровые сборы», принятое в Оксфордском университете шутливое название различного рода официальных и неофициальных процедур, связанных с окончанием учебного семестра

official title of the ceremony. "Handshaking" it is informally called or, more commonly, "Don Rag."*

The undergraduates receive verbally an end-of-term report. In some colleges the ceremony is private. The undergraduate is along with the Head of his college and the Head of the College has in his hands a written report from the man's tutor. And there whatever is said, is said.**

In many colleges it is a less intimate and more frightening ceremony. The Head of the College sits in the hall at the High Table, flanked by Moral Tutors.*** They are, in the eyes of the young, a body of old, old men – malicious, malevolent old sadists, laughing proudly at their own jokes, jokes always at some poor undergraduate's expense.

One by one the young men are summoned.

"MrSmith ."

He walks the long way up the Hall, for the young men awaiting their summons have chosen their seats at the other end of the Hall, as far away from the High Table as they can get. He is conscious that his shoes squeak, or sound very loud on the stone floor. The inquisitors are massed on the other side of the table. On his side there is a single chair.

"Sit down, Mr Smith."

"Mr Smith, Master, has been coming to me this term. He has been working very well, as he always does. He needs, of course, to do a lot of reading in vacation."

"That is a good report, Mr Smith. Yes, pay attention to your tutor's advice – and give my very kind regards to your father. He is well, I think." (Mr Smith cannot tell the Master that he has not got a father. It happens term after term at Collections, the only time when Mr Smith and the Master are brought face to face. It is some other Smith, of course, with whom the Master regularly confuses him, a Smith who went down some terms ago.)

At about half past six in the evening, Larry emerges from Hall. He had not been certain what to expect, and he had faced the ordeal with some anxiety.

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* Rag – розыгрыш, который обычно устраивают студенты старших курсов новичкам (в Оксфорде и Кембридже носит безобидный характер).

** And there whatever is said, is said. – И что уж там говорится, то и говорится.

*** Moral Tutor – куратор, который отвечает за поведение студентов, он же дает характеристику студентам, желающим поступить на Работу в период каникул

His tutor said, "Mr Minthauser is still in the process of setting down, Master. He isn't quite used to our methods yet. He is beginning to learn that we don't regard length in an essay as any particular virtue – indeed that we rather mistrust people who can't express themselves briefly. But of course it's all new to him and he is tackling it in quite the right spirit."*

And the master has said, "How wouldyou report on yourself, Mr Minthauser?"

"I guess I'll make out in the end, but somebody's going to have to do some work on me first."

"Good," the master says.