Wat die dosente betref is ’n universiteit ’n gemeenskap van geleerdes wat studeer en navorsing doen en op ’n naskoolse vlak onderrig aan studente verskaf. Dit is uiteraard moeilik om te bepaal presies wanneer ’n onderriginstansie daardie akademiese vlak bereik het. Gewoonlik word beweer dat die oudste universiteit in Bologna gesetel is, naamlik sedert 1088. Daarna het universiteite in bv Parys (1150), Oxford (1167), Cambridge (1209), Salamanca (1218) en Padua (1222) tot stand gekom. Veralgemenend kan gesê word dat die Middeleeue van 400 tot 1400 gestrek en universiteite omtreeks 1200 hulle verskyning gemaak het. Uit hierdie Middeleeuse oorsprong volg dat universiteite eeue lank in groot mate onder die beheer van die Kerk was. Die universiteit is ’n Europese uitvinding wat mettertyd sy invloed dwarsoor die wêreld laat geld het, danksy oud-studente of deur die stigting van soortgelyke inrigtings.
Suid-Afrika is deur veral Oxford en Cambridge beïnvloed. Hulle was tot 1828 (toe die University of London gestig is) die enigste universiteite in Engeland. Voor 1828 het vier universiteite in Skotland, naamlik St Andrews (1411), Glasgow (1453), Aberdeen (1494) en Edinburgh (1582), asook een in Ierland (Dublin, 1591), tot stand gekom. Hierdie datums werp lig op die historiese dominansie van Oxford en Cambridge. Ek gaan my aandag vervolgens tot Oxford beperk omdat hy tradisioneel in groter mate as Cambridge op die humaniora ingestel was. Ek maak gebruik van Richard Tames se A Traveller’s History of Oxford (London: Phoenix Press, 2002, 374p).
Eers sedert die middel van die 19de eeu word daar aan Oxford ernstige aandag aan onderrig in die natuurwetenskappe gegee en sedert die 20ste eeu ook aan die sosiale wetenskappe. Maar tot op hede "Oxford somehow continue to retain the image of an ’arts’ university" (p 291). Dit was ook omstreeks 1850 dat die Oxford University Press "a major force in publishing" en mettertyd "the most learned and the greatest publishing house in the world" geword het (p 218). "Being published by the Oxford University Press is rather like being married to a duchess: the honour is almost greater than the pleasure" (p 218). Naas Londen is Oxford steeds die grootste bron van publikasies in Brittanje.
In Oxford het dit eeue lank om meer as beroepsonderrig gegaan. "Cardinal Newman in The Idea of a University, published in 1873, conceived of it as ideally constituting a community for the moral development of its members and not in any way vocational" (p 13). Die doel was opvoeding; die vorming en skoling van die gees, want "no one becomes wise suddenly" (p 215); om as ’n intellectual powerhouse" te funksioneer (p 202); om "the intellectual and spiritual granary" van Engeland te wees (p 211); en "to pursue academic breadth and excellence" (p 173). "This is a factory where the future is brewed" (p 264). "Oxford should be a ’nursery of statesmen’" (p 265).
Aan die begin was die dosente geleerde kerklikes, goed onderleg in Grieks en Latyn. Die enigste onderrigmedium was Latyn, wat meegebring het dat dosente en studente maklik van een universiteit na ’n ander kon gaan. Wat die studente betref was die oogmerk aanvanklik "producing men of learning fruitful to the church" (p 43). John Colet het gedink "A bad life is the worst heresy" (p 55). Sommige van die geleerdes wat in die vroeë jare aan die University of Oxford verbonde was, is Roger Bacon (1214-1294), John Duns Scotus (1265-1308), William Ockham (1285-1349), John Wyclif (1330-1384) en William Tyndale (1493-1536). In sy Bybelvertaling Tyndale "coined such immortal phrases as ’the powers that be’, ’the fat of the land’ and ’eat, drink and be merry’ ... 90 per cent of the text of the King James Authorised Version [1611] ... is still Tyndale’s" (p 75).
Die hoofbiblioteek in Oxford is die Bodleian Library, genoem na Thomas Bodley (1545-1613). Hy het na sy aftrede in 1596 die skade probeer herstel wat in 1549 deur protestante veroorsaak is toe hulle die vorige biblioteek, die Duke Humfrey’s Library, geplunder het. In 1610 het die Bodleiana die eerste Britse kopieregbiblioteek geword. Daarvolgens ontvang hy ’n gratis eksemplaar van iedere boek wat in Brittanje gedruk word. Jacobus/James I (1566-1625) het in 1605 tydens sy besoek aan die Bodleiana gesê: "Were I not a king ... I would have no other prison but this library" (p 81).
Afgesien van historiese gebeure wat Oxford beïnvloed het (bv die treinverbinding na Londen sedert 1843), was daar die deurlopende onenigheid tussen "town" (die dorp) en "gown" (die universiteit). Op die pragtige universiteitsgeboue kan die dorpenaars trots wees: "Without Oxford English architecture cannot be fully understood" (p 142). In baie gevalle is universiteitsgeboue rondom vierkante ("quads") gebou: "It moderated outside noise and the worst effects of wind and rain and offered privacy and security" (p 35). Die tuine is ook indrukwekkend: "If a man be wearied by over-much study ... there is no better place in the world to recreate himself than in a garden" (p 113). Teen die middel van die 18de eeu "a dozen coffee-houses ... flourished, some with their own libraries and offering ’liquors adapted to every species of reading ...learning no longer remains a dry pursuit’" (p 113-114).
Daar is nie altyd voldoen aan die hoë opvoedkundige ideale wat gestel is nie. "One half of the fellows who are what they call educated here are unfit to be clerks in a grocer’s" (p 163). Edward Gibbon (1737-1794) "epitomised his Oxford interlude as ’the most idle and unprofitable of my whole life’" (p 140). As student is Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) beskryf as "the ring leader of every species of mischief in our grave walls" (p 141). TS Eliot (1888-1965) "concluded that being at Oxford was too much like a foretaste of what it would be like to be dead" (p 250). Oxford se "tutorial system" is deur Samuel Morison (1887-1976) gekritiseer as "fostering a trained ability to ’make less knowledge go further’. The result was often academic in-breeding which enervated real intellectual distinction, resulting in ’too many college fellows who took a first, won a prize essay and have done nothing since’" (p 263). Afgesien van buitensporige drankmisbruik is daar ook die tradisie van "’dining’ instead of merely eating" (p 263).
Daar is egter ook dié met positiewe herinneringe. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) was weens finansiële probleme verplig om Oxford na net 14 maande te verlaat, maar hy het lojaal gebly: "I am arguing for the excellency of the institution." Hy was ’n student van Pembroke College, "referring to it as ’a nest of singing birds’" (p 145). Toe ses universiteitstudente geskors is, het Johnson dit as "extremely just and proper" beskou: "A cow is a very good animal in a field but we turn her out of a garden" (p 149). Van William Gladstone (1809-1898) is gesê: "He had ’not a single redeeming defect’" (p 179). Hy het geglo "that Oxford ’inculcated a reverence for what is ancient and free and great’" (p 180).
John Ruskin (1819-1900) was ’n swak student en sy "personal life betrayed his own singular incapacity to penetrate the female mind - or, indeed, body" (p 188). "Benjamin Jowett (1817-1893) was perhaps the single most influential don, if not in Oxford, then certainly in England" (p 192). "Regarded as something of an oracle, he was given to pithy pronouncements, epitomised by his advice to a young lady assailed by religious doubts: ’You must believe in God, my dear, despite what the clergymen say’" (p 193). Van Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) word gesê: "He was his own invention and Oxford was where he invented himself" (p 196). Wilde: "Oxford still remains the most beautiful thing in England and nowhere else are life and art so exquisitely blended, so perfectly made into one" (p 197).
WA Spooner (1844-1930) is ’n klassieke voorbeeld van die verstrooide professor. "His affability was legendary, if occasionally qualified by absent-mindedness, as in welcoming a colleague: ’Do come to dinner tonight. We have the new Fellow, Casson, coming.’ ’But, Warden, I am Casson.’ ’Oh, well. Never mind. Come anyway.’ On another occasion he is said to have hailed a familiar face: ’Now, let me see. Was it you or your brother who was killed in the war?’" (p 201).
Daar was ’n tyd toe dosente "entirely on the basis of academic merit" aangestel is (p 157). "The historian JR Green (1837-1883) summarised these dons’ cloistered outlook on life: ’Oxford was their world and beyond Oxford lay only wide wastes of shallowness and inaccuracy’" (p 165). Oxford kon egter nie hedendaagse modeneigings vryspring nie. Met verwysing na die boek wat Evelyn Vaughan (1903-1966) in 1945 gepubliseer het, word gesê: "Oxford is desperately concerned to destroy the Brideshead image of dissolution and exclusiveness and to enlarge its intake from the state sector and from ethnic minorities" (p 297). Hierdie beleid word eufemisties die "equal opportunities policy" genoem en geld sedert 1987 (p 344).
Volgende keer skryf ek oor ’n Suid-Afrikaanse skrywer se herbesoek aan Oxford.
Johannes Comestor
Kommentaar
Oxford? Dis mos die plek waar hulle woordeboeke maak, is dit nie?