Rhodes Scholarships and American Scholars

THE entry of the United States into the Great War led to the temporary suspension of elections to the Rhodes Scholarships throughout the Union. The same thing happened in all the many communities of the British Empire to which they are assigned. The conditions of age and physical fitness imposed on candidates for the Scholarships corresponded so closely with those laid down for military service in the draft law of the United States, the conscription law of Canada, and the military requirements of all the dominions and colonies, that there was practically no alternative to this policy of postponement.

It was enforced by other considerations. Out of the student population of Oxford, normally numbering about 3500, only two or three hundred remained in residence. These included freshmen waiting till they were of mili-

tary age, medical students, who were excluded from military service, Indian students, foreigners driven out of the small countries overrun by Germany, and the physically unfit. The colleges had become billets for young soldiers in training; the examination schools, hospitals; the parks and playing-fields, places for exercise in infantry drill, bomb-throwing, trench-digging, wiring, signaling and all the other varieties of military preparation. A large School of Aeronautics brought hundreds of cadets to study the scientific side of their new business. In such an atmosphere there was little room for the intellectual and social intercourse which the Scholarships were intended to provide. Besides all this, the trustees felt that it would be most unfair to carry on the elections at a time when the most patriotic and promising candidates had, as a rule, debarred themselves from competition by taking military service in their respective countries. Their policy indeed will be, when the elections are resumed, to give the preference, other things being equal, to candidates who have shown their high sense of citizenship in this way. But the elections were only postponed. Now that the war is over and demobilization is under way, the Scholarships due to each state will be filled as rapidly as suitable candidates can be found, or as Oxford can absorb the flood of students which will now be pouring back into her halls.

Elections for 1918 and 1919 will be held during the autumn of the present year, those for 1920 and 1921 in the autumn of 1920, after which they will resume their normal course, when thirty-two states will elect each year.

This postponement of elections has furnished an opportunity of reviewing the whole scholarship situation, arriving at conclusions about the working of the system, and considering any changes needed to make it more effective. As it has now been in operation for fourteen years, the trustees have a wide range of experience to assist them in forming an opinion on its adequacy for securing the results which Mr. Rhodes had in his mind, or such as are worthy of so important a foundation. The Trust has had to deal with widely separated countries and varied educational conditions. In this paper it is proposed to touch only on the problems that have presented themselves in the United States, from which about half of the whole body of Scholars is drawn. Some of these problems seem worthy of careful consideration among those who have the direction of American education.

I

The system as at present in operation was adopted after personal consultation with, and on the advice of, most of the highest university and college authorities of the various states. During the past year I have had the opportunity of consulting once more a large proportion of these same authorities or their successors in office. They are almost unanimously agreed that, with the knowledge then available, no better plan than the one hitherto tried could have been devised. They are equally agreed that it has in operation developed unexpected difficulties, has not achieved fully the results anticipated, and requires modification. It is perhaps well to begin by indicating the nature and extent of this failure to obtain the best results so far as the United States is concerned.

One noteworthy fact, the explanation of which I have tried to investigate, should be first mentioned. Of all the candidates for Scholarships throughout the Union during the last thirteen years, now numbering more than two thousand, about one half have failed to pass the qualifying examination, which is equivalent to what at Oxford is called ‘Responsions,’ the lowest standard on which a man is allowed to remain at the University. It is a singular fact that these failures have occurred almost as frequently in the older Eastern States as in the West, and in the North as in the South, where education is supposed to be less advanced. This seems to indicate that the underlying causes are general throughout the Union. The examination is considered quite elementary according to Oxford standards, and is usually passed by boys of seventeen, eighteen, or nineteen from the grammar, high, and great public schools. Those who take it in America are required to have at least sophomore standing at some recognized degreegranting university or college. They are more frequently graduates. In one state having an exceptionally large and varied university organization and numerous student body, out of nineteen candidates who presented themselves in two years, only two succeeded in passing the examination.

Such a proportion of failures appears to indicate, either that there is something radically defective in the elementary training of the secondary schools from which the candidates come, or that the Scholarships do not appeal to American students who have been well trained. In the earlier years of our work, these numerous failures were attributed to the demand made in the examination for a certain amount of Greek, a study widely neglected in parts of America. But when the concession was made several years ago that Greek might be taken subsequent to election, the average of failures continued about the same, and occurred in arithmetic, algebra, and geometry as well as in Latin. The almost irresistible inference is that there must be some lack of thoroughness in the training given in American secondary schools. It is probably too much to say that our tests, which are applied in every state in the Union, and are meant merely to find out whether a candidate has the necessary basis for a liberal education, have enabled us to discover the weak link in American education; but the case for this view at least deserves examination.

I have recently discussed it pretty exhaustively with presidents and faculties in more than thirty states, and the prevailing opinion is that this inference is correct. They find that their own higher work is seriously handicapped by the inadequate preparation of a large proportion of the students who come to them. Local feeling, dependence on popular support, competition for students between institutions, and other influences make it difficult in many instances, but not, of course, in the greater universities, to insist upon an adequate entrance standard. While, therefore, our experience in this particular must modify the policy of the Trust in ways to which reference will be made later, it has obviously far deeper significance for those engaged in higher education in America itself.

It has been suggested as an explanation of the failures referred to that students of sophomore, or, as is more commonly the case, graduate standing, are too far away from their secondaryschool work to do justice to an examination based upon it. But it is difficult to imagine that any such student who has the examination papers of previous years to guide him, the prospect of one of the largest scholarships in the world before him, and plenty of time to prepare, could fail to meet the small demand made upon him if he had originally been well grounded. There may be more in the further suggestion that American students are not accustomed to the written tests of accurate knowledge which Oxford employs. On this point it should be said at once that their hopes of success at Oxford will depend on acquiring the ability to stand such tests.

Before leaving this side of the question, it may be well to mention an explanation suggested to me by the head of one of the large and successful secondary schools of New England. His opinion was that the real root of the difficulty lay further back, in the preparatory or elementary school. Boys came to him at the age of thirteen or thereabouts, so poorly grounded in elementary work that it often involved for them a constant struggle throughout the whole of their secondary-school and university life to remedy the defect. The English boy sent to a good preparatory school at ten, he thought, received, while his mind was most plastic, a drill in elements which made his later work easy and more effective. He was speaking, of course, of boys whose parents were able and anxious to give their children the best training that could be got. American parents, he thought, in their desire to give their children a ‘good time,’free from serious work, through this earlier period of their lives, really laid a heavy burden upon them in the later stages. Of the justice of this opinion American educators will be best able to judge.

It will be readily seen that, where the standard of eligibility is placed so low, with the result that one half of all the candidates fail to pass, an opportunity is given for weak applicants to secure the Scholarships. This has not infrequently happened. The men themselves are among the first to acknowledge this. Numbers of them have told me that they found themselves imperfectly prepared to meet the keen competition and severe demands of the scholarship standard of Oxford, not only in classics, but in all the other wide range of subjects open to them at the university. Any effort to raise the standard will have no stronger supporters than the ex-Rhodes Scholars themselves, who are sensitively anxious that the United States should be adequately represented at Oxford. Considerable groups of them have given it to me as their considered opinion that of all the men sent from America not more than one third were, in ability and preparation, in a position to compete with the best-trained men from English public schools; others had the ability without the necessary preparation; while a further considerable group fell distinctly below anything that could be considered a good scholarship standard at the University, while not strikingly superior in the other qualities to which Mr. Rhodes attached importance.

My own observation, the opinion of university tutors, and the test of the final honor examinations all tend to confirm the accuracy of this judgment of the Scholars themselves.

It has become clear that every inadequate Scholar sent to Oxford lowers the prestige of the Scholarships in the United States, and diminishes respect for them. The reasons for this are fairly obvious to anyone who understands American conditions. When a man is selected in any state for a scholarship, he usually receives a good deal of notice in the local press, as the winner of a large scholarship, founded by a great man, at a famous university, and by inference is therefore a brilliant scholar and an exceptional man, from whom much may be expected in after life. He leaves home stamped with this popular reputation, which is not at all justified by the preliminary examination he has passed. Should he not be of this type, should he be unfitted for the keen competition of the University, should he pass through the three years at Oxford without making any marked impression either in scholarship or personality, and return to his own country to sink out of notice, the blame for the failure is placed upon Oxford, whereas it really rests in the original inadequacy of the man. Oxford has no magic beyond any other university to produce the best results, unless furnished with material which makes such results possible. It is evidently the business of the Trust, — it is most certainly for the advantage of America, — that every reasonable precaution should be used to secure as Scholars men who possess the ability and force of character which will, both at Oxford and in after life, fully justify their selection.

Extended observation has shown me, and our experience has proved, that there are conditions widely prevalent in America which create distinct difficulties, many quite reasonable and natural, in the attainment of this end. In the first place, it is a country which offers unusual opportunities of a material kind to young men of exceptional force and ability. The great railway systems, the manufacturing and commercial trusts, and other vast business organizations are constantly on the look-out for such men, and pay a high price for their services. They aim also at getting them comparatively young. Over large areas of the Union this condition alone handicaps us greatly in securing candidates of first-class ability. It probably represents a temporary stage, due to the rapid industrial and commercial development through which the country is passing, but it is one that must be reckoned with at present.

Again, the ambitious young American is much more disposed than his European contemporary to attack the problems of actual life and begin earning money, even in professional employments, at the earliest possible moment. Years of severe preparatory training for his work do not appeal to him so much as years of practical experience. Each course has its advantages, the one perhaps giving more speedy, the other more permanent success. The choice will usually be decided by temperament.

Another serious limitation to our field of selection has come from a view about scholarships common in America. In most educational institutions throughout the United States, the emphasis is laid, not upon the distinction of winning a scholarship in free competition, which is seldom provided for, but on its money-value in helping a struggling student through his course. There are exceptions, but the rule holds so widely that scholarships have come to be popularly regarded mainly as charities. The sons of people in comfortable circumstances and able to pay their own way are unwilling to contend for them. This disposition is natural, honorable, and altogether right where the object of the scholarship is charity. But should it prevail in regard to the Rhodes Scholarships, it means the practical exclusion from the competition of all students in America who happen to have private means — an exclusion fatal to the highest success of the system and unfair to the American representation at Oxford. Rhodes evidently aimed at securing strong men far more than at aiding struggling ones, though these are by no means excluded.

One seldom hears the holder of an American university or college scholarship spoken of in the way in which we would speak of the winner at Oxford of the Ireland, the Eldon, a Balliol Scholarship, or an All Souls’ Fellowship, namely, as a man on the path to distinction. Rich and poor alike compete keenly for the honor that these intellectual prizes bring; their moneyvalue may, or may not, be important to the competitor.

I doubt greatly whether among all the hundreds of American Scholars who have come to us, more than a small proportion have come from homes of competence. Many come from homes of culture, the sons of clergymen, university teachers, and like professions— as excellent material as we could wish for, but not as fully representative of all sides of American life as it should be. I suspect that the son of a wealthy man would feel himself prejudiced by this fact if he presented himself to most of the committees of selection who have acted for us in America. This can be corrected only by some change of opinion. The honor of winning must be given the first place and competition must be such as to make the honor real.

The ideal solution for this problem in America seems quite simple. Should a rich man be the winner of a Rhodes Scholarship, he can easily pass on to those who need it the money advantage which it gives him, while retaining the honor he has fairly gained; the poor man who is a winner may freely enjoy both the distinction and the financial aid that the Scholarship gives. On this understanding all may honorably compete, and our Scholars become representative of the various sides of American life.

Another point should be mentioned. Even when willing to spend some years in additional study, American students often find practical advantage in doing this at one of the graduate schools of their own country rather than abroad. In this way they keep in close touch with those who can best help them to get positions when they have completed their course. Scholars who come to Oxford lose this touch for three full years, and when they return home are apt to feel themselves adrift in communities where the value of what they have gained is not fully understood.

II

In this enumeration of the hindrances to the full success desired, I have left to the last one of the most marked. A professor in a Southern university lately said to me that, so long as it made any demand for Greek, Oxford would be regarded as mediæval by the average American student. The correctness of the statement or the wisdom of the judgment I shall not attempt to gauge. But it does represent a widespread prejudice largely based on lack of information. It is true that Oxford is still a chosen home of Classical study and deems it one of her highest honors. The thinkers, writers, jurists, and statesmen of world-wide fame trained in her Classical schools justify this pride. But she honors all studies, and steadily enlarges her means of dealing with them. A medical school which has Sir William Osler at its head as Regius Professor will not in the United States be suspected of mediævalism. ‘Honor Schools’ leading to the B.A. degree are established, not only in Litteræ Humaniores, but also in mathematics, physics, chemistry, animal physiology, zoölogy, botany, geology, astronomy, engineering science, jurisprudence, modern history, theology, Oriental subjects, English language and literature, and modern languages, any of which may be studied exclusively with a view to the degree. Students whose previous training fits them for advanced study or research may be admitted to read for an ‘Advanced Degree,’ such as the B.Sc., B.Litt., or Ph.D. Diplomas may be obtained in geography, education, economics and political science, or forestry, anthropology, agriculture, classical architecture, and rural economy. Rhodes Scholars have taken all, or nearly all, these courses.

In this connection one fact of experience may be placed on record. We have now had at the university some hundreds of American Scholars. All of them had at least sophomore standing at their home universities, a majority of them were graduates, many were men of exceptional ability. They have had the opportunity to pursue their studies for three years without any distraction through financial anxiety. Yet I think every ex-Scholar will agree with me when I say that not one of them has achieved in any of the subjects mentioned — as many of them have — the higher honors that Oxford has to give, without working strenuously throughout his course.

In spite of all the drawbacks I have mentioned, the Trust has every reason to congratulate itself on the quality and spirit of a large proportion of the American Scholars drawn to Oxford by its first and tentative methods of selection. But it is bound to seek the highest possible results from a foundation of such importance. The circumstances of our time create an opportunity for this that has not before existed. The universities of Germany, to which many American students have hitherto gone, will probably be closed to them for years to come. The desire for OldWorld study will still remain for many who wish to get a varied training and educational experience. To such the ancient universities of Britain, as no doubt those of France, will give the warmest welcome. The fact that Oxford and Cambridge, as well as some of the newer universities of Great Britain, have lately established a Ph.D. degree, is likely to attract a class of men naturally anxious that their post-graduate work should receive due academic recognition.

The problem before the Trust is, how to discover among the great body of university and college students in the United States, thirty-two men each year to whom the scholarships will be a real boon, who will reflect credit upon the Trust, and who will confer the greatest advantage upon their own country, by taking the opportunity offered to them of study abroad.

In considering the methods by which the standard among our American scholars may be so raised as to command general respect in their own country as well as at Oxford, we are faced by several serious problems. First among these, I am disposed to place the fact that the Scholarships are by the bequest allotted to each of the forty-eight individual states of the Union. Our experience has shown that many states do not regularly supply suitable candidates. In some the educational facilities are inadequate, in others the whole trend of public feeling and educational effort is toward training for practical work rather than encouragement of scholarly interests. Unless he possesses such interests in a fairly marked degree, no student can make a successful course at Oxford or secure the advantages which it has to offer. There have been cases in which a state would not have a candidate to present unless applicants were imported from other communities. By migrating from a state where there is strong competition to one where it is absent or negligible, and pursuing his studies there for one or two years, a comparatively inadequate student could, under our earlier regulations, gain the right to enter for the Scholarship and secure it, though barely able, by special preparation, to pass the very elementary qualifying examination. This tends to discredit the system, and it seems imperative that steps should be taken to guard against such a possibility. Fortunately the bequest gives the Trustees the power to fix the conditions on which the Scholarships are awarded.

The conclusion has been forced upon the Trust that for the United States, where the opportunities for education are so many, a standard must be established much above that of the qualifying examination hitherto used, and more on the level of the ordinary Oxford scholarship, no award being made to candidates who fall below a fairly high standard. Even while keeping this end in view, there is no wish to make the test entirely scholastic, as this would contravene the suggestions made in the will. Every allowance will be made for marked personality and indications of power in a candidate, even where precise scholarship is lacking. This is in keeping with Oxford methods. The head of one of the most distinguished foundations of the University has told me that, in selecting its scholars, the college is guided more by indications of power than by mere accuracy of performance in examination.

When a preliminary test based on English standards has been so effective in thinning the ranks of candidates, the discontinuance of the examination altogether may seem a singular step toward securing a higher standard among the Scholars. This is the experiment which the Trustees have, after careful consideration, decided to make. It means that success at his own American university, not an English examination, will be the chief intellectual test by which the candidate will be judged. Any regularly constituted degree-granting college or university will be entitled in each state to put forward as candidates a strictly limited number of its students. They must have the approval as candidates of the institution to which they belong, and they may be selected by any method which the institution itself may see fit to use. From among all the candidates thus put forward by different institutions the Committee of Selection for the state will proceed to elect the candidate whom they consider to possess the highest qualifications. The decision will be based on comparison of school and college records, and on the evidence the candidates furnish of possessing those qualities of character, virility, and leadership to which Mr. Rhodes attached importance at least as great as to intellectual superiority.

It seems certain that in the selection of American scholars more weight should be given than has sometimes been done to proof of mental ability. The suggestions made by Mr. Rhodes in regard to a taste for and success in athletic sports among his Scholars have attracted much attention, and under some circumstances have much to recommend them. But the highly specialized form which athletics have taken in the university life of America lessens their value for the purpose intended. In the great public schools of England some form of athletic sport is practically compulsory for all; in the universities fully seventy-five per cent of the students take an active part in athletic contests. Under such conditions few good candidates would be excluded from competition by an athletic test. But we have found that to limit the competition in America to successful athletes narrows the field of choice to a very small number of the whole student body. I have frequently been told by university authorities and students that the proportion would be less than five per cent, and that proportion would be from a section of the students not the best qualified intellectually to do justice to the scholarships.

There is a further decisive reason against such a limitation. The sound physique and personal vigor which Mr. Rhodes rightly had in view, as well as the habits of self-control, the spirit of fair play, and the power of managing others acquired in the sports of English public schools and universities, are often gained in other and more practical fields by American students who never took part in a football or baseball match — in adventurous exploration, in vacations spent on lake or river, on railway or forest surveys, on farm and ranch, and in the many other employments and relaxations of the varied life of a great continent. Full allowance for this difference must be made in applying the ideas of the founder to the selection of his American Scholars. The instructions given to committees of selection will emphasize this point. The spirit of the founder’s suggestions must be kept steadily in view, though it may be unwise to apply them according to their strict letter.

It is believed that careful and confidential inquiry among those who have trained candidates, supplemented if necessary by any test of general ability which the committee may impose, will, with what is mentioned above, furnish sufficient data on which to make a reliable decision. In the Oxford colleges a written essay on some question of broad human or national interest is found a useful gauge of general ability; and it is not unlikely that such a test will often be applied by committees to assist their judgment.

III

I may now turn to another difficulty which has been met with in the administration of the system. In every state, machinery had to be created for the careful and impartial selection of the Scholar from among the qualified candidates who presented themselves. Committees of selection were formed for this purpose, of which the President of the state university, — where there was one, — or other leading university, was chairman, and had the assistance of three or four other heads of college institutions. This arrangement gave promise of both care and impartiality. In large numbers of states this promise was amply fulfilled, and the Trust cannot be too grateful to men of the greatest educational weight throughout the Union who have given time and thought to the successful working of the Scholarship system.

But in some cases these committees did their work under serious difficulties. The members were usually among the busiest men in the state; they were often called together from great distances; their work had of necessity to be done hurriedly and without the opportunity for close inquiry and comparison which such work needed. Their difficulties were increased by the suggestions made by Mr. Rhodes in regard to the principles of selection.

Examiners in a strictly competitive test of scholarship have abundant and accurate data to guide their judgment. But our committees of selection are asked to compare imponderable qualities, such as character, athletic tastes and success, or qualities of leadership in candidates drawn from various institutions with widely varying standards, and have to place dependence on testimonials, the value of which it is not easy to gauge.

But a more fundamental difficulty lay in the fact that the committees of selection were mainly composed of men who were, as heads of institutions sending in candidates, themselves interested parties. Anyone who knows how keen is the rivalry between the different colleges of some American states will understand what an obstacle to impartial selection this fact has proved to be. The intense loyalty of American students to their own college increases the difficulty. The student body in each institution expects that its representative on the committee will stand by its candidate, and is inclined to criticize him for lack of energy or of influence should he fail to secure his election. Considerations of this kind do not, of course, affect the larger universities with a broad national outlook. But in some states they are difficult to overcome. Sometimes they spring, not from rivalry, but from exceedingly generous impulses. The heads of large universities, which naturally attract the ablest youth of a state, do not like to press the claims of their own better candidates against those from smaller institutions which send the best they have.

The tendency, admittedly rather prevalent in America, and assumed to be democratic, to ‘pass round’ any public honor or emolument, has also to be reckoned with. The result is that the business of selection often ends in a compromise, which practically means that the appointment is made alternately among the different colleges or universities. This leaves us without assurance that the best man has been chosen at each election, and tends to lessen the number of candidates and the keenness of competition. It often happens that, when the Scholarship has been awarded to a candidate from one institution in a state, its students feel that it is useless to apply till the supposed ‘turn’ of their institution has again come round. I have had convincing proof that this impression has greatly reduced the number of competitors in many states.

The existence of these difficulties is fully recognized among university men everywhere in America, and a change of system in our methods of selection will now be welcomed by those who have hitherto so liberally and cheerfully given us their assistance. The Trustees have agreed to make a new experiment in this direction by making use of an agency through which, I believe, with proper organization, the work of selection can be carried out more satisfactorily than in the past.

We already have between three and four hundred old Scholars scattered throughout the United States. Many of them are men of marked ability; some are already making for themselves a considerable position in various walks of life. They are genuinely devoted to the interests of the Scholarship system and believe that it may become very advantageous to America. They are men who know from personal experience what Oxford is, what advantages it offers to an American student, and on what type of student it is likely to confer the greatest benefit. They are as a rule closely in touch with young America and the college or university life from which candidates are drawn, and are in an especially favorable position to make careful and intimate inquiry through their college societies, as well as through college authorities, about the character and qualification of candidates. As years go on their number will steadily increase and will ultimately reach about fifteen or sixteen hundred, distributed throughout all parts of the Union. Thus in the future we shall have at our command a large and weighty body of men specially qualified for the work and capable of undertaking the most serious responsibilities. The proposal for remedying the defects referred to is to transfer gradually, as circumstances permit, the selection of new Scholars to the hands of ex-Scholars.

What is the type of man, we may now ask, who can, in America, with the most advantage to himself, take a Rhodes Scholarship, or can with the fullest confidence be advised to make it an object of his ambition? Certainly, first of all, he should be one who is eager to get what Oxford has to give in mental training or other preparation for the work of life. What this is can be pretty clearly defined. If on the intellectual side a student’s inclination is toward the humanities, — toward Classical or English literature, philosophy, history, political science, theology, or jurisprudence, — he will find at Oxford opportunities and an atmosphere as favorable for good work as in any centre of education on earth; and should he aim at winning distinction among his fellow students in these lines of study, he will assuredly there find himself subjected to tests and competition which will tax all his powers. If his turn is for mathematics or medicine, natural or applied science, modern or Oriental languages, geography, forestry, and similar lines of special study, he can depend upon receiving in these also a quite adequate training, and on meeting with abundant competition, even though Oxford does not claim to offer superlative advantages in some of these subjects, and has not the same completeness of equipment or fullness of opportunity which may be found in other highly specialized centres of training.

If, once more, his aim is chiefly that broad culture which comes from general study and observation, from mingling with men of various types, from living in a highly intellectual atmosphere, amid inspiring traditions of great men and great movements, in easy touch with the greatest libraries and galleries of art known in the world — all this is open to an energetic Oxford student who uses judiciously both terms and vacations to enlarge his experience and cultivate his mind. The opportunities are of a kind that Scholars drawn from newer countries cannot expect to find in their own lands. Personal temperament and purpose in life will determine the value attached to them.

What, we may ask again, is the type of man in the America of to-day who will best fulfill the ideas which Cecil Rhodes had in his mind when he extended his Scholarship system to the United States. Certainly it was the type which combines the qualities of the scholar and the man of affairs — the type of student likely to take an active part in the public life of the community from which he comes. My own observation, now extending over many years and to every state in the Union, leads me to think that if we can secure from America as our Scholars men aiming at high academic position, we shall go further toward attaining the aims that Rhodes had in view than in any other way.

The history of the past five years has given a new meaning to the subject discussed in this paper. The penetrating vision of Cecil Rhodes foresaw that a mutual understanding between the people of the British and American commonwealths would become a necessity for the future peace and security of the world. The circumstances of the Great War, and the confusion in which it has left the world, have revealed as never before the breadth and accuracy of that vision; have placed the question in the very forefront of human interest. Rhodes believed that intercourse in their university life between the young men of the two nations would help toward this understanding, and founded the American and Colonial Scholarships as his contribution to the end in view. If some American of like imagination, and with a like command of means, would open the way for British scholars to study close at hand the educational and national ideals of the United States, his act would be a splendid and useful supplement to the original idea of our founder. It would, I am sure, meet with eager response from the ambitious youth of the old and new nations which make up the widespread British Commonwealth. Meanwhile, every effort to make the most of the opportunities created by Cecil Rhodes has a claim on the sympathy and support of thinking men in both nations.