Cecil Rhodes had no idea that his Will was a perfect document. He well realized the difficulty and the complexity of the problem of organizing and putting in practice the Scholarship system for which he was providing; and with clear foresight he made the will elastic, leaving to his Trustees and their agents the development of details.

He had always in life expressed a rare confidence in the Anglo-Saxon race. His Will bears witness to the confidence which he placed in the training capacity of the oldest seat of Anglo-Saxon learning, in the skill and public spirit of his Trustees, and in the assimilative capacities of a cosmopolitan group of students of Anglo-Saxon stock whom he meant to draw together.

The first step for the Trustees was to secure agents who should have personal supervision of the task of organizing and engineering the machinery by which Rhodes Scholars should be selected, introduced to Oxford, and instructed, advised, and guided in the various intricacies of what, to most of them, would prove an altogether new system. Dr. George R. Parkin, LL.D., G.M.G., was called from his position as President of Upper Canada College, Toronto, and accepted and undertook the task of ‘world agent’, so to speak, of the Rhodes Trust. His wide experience in educational work, his knowledge of Oxford as an Oxford student, and his intimate knowledge of the parts of the British Empire and of the English speaking world eminently fitted Dr. Parkin for the position which he assumed.

Mr. Francis J. Wylie, M. A., a Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford, was chosen to fill an executive and diplomatic position as the Oxford representative of the Trustees, a position which makes him at once the negotiator between the Trust and the University, and, until the Scholars’ applications for College entrance are adjusted and accepted, between the Scholars and the University and Colleges.

To Dr. Parkin was entrusted the making of the necessary arrangements with Oxford, and the construction of a system for selecting and appointing Scholars. Negotiations with the University and with the Colleges found all the Colleges willing to accept Rhodes Scholars, although their requirements varied somewhat. The Trustees found it advisable to require that only men who showed ability to pass Responsions[17] should be eligible.

Entrance to an Oxford College is not as simple a matter as entering most Colleges or Universities in the United States, Germany, the British Colonies or even other Universities in the United Kingdom.

The handling of an endless variety of questions which would naturally arise in this connexion, negotiations between the appointed Scholars and Oxford, and the adjustment of individual difficulties at Oxford became, as they continue to be, the charge of Mr. Wylie.

Dr. Parkin was then able to set out on what became a one-hundred-thousand-mile trip to the ‘ends of the earth’, to approach the authorities in the centres from which Rhodes Scholars were to be drawn. It was his mission to deal with ever-varying local conditions, and establish in each centre an appointive system which would at once satisfy the requirements of the Will, the requirements of the University, and the circumstances of the local educational (and sometimes political) régimes. Only through the elasticity of the Will, which gave discretionary powers to the Trustees, and through which they, in turn, allowed Dr. Parkin to deal with local conditions, was the success of these negotiations made possible.

Of this unique trip of organization Dr. Parkin says:—

‘Practically it has brought me in touch with almost every educational man of weight in the United States and in all our Colonies. In New York I met the heads of fifteen of the greatest American Universities, and in Washington the Presidents of the State Universities throughout the Union assembled in conference. At Boston the Colleges and Schools of New England were represented. At Chicago nearly sixty heads of Colleges from the six neighbouring States, representing altogether between twenty and twenty-five millions of people, had been drawn together by President Harper. At Atlanta the nine Southern States were represented, the delegates coming 600 miles southward from Virginia and 500 miles northward from Louisiana. At Kansas City, Spokane, San Francisco, and Denver, the representatives of the Far West and the Pacific Coast were collected. In the Maritime Provinces of Canada, at Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Regina, and Vancouver, independent conferences were held, as also in each of the Australian States, in New Zealand, Bermuda, Jamaica and Newfoundland. In South Africa the consultation was chiefly with individual schools or the heads of educational departments.’[18]

As may readily be seen from clause 23 of the Will, Rhodes had in mind a system of selection which is only possible to ‘Schools’ and to some Colleges which are organized after the manner of the English ‘Public School’. Obviously this system would be altogether inapplicable in most parts of the United States and in the newer parts of the British Empire. Clause 25, however, leaves to the Trustees the right to make such arrangements and provide such a system as shall be found practicable.

The questions, then, which these conferences had to discuss were: the extent to which it was possible to adhere to Rhodes’s suggestions; methods of selection; the committees of selection; eligibility; age limits; conditions of domicile; and school or collegiate standing which should govern candidature and appointment.

The results were, broadly speaking, as follows:[19]—

In those Colonies where neither Governor nor Chief Justice is elected or directly subject to political influence, these officials were asked to act along with educational men on the Committees of Selection.

In four of the Canadian Provinces and a few States of the United States a system was agreed upon among the leading Colleges or Universities whereby they were to nominate Scholars in rotation. (This remains the case only in Maine, Vermont, and Washington, and these may soon be changed.)

Scholars from Cape Colony were of course chosen from the individual schools to which Scholarships were assigned.

Whenever the number of Independent Colleges or Universities is large, and when courses of study vary widely, it was found most practicable to adopt a plan of open candidature.

Aside from those Committees in which the Governor and Chief Justice were included, the Committee of Selection were chosen entirely from among prominent educators. The Presidents of the leading Universities are chairmen or members of those Committees, and two, four, or six, prominent University men of their respective States or Provinces are associated with them. The constitution of Committees in the United States has been kept purely academic.

In Germany the appointment as provided by the Will lies with the Emperor.

Age limits and preparatory training were absorbing questions. The English boy ‘comes up’ to Oxford as a rule in his nineteenth or twentieth year, after from four to seven years in a ‘Public School’ such as Eton, Harrow, Westminster, Winchester (or from a smaller school with much the same academic system). The English ‘Public School’ (which is not a Public School at all, see p. 47) differs widely in character and in curriculum from the American ‘High School’ or Preparatory School, if we except a group of academic schools—nearly all in the East—which are modelled on the English system.

It was therefore a question of prime importance to what extent it would be necessary, and then how far desirable and advisable, that the equipment of Rhodes Scholars should approximate to that of their college-mates-to-be, and in what respects they might advantageously differ.

It was pointed out in the Conferences:—

That the English ‘Public School’ gives a boy an opportunity to distinguish himself through its elaborate system of athletics and scholarship examinations at an earlier age than is usual in Colonial or American Secondary Schools.

That the American or Colonial student after two or more years of college or University life at home would be much better fitted to enter Oxford without handicap than if he went directly from his Secondary School.

That for the sake of understanding the English University from the American point of view and the American University from the English point of view, likewise for understanding and comparing other institutions, and above all for the sake of his later life when he should return to live in his own country, he ought to have a preliminary experience of University life in his own country.

That in order to appreciate and make the most of the advantages or opportunities which his position as a Rhodes Scholar would offer him, and to avoid the temptations to idleness to which Oxford would expose him and the variety of temptations which the long Vacation present, and in order that he might know, and remain in thoughtful and intimate sympathy with affairs in his own country, it would be greatly to his advantage to be more mature than the average graduate of the Colonial or American Secondary School, or than the ordinary Oxford matriculant.

W. T. Harris, United States Commissioner of Education, said in 1902:[20]—‘It would seem best that our candidates for the Rhodes Scholarships should all have obtained a preparation amounting to that required for the A.B. degree.’ The consensus of opinion, while not going to that length, was that at least two years of previous College or University life should be required, and with few exceptions this was made the rule.[21]

In cases where a Committee expressly asked leave to appoint from Secondary Schools, leave was granted. (This privilege has not been made use of.) Two years’ college requirements were adopted for Canada, for four of the six Australian States, and for New Zealand.

Three of the four South African schools to which Scholarships were especially assigned, asked to be allowed to send pupils who had pursued their work after leaving school for at least two years at the Cape University.

Queensland, West Australia, Natal, Rhodesia, Newfoundland, Bermuda, and Jamaica are the only Colonies where two years’ University standing is not insisted on.[22]

This preliminary work of organization occupied Dr. Parkin, beginning in the early Fall of 1902, for more than a year. In the Spring of 1903 Mr. Wylie assumed office in Oxford. In December, 1903, the Trustees issued Memoranda to the Colonies and to the States, then to the Committees of Selection; and through them prospective candidates were informed of the conditions and regulations which they must fulfil.[23]

Seven South Africans and five Germans were appointed to Scholarships in 1903, and, with one exception, these men, the first Rhodes Scholars, entered Oxford in Michaelmas Term of that year (Oct. 1903).

In March, 1904, Dr. Parkin arrived in New York with a package of sealed envelopes which contained the examination questions, prepared in Oxford to be ‘set’ in the United States and Canada for the qualifying examination. On April 13, the first papers were opened simultaneously at various appointed centres throughout the two countries. The various sets of papers were opened successively in the presence of the supervising examiners as the hours of each examination arrived, during that day and the next. In the United States 236 candidates took the examination, and in Canada 7. When papers were finished the supervising examiners sealed them, and the whole number were sent to Oxford, there to be read and passed upon.

Of 242 who took this first examination 126 satisfied the examiners.

The names of those who ‘passed’ were reported to their Committees. From these lists the Committees then made their selection. When more than one candidate was eligible, the choice was to be based as far as possible upon Rhodes’s suggestions as laid down in clause 23 of the Will.[24]

In 1904, 48 scholars were selected from lists of candidates who had passed the examination; 19 Colonial scholars were chosen without examination; five Germans were also appointed.

The appointees were instructed to enter into negotiations with Oxford Colleges, through Mr. Wylie, at once.

Candidates were, and are, of course, allowed a choice in the matter of Colleges (students can only enter the University through a College), and this is a matter of considerable importance.[25] Owing to the lateness of certain appointments, and owing to the difficulty experienced in some quarters in getting sufficient information on the requirements and on the characteristics of different Colleges, there was some confusion, a good deal of puzzling, and numerous cases of almost random choosing in the expression of preference for this or that College, and in the acceptance of applications by the Colleges.

In October, 1904, the first large group of Rhodes Scholars, 72 in number, was matriculated at Oxford. The two questions which most vexed the Rhodes Scholars and the College and University authorities in that year were that of ‘standing’ and that of ‘choosing a course’, and these questions, while being simplified and made easier of settlement, will remain as problems which will confront the majority of foreign students who enter Oxford, especially Americans.[26]

In October, 1905, 67 more Rhodes Scholars arrived, followed in October, 1906, by 28 more, there being for 1906 no appointments in the United States. In the interval eighteen have ‘gone down’[27] and two have died.

The system of appointment, including Methods, Committees, and Regulations, has required some alteration and constant supervision—matters that occupy Dr. Parkin’s attention. At Oxford, personal negotiation, introduction, the adjustment of ever-rising individual questions, consultations, suggestion and advice when sought, and—by no means least—the issuing of quarterly cheques, are the technical functions of Mr. Wylie’s office.

Such, in brief, have been the successive steps by which the machinery has been set up and put in motion for realizing the elementary stages of the Rhodes Scholarship Scheme. By these means Rhodes Scholars have entered—and some have already left—Oxford. At present (January, 1907) there are in residence on the banks of the Isis 158 students who, in the words of the late Dr. Monro of Oriel, ‘benefiting by the munificence of Cecil Rhodes, now come from distant colonies and from nations joined to us by the tie of culture and of scholarship.’

The Rhodes Scholar enters Oxford, not as a ‘Scholar’, but as a ‘Commoner’[28]; his relations and responsibilities to the University are those of the ordinary undergraduate. He has served his time as a ‘curiosity’, the Chancellor has welcomed him, the Proctor has declared his approval of his presence, the Examiners have been ‘satisfied’, and the University has conferred degrees upon some of his number. His ‘Rhodes Scholarship’ is ceasing to be emphasized, and it is understood that it is his business and his purpose to live the life, so far as is compatible with his individual tastes, his character, and his principles, of the ordinary Oxford student.

RHODES SCHOLARS
A List containing the number of Appointments, etc., to date.

In 1904

In 1905

In 1906