But apart from the charm of contrast, Oxford has everything to make life attractive for young men.  It is true that the old buildings combine with a dignity a millionaire could not surpass a standard of material comfort which in some respects is below that of an up-to-date workhouse.  An amusing instance has occurred of this during the war.  The students of one of the women’s colleges, expelled from their own modern buildings, which had been turned into a hospital, became tenants of half of one of the oldest colleges.  It was very romantic thus to gain admission to the real Oxford, but the students soon found that it was very uncomfortable to have their baths in an out-of-the-way corner of the college.  And baths themselves are but a modern institution at Oxford; at one or two colleges still the old “tub in one’s room” is the only system of washing.  Perhaps this instance may be thought frivolous, but it is typical of Oxford, which has been described, with some exaggeration in both words, as a home of “barbaric luxury.”

But after all, comfort in the material sense is the least important element in completeness of life.  Oxford has everything else, except, it is true, a bracing climate.  She has society of every kind, in which a man ranks on his merits, not on his possessions; he is valued for what he is, not for what he has; she gives freedom to her sons to live their own life, with just sufficient restraint to add piquancy to freedom, and to restrain those excesses which are fatal to it; she has intellectual interests and traditions, which often really affect men who seem indifferent to them; life in her, as a rule, is not troubled by financial cares—­for her young men, most of them, either through old endowments or from family circumstances, have for the moment enough of this world’s goods.  In view of all this, and much more, is it not natural that Oxford has a charm for her sons?  And this is enhanced with many by all the force of hereditary tradition; the young man is at his college because his father was there before him; the pleasure of each generation is increased by the reflection of the other’s pleasure.  What traditional feeling in Oxford means may, perhaps, be illustrated by the story of an old English worthy, though one only of the second rank.  Jonathan Trelawney, one of the Seven Bishops who defied James II, was a stout Whig, but when it was proposed to punish Oxford for her devotion to the Pretender, the Government found they could not reckon on his vote, though he was usually a safe party man.  “I must be excused from giving my vote for altering the methods of election into Christ Church, where I had my bread for twenty years.  I would rather see my son a link boy than a student of Christ Church in such a manner as tears up by the roots that constitution.”

But the days of hereditary tradition are over, and Trelawney belongs to an age long past; Oxford now is exposed to an influence compared to which the arbitrary proceedings of a king are feeble.  A democratic Parliament with a growing Labour party has far more power to change Oxford than the Stuarts ever had, and even at this moment (1919) a third Royal Commission is beginning to sit.  Will it modify, will it—­ transform Oxford?