Punch (99.1890)

November 1, 1890.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI. 205

MODERN TYPES.

{By Mr. Punch's Own Type Writer.)
No. XXI.—THE AVERAGE UNDERGRADUATE.
Those who live much in the society of the very middle-aged, hear
from them loud and frequent complaints of the decay of courtesy
and the general deterioration, both of manners and of habits, obser-
vable m the young men of the day. "With many portentous shakings
of the head, these grizzling censors inform those who care to listen
to their wailings, that in the time of their own youth it was under-
stood to be the duty of young men to be modest, considerate, gene-
rous in their treatment of one another, and chivalrous in their beha-
viour to women. And every one of them will probably suggest to
his hearers that he was intimately acquainted with at least one young
man who fulfilled that duty with a completeness and a perfection
never since attained. Now, however, they will declare, the case is
different. Young men have become selfish and arrogant. Their
respect for age has vanished, their behaviour to ladies is familiar
and flippant, their style of conversation is slangy and disreputable,
they are wanting in all proper reverence, they are pampered, luxu-
rious, affected, foolish, and disingenuous ; unworthy, in short, to be
mentioned in the same breath with those who have preceded them,
and have left to their degenerate successors a brilliant but unavailing
example of youthful conduct. These diatribes may or may not be
founded to some extent in truth. At the best, however, their truth

on which the budding oarsman may improve the length of his swing
in the privacy of his own rooms. These rooms are all furnished on
the same pattern. A table, a pedestal desk for writing, half-a-dozen
ordinary chairs, a basket arm-chair, perhaps a sofa, some photo-
graphs of school-groups, family photographs in frames, a cup or two,
won at the school athletic sports, a football cap, and a few prints of
popular pictures, complete the furniture and decorations of the
average College rooms. Of course there are, even amongst under-
graduates, wealthy aesthetes, who furnish their rooms extravagantly
—but the Average Undergraduate is not one of them.

On the fifth of November the freshman sallies forth only to find, with
a sense of bitter disappointment, that the rows between Town and Gown
are things of the past. He will have discovered ere this that under-
graduate etiquette.has ordained that while he wears a cap and gown
he must forswear gloves, and leave his umbrella at home, even though
the rain should pour down in torrents. All these ordinances he
observes strictly, though be can neither be "hauled" nor "gated"
for setting them at defiance. Towards the end of his first term he
begins to realise more accurately the joys and privileges of University
life ; he has formed his set, and more or less found his level, he has
become a connoisseur of cheap wine, he has with pain and labour
learned to smoke, he has certainly exceeded his allowanoe, and he
returns to his home with the firm conviction that he knows a great
deal of life. He will terrify his mother with tales of prootorial
misadventures, and will Jexcite the suspicions of his father by the
new brilliance of his attire. Indeed it is a curious fact that what-

is only a half-truth. So long as the world _——i ever the special pursuit of the Average

endures, it is probable that young men will L lilillilMiiittlKi Undergraduate may be, and whatever may

have a large allowance of follies, of affecta- | be the calling and profession of his father,

tions, of extravagances, and the young men Sgg^agMllB^g' ' ' 8« III II III 11 I the ^wo are generally engaged in a financial

of to-day are certainly not without them. • -.„ .JESS^a! LilrLill' waff. This always ends in the triumph of

But, in the main, though the task of com- JL r^^J ^ S I I LW" I ffl °^er lnln' who never scruples to use

pari son is difficult, they do not appear to be B ■ /LiSm 111 lliiUwiWsi the power which the possession of the purse

at all inferior in manliness, in modesty of ^iVVftfli^P'' ' jxHKk |f'j§ f |S||i|lc gives him in order to discomfit his son.

bearing, and in reverence to the generations . ^z-k^f^ -\ ••. . PffHf J|ll HflSfaK From a University point of view, the

that have gone before. Here and there in i >V , ' ^. -';«^^SMhM MjRB&jff' average father has" as little variety as the

London the antics of some youth plunged , , , /^^^sBHI 1H lift 11 average son.

into a torrent of folly before he had had _V . wiflii iTfffTl I n must be noted that away from the

time even to think of being wise, excite the AS^y^s&T&S A^MWmMM University or his family circle, and in the

comments of the world. But London is not r f ,-T 1 VTr awPSiiiiiB i society of ladies, the Average Undergradu-

the school to which one would look for youth i-^WHyjM^ ate is shy. The wit that flashed so brilli-

at its best. To find that in any considerable , 'v^vMjife mEI!!' antly in the College Debating Club is

quantity one must travel either to Cambridge • \\^p(*P|4iil ,\CkS extinguished, the stream of humour that

or to Oxford, and inspect the average under- JK®?" Alt'! i / V... '^MnHii^Bl flowed amidst shouts of laughter in the

graduates, who form the vast majority at <<«|f -^"''^iB^ Essay Society is frozen at its source, the

both these Universities. .;.\>>' -'^ V^^^^H|f!i' SI conversation that delighted the frequenters

Now the Average Undergraduate, as he 'y"1 1 ^ ^ r""^^^"^j!Fpin*t|Bt' °t his rooms is turned into an irresponsive

exists, and has for ages existed, is not, w*£!3r ^^^^^S^^^nj^^! mumble. But as soon as he returns to the

perhaps, a very wise young man. Nor jjuMf ...^.,S^^^S[^^^|^kS- , / academic groves, and knows that petticoats

does he possess those brilliant qualities 'if|j|t /^'^C^ v'-<r are absent, and that his own beloved

which bring the Precocious Undergraduate '^K&. "1 ,s c "blazer" is on his back, Richard is him-

to premature ruin. He has his follies, but ''SWy^^ralffl^ ' self again. He has his undergraduate

they are not very foolish; he has his affec------- heroes whom he worships blindly, hoping

tations, but they are innocent; he has his'fextravagances, but_ they
pass away, and leave him not very much the'worse for the experience.
On the whole, however, he is a fine specimen of the young English-
man—brave, manly, loyal, and upright. He is the salt of his
University, and an honour to the country that produces him.

The Average Undergraduate will have been an average schoolboy,
not afflicted with too great a love of classics or mathematics, and
gifted, unfortunately, with a fine contempt for modern languages.
But he will have taken an honourable part in all school-games, and
will have acquired through them not only vigorous health and
strength, but that tolerant and generous spirit of forbearance with-
out which no manly game can be carried on. These qualities he will
carry with him to the University which his father chooses for him,
and to which he himself looks forward rather [as a home of liberty
slightly tempered by Proctors, than as a temple of learning, mode-
rated by examiners.

During the October term which makes him a freshman, the
Average Undergraduate devotes a considerable time to mastering the
etiquette of his University and College. He learns that it is not
customary to shake hands with his friends more than twice in each
term, once at the beginning, and again at the end of the term. If
he is a Cambridge man, he will cut the tassel of his academical cap
short; at Oxford he will leave it long ; but at both he will discover
that sugar-tongs are never used, and that the race of Dons exists
merely to plague him and his fellows with lectures, to which he pays
small attention, with enforced chapels, which he sometimes dares to
cut, and, with general disciplinary regulations, to which he con-
siders it advisable to submit, though he is never inclined to admit
their necessity. He becomes a member of his college boat-club, and
learns that one of the objects of a regular attendance at College
Chapel is, to enable the freshman to practise keeping his back
straight. Similarly, Latin Dictionaries and Greek Lexicons are,
necessarily, bulky, since, otherwise, they would be useless as seats

himself to be some day a hero and worthy of worship. Moreover, there
are in every College traditions which cause the undergraduate who is
a member of it to believe that the men of that particular society are
finer fellows than the men of any other. These traditions the Average
Undergraduate holds as though they were articles of his religion.

The Average Undergraduate generally takes a respectable position
as a College oarsman or cricketer, though he may fail to attain to the
University Eight or to the Eleven. He passes his examinations with
effort, but still he passes them. He recks not of Honours. The " poll"
or the pass contents him. Sometimes he makes too much noise, occa-
sionally he dines too well. In London, too, his conduct during vacations
is perhaps a little exuberant, and he is often inclined to treat the
promenades at the Leicester Square Variety Palaces as though he had
purchased them. But, onthewhole, he does but little harm to himself
and others. He is truthful and ingenuous, and although he knows
himself to be a man, he never tries to be a very old or a very wicked
one. In a word, he is wholesome. In the end he takes his degree
creditably enough. His years at the University have been years of
pure delight to him, and he will always look back to them as the
happiest of his life. He has not become very learned, but he will
always be a useful member of the community, and whether as
barrister, clergyman, country gentleman, or business man, he will
show an example of manly uprightness which his countrymen could
ill afford to lose.

Finis.—The last nights on earth at the Haymarket are announced
of A Village Priest. May he rest in piece. The play that imme-
diately follows is, Called Bach; naturally enough a revival, as the
title implies. But one thing is absolutely certain, and that is, that
A Village Priest will never be Called Bach. Perhaps L'AbbS Con-
stant™ mav now have a chance. Eminently good, hut not absolutely
saintly. Is there any chance of the Abbe being " translated ? "

vol. xcrx.