Page:Last Will and Testament of Cecil Rhodes.djvu/57

Rh residence as an undergraduate at some college in the University of Oxford.

The scholarships shall be payable to him from the time when he shall commence such residence.

I desire that the Scholars holding the scholarships shall be distributed amongst the Colleges of the University of Oxford and not resort in undue numbers to one or more Colleges only. order of precedence for five or ten to the headmaster. Mr. Rhodes then said he did not see why the trustees need have any responsibility in the matter, except in case of dispute, when their decision should be final. This I strongly supported, saying that provided the headmaster had to prepare his list before the result in the balloting or competition was known, he might be constituted returning officer, or, if need be, one of the head boys might be empowered to act with him, and then the award of the scholarship would be a simple sum in arithmetic. There would be no delay, and nothing would be done to weaken the interest. As soon as the papers were all in the marks could be counted up, and the scholarship proclaimed.

First I raised the question as to whether the masters should be allowed to vote. Mr. Rhodes said it did not matter. There would only be fourteen in a school of six hundred boys, and their votes would not count. I said that they would have a weight far exceeding their numerical strength, for if they were excluded from any voice they would not take the same interest that they would if they had a vote, while their judgment would be a rallying point for the judgment of the scholars. I protested against making the masters Outlanders, depriving them of votes, and treating them like political helots, at which Rhodes laughed. But he was worse than Kruger, and would not give them the franchise on any terms.

Then Mr. Hawksley said he was chiefly interested in the third category—that is, moral qualities of leadership. I said yes, it was the best and the most distinctive character of Mr. Rhodes’s school; that I was an outside barbarian, never having been to a university or a public school, and therefore I spoke with all deference; but speaking as an outside barbarian, and knowing Mr. Rhodes’s strong feeling against giving too much preponderance to mere literary ability, I thought it would be much better to alter the proportion of marks to be awarded for “smug” and moral qualities respectively, that is to say, I would reduce the “smug” to 200 votes, and put 400