Page:EB1922 - Volume 31.djvu/1280

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1226
OXFORD—OYAMA

education at King's College, London, arid St. Mary's hospital, taking his surgical and medical degrees in 1868 and 1872, and afterwards studied in Paris. He was consulting surgeon to many institutions, including the French hospital, St. Mary's hospital, and the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond St., and wrote many important works, among them being The Surgical Diseases of Children (1885, 3rd ed. 1897); Cleft Palate and Hare Lip (1904, new ed. 1914); Appendicitis (1914), besides the surgi- cal articles in the E.B. He also gave the Bradshaw lecture on cancer in 1906. He died in London July 23 1915.


OXFORD (see 20.405). The population of the city increased from 53,048 in 1911 to 57,052 in 1921. Apart from the disappearance of the horse-trams in 1914, in favour of motor-buses, and the starting of the " Garden Suburb " in the Cowley Road in 1921, the municipal progress for the decade, as apart from the university, has few features of special interest.

The University. During the World War 14,561 Oxford men served in the British military and naval forces, this total including prospective members of colleges who fell in the war, and also those who joined the university after the war, in which 2,660 Oxford men lost their lives. This was the number " commemorated " at the university memorial service at St. Mary's in June 1919.

The most important service rendered by the university was in the supply of officers for the new armies. The O.T.C. in Oxford was a flourishing body before the war, and, thanks mainly to it, nearly 2,000 Oxford men had received commissions by the end of Sept. 1914. After that date Oxford became one of the main training grounds for officers: all the colleges but one gave up the larger part of their space for military purposes, especially for the training of cadets, of whom there were, for the last three years of the war, nearly 2,000[1] always in Oxford. The examination schools in the High Street were ready as a hospital in the second week in Aug. 1914, and remained in military occupation till the summer of 1919.

As a natural result of the war the numbers of the university fell rapidly: there were 3,097 in residence in Jan. 1914, 1,087 at the same period in 1915, 550 in 1916, 460 in 1917, 369 in 1918. With the Armistice the tide turned, and there were 1,357 men up in Jan. 1919. For Oct. 1920 the university calendar gave the names of 5,002 men and 687 women as undergraduates; the first figure probably indicates an actual number of nearly 4,500 men in residence. As the university did not elect to its scholarships and prizes during the war, and also did not fill up the professorships that fell vacant, a considerable fund (about 50,000) was accumulated, in spite of the falling-off in the ordinary revenue. This fund was also built up in part by the voluntary gifts of members of the university.

In 1920 women students were admitted to full membership of the university. It had long been generally felt that the two old British universities must soon follow the example of all the modern ones, in admitting women to equal privileges with men. No doubt, however, this concession was hastened ' by the success of women's work in the war.

Another old burning question was settled by the passing of a statute in 1920 admitting to the Oxford theological degree scholars who are not members of the Church of England.

Important changes have also been made of a less revolutionary nature in the university constitution and its educational facilities. The Hebdomadal Council is no longer evenly divided among heads of colleges, professors and ordinary M.A.'s; three of the seats previously reserved for heads are now thrown open. A further change affecting the Hebdomadal Council is the institu- tion (in 1913) of a general Board of the Faculties, which has power of initiating legislation on all subjects connected with the studies of the university. Oxford finance, too, has been provided with more efficient machinery, first by setting up (1912) an outside finance board to advise the university Chest, and then in 1920 by the reconstitution of the Chest itself. In the development of the organization for research, the tentative step taken in 1895 by the setting-up of the degrees of B.Litt. and B.Sc. has been followed by the creation (1917) of a Ph.D. degree, involving two to three years of independent work, for graduates of Oxford or of other universities.

A new engineering laboratory was opened in 1912, and a new chemical laboratory in 1915; this last has been munificently endowed by Mr. Dyson Perrin's gift of 25,000. Several colleges have extended their boundaries by taking in adjacent houses, and the Oxford Union Society opened its new block in 1913. Another addition to university buildings is Barnett House, opened in 1914, as a memorial of Canon Barnett, the founder of Toynbee Hall (died 1913), to be a centre of social studies.

Among recent university benefactors chief place is taken by Mr. Walter Morrison, who in 1920 crowned his previous gifts (of 20,000 at least) by one of 50,000 to the Bodleian. Bio- logical science in Oxford profited to an almost equal amount by the Welch bequest in 1915, while the study of modern languages has been encouraged by the foundation of the Zaharoff professorship of French and the Serena professorship of Italian.

The part of Oxford in the World War is best sketched in Craig's Roll of Service, with preface by Sir W. Raleigh (University Press, 1920); perhaps the most interesting short account of the changes in Oxford during the war period may be found in the Oxford Magazine for Dec. 8 1916. (J. WE.*)

OYAMA, IWAO, PRINCE (1842-1916), Japanese field-marshal (see 20.424). In 1914 he was nominated Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, and in this capacity he attended the accession ceremony of the Emperor Yoshihito, which took place in Kyoto in Nov. 1915. In Dec. of the following year the Prince died, being accorded a State funeral by the imperial court. In him Japan lost one of her " Elder Statesmen."

  1. This estimate includes men training for the Air Force.