29 June 2017
Scholar’s Sleeves
The recognition of talent.
By John Watson
There are bad things which I am only too happy to believe of the University of Oxford. It selects top foreign oarsmen to pack its boat race crews for one thing. It seems to be above where one would expect to see it in the university tables too. If anyone told me that brown paper envelopes had changed hands to procure either result, I would smile my assent. What I would not believe, however, is that its students are awarded distinctions in exams or college scholarships other than on the basis of their academic performance. To be fair that doesn’t seem to be the concern of those who are calling for the abolition of the special sleeved gowns worn on official occasions by those who have achieved these honours. Their worry is that the fact that other people can wear the gowns makes them feel inferior.
Of course it would be quite different if the awarding of scholarships and distinctions was biased in favour of men, Caucasians, or those of particular sexual orientation. Indeed if that was the case any debate about sleeves would be drowned out by far more serious protests. Still, that isn’t suggested. The problem is that people who are academically inferior are upset at anything which makes that fact clear.
The odd thing about this is that people should mind. Of course we can all feel under-appreciated by the examiner from time to time, but most of us recognise that we frequently come across people who are simply brighter than we are. My own subject was mathematics and it is a subject which has a very severe glass ceiling in that you can progress so far but then find the next stages simply too difficult to master. So there you sit, aware that you are surrounded by people who are brighter than you are and who will be able to take the subject further, while you yourself should move off to a profession or some less academically stretching discipline. It is then that you have a choice. You can try to conceal the position. Getting rid of distinctions such as scholars’ gowns and perhaps even the classing of results may allow you to maintain the fiction that you are as clever as everyone around you but, of course, it is a fraudulent claim. Well, we all big ourselves up from time to time so perhaps trying to conceal the true distinctions is a venial rather than a mortal sin. Nonetheless a dishonest piece of cheating it remains.
The other approach is to celebrate the genius of those with more talent who you are lucky enough to encounter. If you look at university as an opportunity to exchange views with people cleverer than yourself, to sit at the feet of the intellectually great and to let the crumbs from their table nourish your intellect, then why would it be a surprise that you yourself are not top of the pile? The fact is that relative to some of them you are stupid and if that makes you feel inferior it is because by academic measures that is the truth of it.
Luckily for all of us, talents lie in different directions. Perhaps then someone who is less able academically is a superb athlete. Now it is the turn of the top academics to admire his or her Olympic medal, not with envy but with admiration for great gifts conferred and well used. There are other gifts too; artistic gifts, musical gifts, social gifts, gifts of insight, patience, wit, good humour and basic decency. Those are just a few. You can fill out the list for yourself. People have many talents and qualities and in each case the rest of us have the choice. Do we try to disguise the fact to conceal our comparative inadequacy or do we stand back and admire? In the end it is a matter of generosity but if we choose the first option there is a stark corollary. If we try to conceal the gifts of others we have no business taking pride in our own. So for those who wish to deny the scholars their sleeves, it comes to this. To be consistent you should take no pride in your own achievements. There should be no mentioning of your degree to family and friends, no posing at the student’s union, no picture of you in a mortarboard, no joy in your academic or sporting triumphs. Yours should be the path of the truly humble, a modern version of the mediaeval friar walking out into the wilderness, wholly modest, quietly self-effacing, eschewing publicity.
I suppose that all those who want to abolish the scholar’s gown may see themselves like this, but that does leave something of a mystery. If they care so little for outward show why do they care so much that others are distinguished?
It is of course usual for students to be young and foolish, so I don’t want to be hard on those pressing for this change. Perhaps, however, I might suggest something to them. Go to the temple of your creator, be it a religious building or the section of the library devoted to evolutionary theory. Close your eyes and be thankful for the talents which had been given to you. Then think about the greater talents of those around you and reflect what a privilege it is to have seen them in use and how they brings colour and life to what would otherwise be a depressingly sepia world.
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