years at Oxford. The zealous Anglophile Henry James also opposed the scholarships, though for a starkly different reason. He agreed with many in Britain that Oxford would be sullied by the advent of unwashed, unlettered rustics.10
The subsequent history of the Rhodes Scholarships would show that some of the apprehensions expressed on both sides of the Atlantic were groundless but that others were prophetic.
Selecting the “Perfect Men”
In the spring of 1902 the Rhodes Trustees held their first meetings under the leadership of Lord Rosebery, who had served as British prime minister from 1894 to 1895. The trustees took charge of disposing of Rhodes' real estate and investing the liquid capital. They quickly decided that they themselves would not be able to handle the actual management of the scholarship program. Therefore they appointed two other individuals to perform those duties. They were Dr. George Parkin and Francis Wylie. Parkin would be Organizing Secretary and Wylie the Oxford Secretary. The trustees could not have made better choices. The Rhodes Scholarships were not a sure thing in 1902. That the program survived and prospered was in no small part due to Parkin and Wylie. Each of them over the years was often called the second founder of the scholarships. Eventually their work was recognized by the government, with each man being knighted.
Parkin's selection seemed odd at first to some observers. He was a fifty-six-year old Canadian. Prior to his appointment as Organizing Secretary he was serving in Toronto as headmaster of Upper Canada College, a prep school along the lines of the best British public schools. But Parkin proved ideal for his new job. He was an Oxford graduate. In fact, he had matriculated on the same day as Cecil Rhodes in 1873, though there is no evidence that the two knew each other then or later. In his first term at Oxford Parkin had been elected secretary of the Union, and in its chambers he won fame for his debates on behalf of the British Empire. Following graduation he pursued a career in Canada, Australia, and England as a spokesman for the Church of England and for the Imperial Federation League. His interest in bringing colonials into closer relations with Britain made him ideally suited to carry out Rhodes' dream of Anglo-Saxon unity and world peace. His eloquence, good humor, and personal charm would also be important. From 1902 until his retirement in 1920, Parkin administered the program and spent much of his time traveling to the United States, Germany, and the dominions and colonies within the Empire.
When it became clear that Parkin would not be able to watch over the scholars once they had arrived at the university, early in 1903 the trustees appointed Wylie to the post of Oxford Secretary.11 Wylie was a fellow of Brasenose College, where he tutored and lectured in philosophy. He gave up the security and perquisites of an Oxford don to take on the risky challenges of making Rhodes' plan work. The fact that he was a well-respected, academic “insider” would prove to be of immense importance for his new work. Until his retirement in 1931 it was he who labored to gain admittance for Rhodes Scholars into the various colleges – for the latter insisted that the foreigners meet the same requirements as other students. Wylie and his wife would also serve as confessors, mentors, travel advisors, and tea party hosts.
Parkin's immediate task in 1902 and 1903 was to establish a system for selecting the scholars. Germany presented no problem, for Rhodes' will stipulated that the Kaiser would choose the five annual winners. South Africa also had a fairly simple mechanism for its seven scholars. Rhodes had specified that the four scholars from Cape Colony would come from four schools that he listed. The heads of those schools could nominate one of their students each year. Natal had one scholarship and Rhodesia three. Parkin immediately appointed the Directors of Education in those two territories to select the winners. As for Canada, Jamaica, Bermuda, and the United States, Rhodes had outlined no selection procedure. For this and for most other aspects of the administration of the program Rhodes gave his trustees – and through them Parkin – great leeway.
Parkin immediately corrected what he saw as several flaws in Rhodes' scheme. Concluding that Canada had been given too few scholarships, he increased its number from three to nine.12 Regarding the United States, the will had simply specified two per state.
Some detractors have accused Rhodes of being so ignorant about the United States that he assumed there were still only thirteen states. However, his financial calculations indicate that he anticipated supporting up to one hundred Americans. After his death the trustees and Parkin quickly decided that they could support thirty-two new Americans per year, this making ninety-six residing in Oxford at any given time.13 One final revision Parkin and others deemed necessary concerned the age of the scholars. Rhodes clearly expected that they would come to Oxford straight from secondary school. In Oxford they would join other eighteen-year-old “freshers” for three years of study. Parkin wisely judged that most eighteen-year-old high school graduates from the United States and elsewhere would be unprepared emotionally and academically for the experience. He decided that all scholars must have completed at least two years of university study prior to going to Oxford. Their added maturity and training would better prepare them for separation from their families and for the rigors of Oxford.
Henceforth candidates in the United States and most other constituencies would have to be between the ages of nineteen and twenty-five. They also had to be unmarried. Oxford colleges were not equipped to house married students. Moreover, a married student, living in a flat somewhere in town, would miss much of the social life of his college-thereby destroying Rhodes' hope that future world leaders would mix together fully while in residence.
As to the methods of selection, Parkin decided to allot that task to committees composed of political and academic leaders in each country or dominion. He spent most of 1903 and 1904 traveling the globe. He met hundreds of officials and worked to establish committees in Canada, the United States, South Africa, Rhodesia, New Zealand, Australia, Bermuda, and Jamaica. The United States presented his greatest challenge. It had far more territory, more people, and more colleges and universities than any of the others. It would also send more scholars – more than half of the total.
Due to the difficulties of getting the mechanism up and running, Parkin concluded that in the United States and most of the dominions it would not be possible to send students to Oxford in 1903. Therefore the first American scholars did not reach England until the fall of 1904. One immediate puzzle in the United States was how to send thirty-two scholars from forty-eight states. (Actually, there were only forty-five states, but the territories of Oklahoma, New Mexico, and Arizona were allowed to participate. Oklahoma achieved statehood in 1907; the other two in 1912.)
One had to keep in mind that Rhodes wanted students from each of the states. After consulting with many university and civic leaders, Parkin concluded that the best solution would be to send one scholar from each state in 1904 and 1905, but no Americans at all in 1906. A rotation like this would produce a three-year cycle of 48, 48, and 0 – an average of 32 per year. The colleges in Oxford eventually complained that this system created housing and other problems, when in some years they had to find room for over forty Americans and in others none. Thus in 1915 Parkin devised a new scheme. Henceforth in any given year only two-thirds of the states would elect scholars, producing thirty-two traveling to Oxford each autumn.
In every state Parkin assembled a committee. It generally consisted of the presidents of the four or five most prominent universities in the state. In some states the governors also participated. This happened even though President Theodore Roosevelt had advised Parkin against it. Roosevelt warned that governors would always be looking ahead to the next election and that this might influence their choice of winners.14 In other countries during the early years of the program government representatives played an even greater role. In Canada, for example, the committees included the lieutenant-governor, the chief justice, and the chief superintendent of education, as well as college presidents.
By the spring of 1904 the machinery was set up and the first batch of scholars was selected. The process would remain little changed until after the First World War. A candidate first had to declare the state in which he was applying. This could be the state in which
