send his older brothers to public school (that is, private boarding schools), but Cecil himself went to a local grammar school.
When Cecil was seventeen his family dispatched him to South Africa. Most authorities who have written about him have stated that the reason for this move was the youth's fragile health. He was thought to have been tubercular and to have a “dickey” heart. His most recent and authoritative biographer, Robert I. Rotberg, however, sharply revises this view. Rhodes was not consumptive. Although the young man's health was often described as delicate and he occasionally suffered from what probably was arteriosclerosis, he often displayed impressive vigor and stamina. Rhodes did not suffer from constant ill health until his final years.1
The primary reason for sending him to Africa was economic. The family hoped that Cecil would find a career and establish himself financially. Two of his older brothers were already in South Africa. Frank was a soldier, and Herbert a cotton farmer.
The territory that today makes up the Republic of South Africa was at that time a patchwork of different lands. The British Empire controlled the colonies the Cape of Good Hope and Natal. The social and political elites there were English-speaking settlers and Afrikaners of Dutch descent. These two groups coexisted in an uneasy alliance and dominated the vast majority of blacks, coloreds (people of mixed race), and Asian immigrants. Further to the north were the Dutch republics of Transvaal and the Orange Free State, dominated by Boers (Dutch for “farmer”). There were also vast stretches of territory where native tribes such as the Bantu still dominated.
After only a year at farming, Rhodes followed his restless brother Herbert to the rough frontier town of Kimberley, where the discovery of diamonds in 1867 had created a hectic and brutal scramble similar to the 1849 gold rush in California. The young man who until that time had displayed no special talents or interests quickly found his métier. Over the next two years his hard work and clever, perhaps unscrupulous, dealings with competitors made him a fortune that would have lasted a lifetime for a person of lesser ambitions.
In 1873 Rhodes returned to England, primarily to see his ailing mother. While there he decided to seek admittance to the University of Oxford. As a budding entrepreneur who perhaps already aspired to political office, he appears to have felt the need for the polish that an Oxford education could give him. He wanted to be accepted as a gentleman and have social connections with the right sort of people. He also thought an academic degree could guarantee him a job in law or government, in the event that his business ventures failed to satisfy him economically or intellectually.
From 1873 to 1881 Rhodes alternated between terms in Oxford and trips to Kimberley, where he supervised his mining operations. The result was that he needed eight years to obtain a degree that normally would have taken three.
The story of Rhodes in Oxford is bathed in legends and anecdotes, many of these embellished to extravagant degrees by his earliest biographers. What impact did he have on Oxford? What impact did Oxford have on him? The answer to the first is close to none. The answer to the second is some, but not nearly as much as was formerly thought.
Then and now, a student seeking admission to Oxford must apply to one of the colleges that make up the University. Rhodes' first choice was University College, which turned him down. Depending on which version of the story one believes, he was rejected because he failed an entrance exam in Latin, because he had attended a local grammar school rather than a school like Eton or Harrow, or because he hoped to pursue only a pass degree. At Oxford at that time one could obtain either an honors degree or a less demanding “pass.” Many sons of aristocrats and gentry who were not gifted academically or who did not have lofty career goals opted for the latter.
After his rejection, Rhodes sought admission to Oriel College. When he received Rhodes' application, Oriel's provost is reputed to have exclaimed either that, “all the colleges send me their failures” or “the Master of University sends me his leavings.” Finally the provost relented and said “I think you will do.”2
During Rhodes' periods of residence in Oxford over the next eight years, he took little part in either college or university activities. In desultory fashion he studied Latin, Greek, Politics, and Law, but, like many students, he attended few of the formal, optional lectures provided by the university. Once, when reprimanded for his lack of dedication, he supposedly responded: “I shall pass, which is all I wish to do.”3 Rather than live in college, he took digs (i.e., lived “off campus”). He joined the “smart set” in clubs like Vincent's and the Bullingdon and was admitted to a local Freemasonry lodge. One of his tutors, A.G. Butler, later eulogized Rhodes in a sonnet that goes in part:
Deep-voiced, broad-fronted, with the Caesar's brow, A dreamer with a diamond in his hand Musing on Empire!4
However, on another occasion, Butler more soberly characterized his student's academic record:
His career at Oxford was uneventful. He belonged to a set of men like himself, not caring for distinction in the schools and not working for them, but of refined tastes, dining and living for the most part together, and doubtless discussing passing events in life and politics with interest and ability. Such a set is not very common at Oxford, living, as it does, a good deal apart from both games and work, but it does exist and, somehow, includes men of much intellectual power which bears fruit later.5
The fact that Rhodes was tall and a few years older than the average undergraduate helped to make him stand out. But what really gave him some degree of notoriety were his diamonds. Rather than rely on bankers and checkbooks, Rhodes always carried in his pockets a supply of uncut diamonds either wadded up in bits of paper or kept in a special little box. He would sell these one-by-one as he needed funds. On one of the rare occasions when he attended a lecture he evidently became bored, decided to show his gems to students sitting near him, and then accidentally spilled the collection onto the floor. When the irritated lecturer inquired about the commotion, someone called out, “It is only Rhodes and his diamonds.”6
What did the young entrepreneur derive from his university experience? Oxford today abounds with statues, inscriptions, paintings, and buildings to remind one of Rhodes. But these are entirely the result of his later benefactions, not from any achievements of his student days. What Rhodes got was his degree and some measure of refinement – though his rough edges would always show. He appears to have made few strong friendships there, and in his later career he seldom turned to his Oxford acquaintances for help in business or politics. Oxford did, however, help to increase his appetite for reading. In his later years he had a special taste for the classics. He constantly reread the works of Aristotle and the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. At great personal expense he paid for translations of many of the Latin works upon which Edward Gibbon had based his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. (This indicates his interest in history but also reveals that his knowledge of the classical languages was below that of the average Oxford student at that time.) After he returned to Africa he could often be seen sitting on a chair or rock, overseeing his mine workers, while deeply immersed in a book. Once when he was about to make a return trip to Britain he asked how long the voyage would take. When he was told twenty days, he hurried into a bookshop and purchased forty books-one for each morning and afternoon.7
Oxford also nurtured in Rhodes some of the ideas important in days, he hurried into a bookshop and purchased forty books-one for each morning and afternoon.7
Oxford also nurtured in Rhodes some of the ideas important in his later life. One of the most influential personages at the university in the 1870s and 1880s was John Ruskin, who used his position as Slade Professor of Fine Art to expound ideas not only on art, but politics, history, economics, and culture in general. In his celebrated Inaugural Address of 1870, Ruskin extolled the virtues and future prospects of the English:
There is a destiny now possible to us – the highest
