Laudator Temporis Acti

Leslie Mitchell, Maurice Bowra: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p. 297, with note on p. 363:

In the last decade of his life, Maurice regularly admitted in correspondence to an incomprehension of a world that increasingly marginalized him and what he thought important. Such disrespect might have been expected from the enemies, who more and more dominated university life, but there was real sadness in the realization that students, too, were now inclined to join in the work of demolition. Bowra had always encouraged the young to be critical and satirical. His Oxford had always laughed at the expense of establishment figures. In the 1950s, he found undergraduates 'much nicer to each other than my generation ever was, more careful and provident, and much more occupied with the future … the boys are very kind to me and have no respect at all, which is as it should be'.⁵⁶ Until the 1960s, it never occurred to him that students would attack the University itself, the very forum in which they were encouraged to speak freely. Now, in his last years, he had to account for the spectacle of undergraduates burning books. To discover treason among the young was almost insupportable.

56. Idem to B. Ruck, 2 Jan. [1953?]; Bowra MSS

Id., page number unknown, with note on p. 364:

In Bowra's view, too many young people now had no sense of humour, no appreciation of basic hygiene, washing themselves instead in self-pity. He explained that they were

very touchy and can't bear any criticism of themselves, from their lack of prose style to their lack of hair cuts … Also they don't wash behind their ears, which I was taught to do by my nanny at the age of three. However, when asked out, they clean themselves up and look quite presentable. The classical scholars are still the best, but they are being rapidly exterminated like the Fuegans or the Great Auk.⁶²

62. C.M. Bowra to H. Hugo, 26 Nov. 1966; Sparrow MSS, Box 57

Id., page number unknown, with notes on p. 364:

In addition, undergraduates now complained about everything. They denounced all 'interference with their private lives. As they have no private lives, this is paradoxical of them. Nor does it prevent them howling for help when they are in trouble'.⁶⁶ They were 'a neurotic lot', who saw no incongruity in abusing their parents while recruiting them in campaigns against the College: 'They now bring their parents up to complain that the rooms of their offspring are too damp, too dark, too small, too big, and not sufficiently equipped with creative works of art. No wonder the boys rush off to the loony bin.'⁶⁷ Oddest of all, 'some of the young do not like being at the university. I find this hard to imagine, but there it is, and of course they are right to think that they have been sold a pup by having to live in our present world.'⁶⁸ Too many had a positive contempt for learning, as Bowra understood it.

66. Idem to J. Mitchell, 13 March 1965; J. Mitchell MSS.
67. Idem to G. Rylands, 26 Oct. 1967; Rylands MSS, GHWR/3/57.
68. Idem to U. Niebuhr, 15 April 1970; Niebuhr MSS