Reunion of a Scholarly Elite

An 80-year search for "courage and instincts to lead

It is still the world's most prestigious scholarship, despite its echoes of Britain's colonial past. Last week 800 Rhodes scholars--named after the colonialist and entrepreneur Cecil John Rhodes--convened at Oxford University to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the trust that administers the fund. Among those present was Staff Writer Kenneth W. Banta, who was there as both observer and participant. Banta is one of six Rhodes scholars on TIME. His report:

Oxford has welcomed the steady stream of bright and often brash young scholars for eight decades, but as many of them flooded back through the medieval quadrangles last week, the spectacle was enough to give the ancient university pause. "In small groups, they were exciting," said one don, looking over the scene. "This is almost frightening."

Daunting too were the three days of continuous celebrations. To extend a royal welcome, Queen Elizabeth II joined the 800 returning scholars and 600 spouses for a vast outdoor garden party. In the intermittent sunshine of an English June, the Queen circulated amiably through a riot of improbable hats and tropical colors rivaling those at Ascot; then she tucked into tea, eclairs and watercress sandwiches under a striped marquee.

At a special thanksgiving service, the scholars gathered beneath the venerable arches of Christ Church Cathedral; then they salted piety with a touch of hubris, praying that they might "use to God's glory the gifts and opportunities with which we have been so abundantly blessed." Later, over Paarl 1961 vintage port, selected to honor the South Africans present, Chancellor of Oxford and former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan declared that those attending were the product of "the most imaginative plan, the most imaginative concept ever designed" in education.

With such flights of rhetoric, dishes of strawberries and cream, and a generous flow of white wine, the Rhodes Trust last week exuberantly mounted its 80th anniversary party. Since 1903, Rhodes' generous legacy has annually sent a contingent of scholars from Britain's colonies and possessions, or their succeeding states, as well as Germany,* to study at Oxford for up to three years. In all, some 4,700 have been tapped to join the programs, including the 71 scholars now in residence (32 from the U.S.).

The annual award amounting to $15,000 is generous, but what has brought fame to the scholarship and endowed its holders with distinctive luster are its unusual criteria for selection. Rhodes disdained candidates who were "merely bookworms"; he demanded that the winners have the character to fight "the world's fight." Despite numerous modifications of his imperious vision, the basic criterion remains the same today. Says David Alexander, secretary of the Rhodes program in the U.S.: "The Rhodes competition is a talent hunt for an elite that will lead."

It has undoubtedly produced leaders, including former Secretary of State Dean Rusk and Australia's Prime Minister Robert Hawke. Former Senator William Fulbright was so impressed by his Rhodes experience that he inspired a scholarship of his own. Byron White, a 1938 Rhodes winner from Colorado, sits on the U.S. Supreme Court. Five U.S. Senators are scholars: Oklahoma's David Boren, New Jersey's Bill Bradley, Indiana's Richard Lugar, South Dakota's Larry Pressler and Maryland's Paul Sarbanes. Others have had distinguished careers in various fields. Among them: Novelist and Poet Robert Penn Warren, Economist Lester Thurow, Singer Kris Kristofferson and Pat Haden, former quarterback for the Los Angeles Rams. Of the 1,500 or so living American Rhodes winners, at least 245 are attorneys and some 365 are educators.

Ironically, Rhodes hardly measured up as a youth to the stiff standards he later set. The sickly son of a Hertfordshire preacher, he was a mediocre student plagued by illness and at 17 was sent off to southern Africa to regain his health. There he began to make his fortune in diamonds, returning to England to graduate finally from Oxford in 1881. A zealous champion of British imperialism, Rhodes went on to found South Africa's De Beers Mining Co., which still controls the world's diamond market. He governed what was then called the Cape Colony, and colonized what became known, in his name, as Southern and Northern Rhodesia, and are now Zimbabwe and Zambia.

Before his death in 1902, Rhodes fell back on his belief in Oxford as a civilizing place and his hope of nurturing leaders to promote world peace. His Victorian requirements for Rhodes scholars, funded by income from his $20 million fortune, were precise: he wanted young men, unmarried, of course, and he charged selection committees to judge candidates on their "literary and scholastic attainments, qualities of manhood [including] courage and kindliness, and instincts to lead, and on their fondness for or success in sports."

From the start, though, the scholarships' trustees have reinterpreted Rhodes' goals to suit the times. Rhodes almost certainly did not envision that a black would ever be selected, yet in 1907 Pennsylvania's Alain LeRoy Locke, later an educator, became the first black to gain the award. Women became eligible in 1975 under the provisions of an antidiscrimination act passed by Parliament. Since 1976, about 30% of the scholars have been women, although the trustees fear a downward trend.

Over the decades, the process of winning a Rhodes has remained long, harrowing and traditional. Last year 1,183 U.S. college seniors and graduate students applied to 50 state selection committees. Only 100 survived for another round of regional interviews that chose the final 32.

The friendly but relentless interrogation by as many as eight panelists, most of them Rhodes winners, is an exhilarating and humbling experience that few candidates forget. Former House Speaker Carl Albert, 75, was invited by his Oklahoma committee in the Depression year of 1930 to name the most important national trend. "I said, 'a pragmatic revolt against intellectualism,' " he recalled last week. "It got a laugh."

Albert made it and so, in 1951, did Thomas Bartlett, who feels that his Rhodes was his escape from being "a poor man's son from Oregon." He bought a motorcycle and put 15,000 miles on the speedometer touring Europe. Last year Bartlett was appointed chancellor of the University of Alabama system. Bartlett believes that the example of his fellow scholars spurred his own ambition. "I'd never been around people with such aspirations."

Former CIA Director Admiral Stansfield Turner and U.S. Army General Bernard Rogers, the NATO commander, both came to Oxford in 1947. The award introduced Turner to "the passionately rigorous thinking" of his teachers at Oxford's Exeter College. "It was an intellectual turning point," he says. "I learned what it is to be logical." South Africa's Brian Bamford, elected in 1951, gained a lasting admiration for Oxford's ideal of "the well-rounded man, one who is deeply humane." He took Rhodes' call for public service to heart: he is now a member of his country's parliament, representing the small anti-apartheid Progressive Federal Party. Says he: "We can never win. But we can fight."

Eighty years after it all began, some Rhodes scholars think that the selection process could use a touch of fine tuning. Says Bartlett: "I'm concerned that we take too many B pluses, people good at a lot but never very good at anything." Others suggest that many winners overestimate their own worth. "Too frequently you hear platitudes from Rhodes scholars," complains Connecticut's Ann Olivarius, a 1978 recipient. "They should be questioned seriously more often."

As it has turned out, gaining the award is perhaps not so much a promise of eminence as it is a fairly reliable guide to character. Says George Cawkwell, Vice-Master of Oxford's University College and a New Zealand winner in 1946: "Many scholars are brilliant. Most are not. But the world is not run by brilliant people. It is run by good, sound individuals." Cecil Rhodes would certainly have drunk to that.

*Two are annually given in West Germany because Rhodes wanted Germany, the U.S. and Britain to develop closer ties so that they might work together to prevent war. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.