| CONTENTS | |
| 1. The Heretics and the Magazine | 13 |
| 2. Editorship | 18 |
| 3. Industrial Issues | 22 |
| 4. Philosophy, Theology, Psychology | 26 |
| 5. Women's Lib and Birth Control | 30 |
| 6. War-Time Cambridge | 35 |
| 7. Post-War Cambridge-Translation to Soho and Bloomsbury | 41 |
| 8. Ogden's Legacy to Me | 49 |
When Mr. Russell arrived to give the first of his course of lectures he found the lecture room filled to the door, and it was not till forms had been moved and the folding doors to the next lecture room had been opened that all were able to get seats.My seat was well forward and I received the impression that Russell was on the point of drawing back, but Ogden almost pushed him in. Russell seemed to begin nervously, but soon got off one of his famous cracks to the delight and laughter of the crowd and this, perhaps, is where his successful career of popularisation started.
The issue of the Thirty-Nine Articles—an issue interesting enough to those of the magazine's readers contemplating Holy Orders—was a proposed change in the Bishop's question in the ordination service. “Do you unfeignedly believe all the Canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testament ?“ was to be changed you believe in the Holy Scripture as given by inspiration of God ?“ Bertrand Russell pointed out in an article for the magazine that the change was to be made for the sake of those who do not believe the whole Scripture; now they are to be asked to say that that which they do not believe is given by divine inspiration. The only men “admitted by the new formula and not by the old will be those who believe that falsehoods may be divinely inspired”. Ogden secured answers from five divines, three of them professors of Divinity at Cambridge, of whom one agreed with Russell, another disagreed, and a third thought his distinctions over-subtle. A fourth divine (who disagreed) was principal of a clergy training college in Cambridge. Russell was given space to reply and found himselfACADEMICA A recent memorial to the Vice-Chancellor, signed by all the Divinity Professors, seems likely to be the means of removing an astonishing anomaly. “We desire to express our opinion,” they say, “that the conditions whereby Divinity Degrees appear to be restricted to Clerks in Holy Orders in the Church of England should be removed, and a declaration of assent to the formularies of the Church of England before admission to these degrees be no longer required.” At the present time the ludicrous situation prevails of two separate Triposes, in one of which we investigate (often with negative results) the fundamentals of the position which must be adopted in order to gain academic recognition in the other. It is clear that very little can be accomplished until all barriers to the acquisition of all degrees have been removed -- as far as the beliefs of the individual are concerned. Whether this may involve a reconstitution and renaming of the degree is a further question, but we hope that the disappointing logic of a sentence in the Cambridge Review may not commend itself to many. “It would hardly do,” says our contemporary, “for Cambridge to bestow a D.D. degree, as it is said a transatlantic University did, for a learned thesis disproving the existence of God.” Our decision should surely be determined not so much by reflections as to whether it would “do” as by the metaphysical validity of the arguments in the thesis?
quite at a loss to discover any good reason for the Church to ding to the formularies. They served to hide the progress of thought, to mask important differences of opinion, and to deceive the mass of believers who are ignorant of the results of Biblical criticism.A more serious issue was that of the Christ-Myth theory, revived today by G. A. Wells in his books The Jesus of the Early Christians (Pemberton, 1971) and Did Jesus Exist ? (Pemberton, 1975). The protagonists at that time were H. G. Wood, later Professor of Theology at Birmingham University, and J. M. Robertson, M.P. At Ogden's invitation, Professors Burkitt and Gwatkin and later the Reverend E. G. Selwyn of Corpus Christi College joined in. Gwatkin asked, “Are true stories never embellished with unhistorical episodes ?” Burkitt thought Wood’s midway position difficult and asked, “What is our criterion for picking out historical incidents ?” Selwyn thought Robertson’s interest in showing that Christ did not exist was simply that “he really hates religion and sets out to bring religion tumbling down from top to bottom”. A few weeks later Ogden drew Chesterton into the issue too. Chesterton observed in the magazine that “the notion that Christ did not exist had been suggested off and on, ever since He did exist”.
In 1929 Ogden wrote a short textbook the ABC of Psychology ( published by Kegan Paul) covering aspects much wider than mere industrial psychology. He based this work, as he says in the preface, on the pages of the journal Psyche and the first seventy volumes of the International Library of Psychology, Philosophy, and Scientific Method, both of which he was engaged in editing.**WHEN IS WORK DONE ? “In future we should give the child 6 hours in the play ground, and one grudging hour in the Classroom”, Dr. Slaughter is reported recently as saying. “The Psychology of the child can be better studied in the playground than in the classroom”. The undergraduate will be gratified to find that, without any elaborate study of Psychology he had long ago anticipated its main results.
Mrs Pankhurst’s second meeting was probably quieter than her first because it was not held in the university's full term. It is almost unbelievable, in these days of coeducational modern universities and of mixed colleges, how thoroughly “dog in the manger” junior and senior members of the university were about women, often quite obtusely oblivious of their point of view. This oblivion did not always pass unnoticed. In the magazine of 24 February 1912, Ogden printed — with his own neat comment at the end — a contribution from an undergraduate taking a history of literature course.MRS. PANKHURST AT CAMBRIDGE . . . The Guildhall was absolutely packed by an audience of every age and sex, which though fractious during the first ten minutes soon decided to hear Mrs. Pankhurst to the end, permitted her to send round a hat that more than paid for the expenses of the hail, and finally gave her three cheers for a speech which must have lasted at least 1½ hours.
Mrs. Pankhurst explained that the reason why she was at liberty that night was because the present Government realised that it could not very well arrest her for instigation to rebellion and violence without arresting some prominent politicians in the Unionist Party. (Applause.) There was no doubt whatever that the heads of Government realised that if they arrested her as an instigator to rebellion they must also arrest Sir Edward Carson, Mr. Bonar Law and Mr. F. E. Smith, because no incitement to violence that she had been guilty of surpassed in any respect the instigation to the people of Ulster by those three gentlemen. Only the other night Mr. F. E. Smith told an English audience that three shipowners in Liverpool had volunteered to lend his ships to take 10,000 young men over armed to fight in Ulster if the Home Rule Bill became law. So far no Suffragette had ever been guilty of incitement of that kind.
Not so men. Talk about Pillar Boxes : — why the Chartist agitation was an agitation to get votes for men. It was not pillar boxes in those days, because there were no pillar boxes; it was heads. In 1832 half Bristol was burnt down in a single night by men who wanted the vote. (A voice : “They did not know what they were doing.”) Let them tell that to the grandchildren of those reformers. If they did not know what they were doing they were like people who builded better than they knew, because they won the franchise — they pulled the chestnuts out of the fire for the middle classes.
There was an old French proverb which said “You cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs”, and it seemed that you could not get votes without breaking windows. Property was the Britisher’s god, so therefore it was not necessary for them to take human life if they wanted to produce an effect. She was sent to prison for six weeks for no greater offence than for going with a petition in her hand to the House of Commons, and refusing to go away — (who slapped faces ?) — and yet a man occupying a responsible position in Bradford, an elected representative was sent to prison for six weeks for assaulting little girls. (A voice, “Shame”). . . . After continuing her impassioned harangue for another half hour, Mrs. Pankhurst resumed her seat — at which point Mr. H. F. Rogers-Tilstone asked 3½ questions. Mrs. Pankhurst replied that it was really quite by favour that they allowed gentlemen to come in at all : whereupon a Christian arose and said that he had always been taught that women's place was the home. Mrs. Pankhurst having elaborated the philosophy of home life, Mr. Roger-Tillstone asked 2½ more question and the meeting terminated with the utmost good humour, to the great scandal of all law abiding citizens.
The university had its own problem of Women's Suffrage, and this continued long after women obtained the national vote. Ogden gave full publicity to the inequality in status of women students and dons. Eileen Power, the Director of History at Girton College, wrote feelingly in 1920 about her inability to borrow books from the University Library, and of women dons having “no part” in any of the official or unofficial activities of the university, and no share in its life. She hoped for a share soon, but as it turned out, her hopes were dashed and Cambridge, lagging behind Oxford, failed to give equality of status for another ten years.HEARD AT A LECTURE “In 1753 D----- married and the marriage proved a very happy one. At this time our author was very poor, as his books did not sell well, and the way in which his wife stinted and starved herself that he might have his cup of coffee forms a very pleasing feature in the story.” It would be superfluous to mention the sex of the lecturer. (Or that of the reporter -- ED.)
“They must do everything in their power to recover the birth-rate, as it was never more essential that our great race should expand and cover the globe.” — Walter Long, President of the Local Government Board (Manchester Guardian, 29 June 1916.)
An applicant stated that he had 15 children and the Board of Agriculture representative remarked that the man deserved not only exemption but high commendation. The military representative agreed, and the Tribunal granted the man absolute exemption. — Daily News, 1916 (day not quoted).
Dear Sir,In a column following this letter Ogden interpreted Yule to say that it is the duty of the English press to refuse to insert such contributions as Cannan’s:
Can you spare three lines for a short protest against printing such an article as that by Mr. Gilbert Cannan. It is surely sufficient comment to say that it is enough to make a decent-minded dog sick.I am,
Yours faithfully,
G. UDNY YULE
In other words we are to adopt the methods of Germany and suppress every utterance which does not harmonise with a particular point of view. Moreover Mr. Cannan is one of the literary ornaments of Kings College and therefore has a special claim to be heard in Cambridge.Ogden ended his column by asking whether Yule would contribute £5 to help with the magazine's fund for Belgian University refugees if a dozen officers in the British Army could be produced ready to sign Cannan’s article themselves. “If so it would be some slight apology for the implication that they are indecent dogs.”
that young Englishmen should at one of its meetings be urged to believe that the greatest good of humanity as a whole ought in cases of conflict to be preferred to that of their own countrymen. . . . The experience of the Council may, perhaps, lead them to think that nothing that is said at any meeting connected with a subject for examination, can possibly be taken seriously by any undergraduate. But I can assure them from personal knowledge, that this rule does not hold quite invariably.There was a further measure Moore proposed:
That the council should forthwith suspend all services in the College Chapel until the conclusion of the War. The absolute necessity for this measure, in the interests of recruiting and of national unity, is obvious. It is necessary because at services of the Christian Churches young men are liable to have brought to their notice maxims quite as dangerous to patriotism as any which they will hear at a meeting of the Union of Democratic Control or of the Moral Science Club. I need only give one single instance. The maxim “Love your enemies”, “do good to them that hate you” actually occurs in one of the books habitually read in churches. Here, again, it may be argued that nobody ever takes seriously what they hear in church. But I can again assure the Council from personal knowledge that this is not absolutely always so.The Ridgeway affair also concerned the Union of Democratic Control. The case joined Ogden's sense of the injustices meted out to women with his constant care for the treatment of pacifists. In the spring term of 1916 Ridgeway, Professor of Archaeology, refused to admit Newnham students to his lectures on numismatics for the Classical Tripos if they were members of the Union of Democratic Control. As women students in 1916 were not technically members of the University they could attend lectures only by permission of the lecturer. Laid bare editorially in the magazine, the facts led 0. H. Hardy to protest, particularly because Ridgeway was an examiner for the Tripos involved. Ridgeway was unrepentant; indeed he stated in a letter to the magazine that he was only sorry he could not refuse men pacifists too, but the University Statutes debarred him.
A nation composed entirely of Quakers and other pacifist sects could not exist; they are mere parasites, and have no more right to direct the policy of England than the ticks on a dog’s back have to tell the dog which way to go.Ogden's comment in the magazine was “Bow-wow !”
deploring the fact that such a reversal of the University of liberty and free expression should have been officially initiated by a college which has hitherto been foremost in upholding them.Ogden's article appeared on 14 October 1916 and was headed “Trinity in Disgrace”. In subsequent issues of the magazine, Russell is always referred to as “Mr. Russell of London”, and Ogden carefully rubbed in the fact that his lectures on Philosophy and Mathematics could be heard only at the Dr Williams Library, Gordon Square.
It was Ogden's aim not only to keep liberties and knowledge and tolerance of other people's views, but also civilised life generally. Discussions on art and aesthetics continued with articles by Tudor Hart, by my mother Mary Sargant Florence, and by Ogden himself (often wrapped up as Adelyne More) on Colour Theory. Clive Bell expounded modern art and to his delight reduced Sir Harry Johnson to the admission that he preferred the work of the photographic academician Alfred East to Giotto. Eileen Power was given space to write on the cult of the Virgin, and on nunnery pets ; and further controversy on the Christ-Myth was encouraged. As peace approached, Dora Black (subsequently Dora Russell) contributed with seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century ideas on the right to be happy. Interest in syndicalism was maintained, and took a practical turn when Ogden supported the formation of a branch of the Union of Scientific Workers in Cambridge.ARMISTICE DAY In this country at any rate, violence has not yet been recognised as the proper method of attaining communal ends, and the wrecking of the Cambridge Magazine premises within five minutes of the Armistice announcement was sufficiently lacking in spontaneity to rouse the suspicions even of non-legal observers. We understand, however, that those concerned with the question of compensation have obtained some interesting facts and we trust that the action of a few uninformed and misguided enthusiasts will not be considered more reprehensible than the source or sources from whom the inspiration was ultimately derived.
“Austria proposes the following towns as a North West frontier for Ukrania : Wydozo-Wskycsee, Prushany, Kamietslitowsk, Wysekelitowsk, Meshiretschei, Radzyn, Pagaszie, Krasnostan, Sroezeberzszkyn. These natural fortifications ought to ensure the Ukranians against any attempt of foreigners to interfere in their affairs.”On 20 July 1918, the Daily Telegraph's Parliamentary report for the 18th was quoted in the magazine with a comment:
Sir Edward Carson “Is there anybody who approves of the League of Nations ?” (Laughter). Mr. Bonar Law : “I have not met any of them.” (Laughter). We understand that on Sunday, August 4th the House will ask for a Divine Blessing.
| Contents | ||
|---|---|---|
| Notes on Contributors | vii | |
| Illustrations | viii | |
| PART A : INTRODUCTORY | 1 | |
| PART B : OGDEN AS EDITOR AND POLYMATH | 12 | |
| Cambridge 1909-1919 and its Aftermath. P. Sargant Florence | 13 | |
| A Voice of Reason in the First World War Martin and Eva Kolinsky | 56 | |
| "My Friend Ogden" Dora Russell | 82 | |
| Co-Author of the "Meaning of Meaning" I. A. Richards | 96 | |
| An Improbable Friendship Marjory Todd | 110 | |
| Talent Scout and Editor Lord Zuckerman | 122 | |
| PART C : THE INVENTION OF BASIC ENGLISH | 133 | |
| PART D : EXAMPLES OF BASIC ENGLISH | 177 | |
| PART E : C. K. OGDEN AS AUTHOR | 187 | |
| PART F : C. K. OGDEN : A PLEA FOR REASSESSMENT | 187 | |
| Appendix -- List of books edited by Ogden | 245 | |