| 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 |
| 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 |
In this unadorned introduction we would make known our wish to be regarded as a paper of the class which has been described as "open," -- not in the sense that we profess to entertain no editorial opinions which may ever and anon emerge irrepressible, but meaning thereby that we are prepared to accept and to welcome every point of view. We believe that the spirit which cries perpetually for the non-committal attitude is a mean one : and it is well known whither this too often tends. It is not this kind of impartiality which most people demand, but the promise of a fair hearing or a considered reply.
The frank statement of a point of view, any readable contribution, whether ultra-academic or verging on the horsey, will be gladly received. In our endeavour to secure that all activities of note in the University may find in us a mouthpiece if they wish for one, we have secured the services of many leading representatives of the various movements and interest, academic, athletic, political or religious.
In the course of the war and the absence of undergraduates, the magazine secured a public outside the University thanks to its Review of the Foreign Press", which will be considered later, and to Ogden's enterprise in gleaning articles from former undergraduate contributors stranded abroad after the outbreak of hostilities. For instance, in the magazine for 13 March 1915, Ogden got Alix Strachey to describe immediately after her return from Petrograd, via the Gulf of Bothnia, how Russians were taking the war so soon after the Russo-Japanese debacle. Moreover, in spite of loss of interest in rowing, games and sport Ogden retained with the same enterprise a popular base in stories from Cambridge men at the Front or drilling at home. Brian Lawrence still figured in contributions on "Life in a Mess", "Aquaticus guarding the Tower", "On getting up at 6 a.m.".ROWING PROSPECTS, 1912 Once again we have entered upon a new year of aquatic sport and a bare two months hence the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, each represented by her respective crew, will be engaged in the annual eight-oared contest over the famous Putney to Mortlake course. At the moment of writing, according to the "papers", it seems practically useless for Cambridge to make any attempt whatsoever to put in an appearance upon the tideway, as the betting is ten to one on the Oxonians -- an almost unheard-of state of affairs at this stage of practice-in fact, before the Oxford crew have even put their ship into the Isis. But what of it ? At any rate let us hope that the rowing on the Cam is not as black as it is painted; and it must be borne in mind that, as the old proverb has it "there's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip" -- many things may happen between now and the 30th of March.
By C. F. Burnand
In building up the magazine Ogden showed the same knowledge and know-how that had built up the Heretics. For the first number he had a picture done of G. K. Chesterton riding in a cab and sent it, to him with a newspaper cutting about his talk to the Heretics:ASK NO QUESTIONS An influentially signed fly-sheet has just been circulated in Oxford urging that a subscription list be opened to secure an alternative site for the proposed Engineering Laboratory. It is hoped by this means to preserve the University Parks from desecration.
"The Oxford Manner"
"In this way," the signatories argue, "conflicting views may be reconciled, and future siteless endowments may present themselves to us more nearly as real gifts, for which we can all be wholeheartedly grateful, than as so many calls on the University to do itself irremediable injury and to surrender, little by little, slowly (it may be) but surely, its cherished possession of a health-giving park, dose to our door, worthy alike of University and city, which should remain intact for ever as the perpetual heritage of the future, that out of the mouth of babes and sucklings may still come forth praise, and out of the heart of aged and infirm persons, who cannot reach the hills around, silent benediction."
The circular is signed among others by the Warden of All Souls, the Rector of Exeter, the President of Corpus, the Provost of Oriel, the Provost of Queen'; Professors Dicey and Holland, Sir Erle Richards, Sir Ernest Trevelyan, Professor W. P. Ker, Mr R. W. Raper, Fellow of Trinity and the Rev. A. H. Johnson, Fellow of All Souls. Mr. Raper or Mr Johnson will gladly answer any questions.
The question we should like to ask is -- who wrote the sentence we have quoted ? Not, we hope, Professor Ker. At any rate our readers will be glad to have it intact for ever as a perpetual heritage for the future, etc., etc., reserving a "silent benediction" till everything else has been given a fair chance, even the babes and sucklings, but especially the sucklings..
Chesterton duly replied and his remarks with the picture appeared in the magazine: Ogden as Editor and Polymath 21NOTES IN A CAB "Mr Chesterton who arrived a quarter of an hour late explained that this was due to the fact that he came there in a Cambridge cab, and constantly encouraged the horse driver to go slower and slower, so that he might see the beauties of the town and also begin to make up what he was going to say." (Extract from report of Mr. Chesterton's speech in the Guildhall, at Cambridge, 17 November 1911).
In the course of the two years and a half before the war Ogden had obtained contributions by such big names (some of them bigger then than now) as William Archer, A. C. Benson, Rupert Brooke, Gilbert Cannan, Gordon Craig, G. H. Hardy, Frank Harris, Jane Harrison, Jack Hulbert, Henry Arthur Jones, Vernon Lee, Sir Oliver Lodge, Harold Monro, Gilbert Murray, Arthur Quiller-Couch, Field Marshal Roberts, Bertrand Russell, Owen Seaman (the editor of Punch) and Father Waggett. The names were big in so many different lines of activity that they can appear only in alphabetical order.MR. CHESTERTON EXPLAINS Beaconsfield
Dear Mr. Editor, -- Thank you very much for showing me the picture of myself making notes in the cab. It is quite true that I did, a few minutes before my address, try to make notes in a cab; but they did not come to much, as the audience soon discovered. My best notes were made, not just before the lecture, but just after it. The combined brilliancy and solidity of those notes the world will never know. But these also were made in a cab; so that your picture will do quite as well for the baffled and remorseful lecturer as for the expectant and provocative one. There were all sorts of questions I should like to have asked the Heretics, if they had not asked so many questions of me. But, first and last, I should like to ask why they are so weak-minded (if you will forgive the phrase) as to admit that they are Heretics. You never really think your own opinion right until you can call it Orthodox.
January 18th, 1912
Yours sincerely,
G. K. CHESTERTON
Since the publication of Marx’s “Capital,” no volume with the possible exception of the Fabian Essays, has contained an economic theory so striking and so stimulating as these articles reprinted from The New Age. The New Age itself happily no longer requires recommendation, as the most alert and impudent of the weeklies -- ourselves only. . . . At any rate we maintain there is no book which so clearly reveals the methods by which we, the upper classes, at present exploit and diddle those in a less fortunate station than ourselves; no book baa so dearly emphasised the only way in which we can be induced to get off the backs of those underneath us; and few books of the past decade will do so much to determine the trend of events in the industrial world, where the influence of the policy here outlined has manifested itself for some time past.In April 1912 a coal strike was raging and, in the first number the summer term (20 April 1912) Ogden opened his pages to enlightenment, and to both sides of the ensuing controversy both theoretical and practical planes.
No doubt many inquirers have turned to their Encyclopaedia for that article on Syndicalism, which would have saved so much ambiguous foaming at the mouth, only to find its place taken by learned disquisitions on Synanthy, Synaxarium, Syncellus, Syncope, Syncretion, Synechism, Synod and Syntipas. Not that it is absolutely omitted ; indeed at I. 918, a, we find a well-informed reference. But it is unknown alike to the Editor and to the compilers of the Index. This is all the more to be regretted with a movement which now claims the attention of some hundreds of volumes -- of which the root idea has been declared by the Times to be “excellent” -- which Professor Pareto, one of the most distinguished of living economists, affirms to be supported by the most important theoretical position to be found in modem contributions to Sociology -- whose analysis of existing conditions, according to Professor Sombart, is more penetrating than that of any other reform movement -- which is, in the view of Max Nordau, about to “envelop the world,” in that of Mr. Thomas Mann to lead us “a devil of a dance” -- which in short is likely before long to be mentioned even at the most ancient of our English Universities.On the theoretical plane again, Ogden presented an article in ~8 May 1912 (actually signed “C.K.O.”) reviewing a contemporary lecture in Cambridge by Graham Wallas together with a book by Louis Levine. Wallas, he thought; should have stressed, as Levine did, the connection of syndicalism with Marx; both held the fundamental idea of clam struggle. Ogden himself thought both books inadequate on the international aspect, and also on the position of women in the new scheme giving power to the industrial workers -- workers being mostly men.
| Contents | ||
|---|---|---|
| Notes on Contributors | vii | |
| Illustrations | viii | |
| PART A : INTRODUCTORY | 1 | |
| PART B : OGDEN AS EDITOR AND POLYMATH | 12 | |
| 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 | |