Best and brightest celebrate Rhodes scholarships' centenary

By JAMES GARDINER

US President Bill Clinton was one. So was Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. And every year three young New Zealanders are selected to join them in the ranks of one of the academic world's most exclusive clubs, as Rhodes Scholars to Oxford University.

So far none has made it to the top in politics in this country but they have achieved practically everything else and, in many cases, have had significant international influence.

New Zealand Governor-General Dame Silvia Cartwright, a former High Court judge, pronounced herself in awe of them this week.

"You're all so distinguished," Dame Silvia said. "I'm feeling so insecure."

She was hosting a dinner at Government House in Wellington to mark a century since the first New Zealand Rhodes Scholar, James Thomson, went to Oxford in 1904.

The occasion coincided with an exhibition in the National Library featuring a selection of some of the notable New Zealand scholars. More than 180 New Zealand "Rhodies", as they are known, have followed the path of Thomson, the Otago geologist, and they display an extraordinary array of achievement.

They include some of our finest sportsmen including Olympic gold medal winner Jack Lovelock, a physician, in 1931 and four All Blacks: Colin Gilvray, 1907, George Aitken, 1922, Chris Laidlaw, 1968, and David Kirk, 1985.

There were literary greats such as Kenneth Sisam, Sir Geoffrey Cox, Dan Davin and Bob Burchfield. Legal minds: Sir Alec Haslam, Sir Lester Moller and present High Court Justice David Baragwanath. There are educators: Vice chancellors Sir Robert Aitken, Sir Alan Stewart, Sir Colin Maiden, Professor Bryan Gould, Professor David Skegg, and Dr John Hood, who will this year move from Auckland University to take over as Oxford's first non-British vice-chancellor.

Historians: Willis Airey, Harold Miller, Andrew Sharp, Ian Milner, Winston Monk, Denis McLean and James Belich.

Physicians: Derek North, Graham Jeffries, Ken North and Jane Harding.

Engineers: Jack Ridley, who was also an MP, Cliff Dalton, and Don Elder.

Scientists: Philip Robertson, Leslie Woods, Lloyd Evans and David Natusch.

They were all part of the cream of the crop that British imperialist Cecil Rhodes envisaged before his death in 1902 as leading the world through their achievements and a desire to do public service.

The son of a British clergyman who won fame, fortune and notoriety in South Africa, Rhodes left virtually all his considerable fortune to establish the scholarship that bears his name.

He sought to select white Anglo Saxons from largely English-speaking and mostly Commonwealth countries with academic achievement matched by their prowess in "manly" sports. But his hope of preventing war by educating future world leaders together in the idyllic sanctuary of Oxford's historic colleges melted like hell's proverbial snowflake shortly after his death.

Twice the German Rhodes scholarships were suspended as a result of world wars. Some have labelled the ranks of the scholarship a secret society based on what Rhodes himself said he wanted to achieve: English being the world's language and Britain's "superior" culture dominating world governance.

The conspiracy theories reached a peak about the time that 1960s scholar Bill Clinton became United States President in 1992. There were no fewer than 20 other Rhodes scholars in his administration's executive, it was pointed out. The takeover was beginning.

"Complete and utter nonsense," says Elliot Gerson, a 1974 scholar who heads the American Rhodes Scholars' Association and organises the annual selection of his country's 32 scholars.

Mr Gerson, a lawyer, says while there is a close bond among the scholars, which have included three Supreme Court judges and numerous members of Senate and Congress and university heads, "most people would be surprised at how un-networked the Rhodes alumni community is".

Laidlaw says if there is a secret society, no one has told him about it. "We haven't got a handshake."

But Gerson is confident the scholarship remains as relevant in its second century as it was in the first. "It's clearly the pre-eminent post-graduate honour an American can receive."

Laidlaw agrees that Oxford still has something special although the modern era has seen other great universities match it.

Having tried to learn more about Rhodes in the past 20 years, Laidlaw concludes that "history has somehow leapfrogged a lot of what he wanted to instil in people".

The other barrier to potential scholars was, originally, skin colour. Although Rhodes did not specify it, historians believe he assumed blacks particularly would never meet the rigorous academic criteria. He was wrong. It took just four years before Harvard philosophy graduate Alain LeRoy Locke from Philadelphia was selected in 1907. Locke went on to head the "New Negro" movement in the 1920s as a spokesman for African Americans.

It was not until 1962, however, that the Americans selected another black student.

Laidlaw recalls Clinton and the Americans in the class of '68 agitating for more change. They went to the Rhodes trustees and demanded that white-only South African schools lose their automatic right to select Rhodes scholars.

A year later the women's movement was at the door. David Williams, a 1969 scholar and now Auckland University associate law professor and a Waitangi Treaty specialist, says he signed a petition to let women in.

Both changes required acts of British Parliament to amend or override Rhodes' will and it was not until 1977 that women became eligible.

In the meantime, a system of Rhodes Fellows was established with the "fellows" being women, 11 of whom came from New Zealand between 1970 and 1980.

One, in 1974, was archaeologist Dr Janet Davidson, who at the age of 33 was given more benefits than scholars, who had to be aged between 19 and 25. Fellows were treated more like Oxford staff, she says.

She recalls "a very privileged life" with meals at the high table and someone who came into her flat to make her bed each day.

"It was an exceptional opportunity for women who had started on a research career. I'm sorry they didn't continue but I'm delighted that so many women since then have been successful in obtaining scholarships."

Tim Parkin, 40, a scholar in 1986, and now a classics professor at Canterbury University, says although the selection process is tough, more New Zealanders should apply. "You don't have to be superhuman - look at me.

"It's one of the few scholarships available to an overseas university.

"It does help to open some doors and you do meet people you wouldn't meet otherwise, but I don't think any Rhodes Scholar can just rest on the name."

One of the most famous living New Zealand scholars was Sir Geoffrey Cox in 1932, a journalist and World War II correspondent who became editor of Independent Television News in Britain in 1956..

Another, now dead, was Professor James Bertram, who worked as a journalist on the Times in London then went to China in the 1930s and covered the early stages of the communist revolution, living and travelling with the leaders.

Hugh Templeton was a scholar in 1952, who worked in the diplomatic service for 15 years before going into politics in 1970. He was a Cabinet Minister with many portfolios in the Muldoon Government and was instrumental in negotiating the Closer Economic Relations agreement with Australia.

Templeton, 75, has nothing but enthusiasm for the scholarships. "It made me a citizen of the world. It gave me access to one of the great universities and encourage me into public service."

A present scholar, Jenni Quilter, 24, from Auckland, is in her third year at Oxford. Having gained a Masters in Philosophy she is now working towards a doctorate.

She describes the experience as "absolutely wonderful. You don't think you'll ever get an opportunity like this, so when you do it feels utterly surreal for the first six months and then you quickly get used to it and then by the end of it you're probably missing it in advance. The people I've met have been the best thing."

Denis McLean, president of the New Zealand Rhodes Scholars' Association, says before World War II there was a tendency for the scholars to remain overseas, partly because of a mood of "anti-intellectualism" in this country but also for the practical reason that suitable jobs were simply not available. That has changed.

One who has returned is 1993 scholar Justine Munro, 32, a lawyer and management consultant heading an Auckland University project called Starpath, which aims to encourage educational achievement in young people from low income areas and racial minorities.

In a speech to the scholars' centennial dinner this week, Munro said if Rhodes Scholars were to be this country's future leaders they had to come from across the spectrum. Since 1904 New Zealand had produced just three Maori scholars, two Pacific Islanders and one Asian, she said, which was clearly far from equal opportunity.

Such issues were rooted far in the education system and needed a sustained effort to address. "They are however critical to the future prosperity and cohesion of this country."