Next to the Pitt Rivers Museum the Natural History Museum was recommended for – if nothing else – its architecture. So I trekked out there and marveled at the number of bicycists. Bikes outnumber the cars in this part of town and most of the vehicles on the street are delivery trucks or workmen’s trucks or something. I tried counting, but had to give up – there were just too many bikes.
The Oxford Museum of Natural History is a wonder. The first thing I saw was a taxidermied bobcat and a sign reading ‘Please Touch.’ I’d never been to a museum where they actually want you to touch stuff. They had displays aimed at children with fossils, a meteorite and taxidermied critters.
There was the essential dino-in-the-doorway display of a towering skeleton, but they had a whole line-up on one side of everything from a deer to a giraffe. Statues of great scientific minds line the perimeter – there’s one for everyone no matter who you admire, Darwin, Bacon, they’re all there. The pillars are displays themselves, carved of native stone. There were an abundance of taxidermied displays behind glass, all tattered with age: birds from the rainforest, a kangaroo rat and other small mammals. Upstairs was filled with butterflies and beetles and bugs and slugs. There is a working beehive encased in glass mounted in the stairwell. I really enjoyed the rock displays as well. It was one of those places I told myself I’d come back to, but I lied. I was pretty much lost in there all morning.
Once our afternoon class was over we got all gussied up for dinner. This was our ‘High-Table’ experience. One of those formal dinners where you not only have to behave nicely and not spill the milk, but you’re on center stage and wine stains easier. The director said the grace in Welsh and everything was very neat and nice. We made it through just fine, although some of our elders were a little worse for the brandy.
Dr. Geoffrey Thomas, founder of Kellogg College (why, yes, it is named for the famous cereal company) spoke on the state of education in England. Seems they’re in culture shock themselves at the new restrictions being placed on them by the government. Oxford and Cambridge have, by some long tradition, been underwritten by the government to such a degree that once a student was accepted their education was paid in full. A few years back they were allowed to start charging because the government allotment had been reduced. Now they’d like to charge premium, but the government says all the universities have to be priced (essentially) the same. Need cash; looking for donors – That’s it in a nutshell. I guess most Europeans aren’t used to paying for their education. If you’re good enough you go. It’s that simple. Well, not anymore.
