Valedictory address to the University of Oxford

An alternative would be the provision, beside the ordinary Preliminary, of an English Honour Moderations, which would enable the abler or more ambitious to spend four years in reading. It would, I think, be less useful in the English School, the variety and scope of which is little exhibited or understood at earlier stages. Our need is rather to provide for those who first at a university discover what there is to know and do, and what are their true bents and talents. [The suggestion is that in addition to the Preliminary Examination (at that time taken after two terms' work) there should be, as an option, a sterner examination (‘Honour Moderations', in which candidates would be classed) taken after two years: the whole course for such candidates thus taking four years. In the event, the ingenious decision was that all students reading English should take an examination called ‘Honour Moderations' after one year, the whole course taking three years as before. – Ed.]

Courses I and II: options in the English School at Oxford allowing the student to concentrate on earlier periods. These courses, taken by relatively few, are largely Lang; while Course III, taken by the great majority, is very largely Lit. [Ed.]

‘star-spangled grammar’: the reference is to enquiry into the forms of words before the earliest records; in those studies the conventional practice is to place an asterisk before hypothetical, deduced forms. [Ed.]

fród in ferðe: having at heart the wisdom of experience.

vánier was the reading of the text of Namáriē (Galadriel's lament in Lórien) in the first edition of The Lard of the Rings; it was changed to avánier for the second edition (1966). [Ed.]

These lines are from The Seafarer; the other Anglo-Saxon verses and references are from The Wanderer. [Ed.]

duguð: the noble company (in a king's hall). dream: the sound of their glad voices and the music of their feasts.