• Congregation 24 June: Public Orator's speeches introducing the honorands (Latin followed by English):
  • Doctor of Letters
    • Mr Fazle Hasan Abed
    • Dr Santiago Calatrava Valls
    • Mr Philip Pullman
  • Doctor of Science
    • Professor Erwin Hahn
    • Professor Barry Marshall
  • Doctor of Music
    • Dame Mitsuko Uchida
• Encaenia:
  • Public Orator's introduction to the Creweian Oration
  • Creweian Oration, by the Professor of Poetry

CONGREGATION 24 June

1 Conferment of Honorary Degrees

THE PUBLIC ORATOR made the following speeches in presenting the recipients of Honorary Degrees at the Encaenia held in the Sheldonian Theatre on Wednesday, 24 June:

Degree of Doctor of Letters

Mr FAZLE HASAN ABED

Chairperson, BRAC (formerly Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee), and Commissioner, UN Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor

Vastatione belli pereunt fruges concidunt aedificia evertuntur abolentur urbes; tamen e caeno et ruinis gramen crescit herba floret natura rursus recurrit. Ita et in pessimis rebus spes resurgit; id quod vita eius testatur quem agmen honorandorum hodie ducentem videmus. In Bengalia natus, partim in sua patria partim in nostra apud Universitatem Glasgoviensem educatus, aliquot annos in tabulario nummos censebat; sed cum patria in summum discrimen adducta esset civesque se in libertatem vindicarent, lautitiae quas dedit mercatura non iam ei placebant; ardebat rempublicam fractam reficere et reparare auxiliumque illi hominum multitudini ferre quam metus in exilium pepulerat. Quamobrem societatem ad egestatem levandam condidit, cuius BRACchia nunc non solum suam gentem sed alias etiam multas amplectuntur. Medicamenta ad morbos sanandos suppeditavit, inter quos id profluvium alvi memoro quo antea permulti peribant; pecuniam dedit ut homines rustici ea emant quae ad agros melius colendos sunt necessaria. Inopiam enim existimat non esse simplicem, immo e pluribus causis oriri, ita ut nullo pacto exstingui possit nisi radices eius et natura sint repertae. Vult egenos ita iuvare ut se ipsos iuvare queant; non solum corpora sed etiam mentes alit, quia intellegit litteris et scientia prosperitatem promoveri. Imprimis iura sexus feminei asserit; nam ne viri quidem, ut dicit, necessitudinem superabunt nisi mulieres iustam partem et bonorum et dignitatis receperint. Septem abhinc annos sua opera ad alias orbis terrarum regiones extendit; auxilium populo Taprobanes maris inundatione vastatae praebuit; Bactrianis et Nubaeis bello cruciatis etiamnunc succurrit.

Praesento hominum egenorum propugnatorem indefessum, et Bengaliae et totius orbis terrarum civem, Fazle Hasan Abed, ut admittatur honoris causa ad gradum Doctoris in Litteris.

Admission by the Chancellor

Pauperum vindex lenis fortis humane, qui gratiam hominum innumerabilium meruisti, ego auctoritate mea et totius Universitatis admitto te ad gradum Doctoris in Litteris honoris causa.

Paraphrase

The devastation of war ravages the land, demolishes buildings and reduces whole cities to ruin, and yet out of the mud and rubble the grass grows again, the flowers bloom, and nature returns. Even so hope springs up again even in the worst of times—a truth to which the life of the man whom we see leading the line of honorands today bears witness. Born in Bengal and educated both in his own land and in this country at the University of Glasgow, he worked for some years as an accountant; but in his nation's great moment of crisis, when his fellow citizens were struggling for their freedom, the comforts of a businessman's life no longer satisfied him; he yearned to rebuild the country's shattered economy and to bring help to the vast numbers of refugees who had fled their homes. He accordingly founded BRAC, an organisation dedicated to the relief of poverty, whose arms now embrace many peoples besides his own. He supplied medicines to cure various diseases, notably the diarrhoea which had previously been a widespread killer; he provided the credit which allowed the rural poor to acquire what they needed to improve the yield of their land. He regards poverty not as a simple phenomenon but as one with complex causes, which there is no possibility of eliminating without analysis of its nature and origin. He wants to help the needy to help themselves; he nourishes their minds as well as their bodies, appreciating that education is the engine of economic development. Above all, he has insisted on the rights of women, arguing that unless they get a fair share of respect and resources, men themselves will not succeed in overcoming poverty. Seven years ago he began to extend his operations to other parts of the world: he brought aid to Sri Lanka after the ravages of the tsunami, and is now providing support in two more countries tormented by war, Sudan and Afghanistan.

I present a tireless defender of the needy, a citizen of Bangladesh and of the whole world, Fazle Hasan Abed, to be admitted to the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters.

Admission by the Chancellor

Gentle, valiant and compassionate champion of the poor, who have earned the gratitude of countless men and women, I on my authority and that of the whole University admit you to the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters.

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Dr SANTIAGO CALATRAVA VALLS

Architect and Structural Engineer

Poeta, dummodo chartam et calamum habeat, versus scribere potest; musico forsitan clavicymbalum vel voces paucorum sufficiant; pictor colores et tabulas non magna impensa emit; at architecto non solum patrono et pecunia opus est sed cum pondere et repulsu vastae molis materiei luctandum. Virum tamen nunc laudo qui et patronos e multis orbis terrarum regionibus allexit et ipsi rerum gravitati resistere videtur; tanta enim arte aedificia construit ut materiem quamvis concretam velut ceram fingi velut aquam fluere prope credamus. Valentiae natus est, cuius civibus monumenta fecit praeclarissima, Valentiae in disciplina ingeniaria est eruditus; quare seu pontem fabricatur seu stationem ferroviariam seu museum, rigorem et phantasiam coniungit. Velut poeta rhythmum, velut musicus concordiam bene intellegit, neque miror eum partem otii in statuis faciendis consumpsisse; nam qua facilitate sculptores materiem suam tractare solent, ea item aedificia flecti et curvari coegit. Vergilius in Aeneide de aere spiranti et vultibus vivis e marmore ductis loquitur; simili modo non multum abest quin huius viri opera, licet formam neque hominum neque animalium imitentur, motus capacia esse existimares. Ita museum quod pro Wisconsinensibus fecit nihil quod in natura videmus repraesentat, attamen mentes spectatorum imagine aquilae vel ad altum tendentis vel desuper ruentis saepe capiuntur. Titulus in tumulo Pauli Veronensis pictoris inscriptus aemulum eum naturae orbis miraculum vocat, quae verba ad hunc virum referre possis; nam inventionis audaciam stupet mundus, pulchritudine iuvatur.

Praesento magum Hispanum, qui chalybem cretam saxum potestati suae subiecit, Sanctum-Iacobum Calatrava Valls, ut admittatur honoris causa ad gradum Doctoris in Litteris.

Admission by the Chancellor

Summe architecturae magister, cuius opera utile pulchro miscent, ego auctoritate mea et totius Universitatis admitto te ad gradum Doctoris in Litteris honoris causa.

Paraphrase

A poet can write his verses as long as he has pen and paper; a piano and a few voices may be enough for a composer; a painter's colours and canvases do not cost him much; but an architect not only needs commissions and the funding to go with them but has to struggle with the bulk and the resistance of masses of heavy material. Yet the man whom I now praise has attracted commissions from many parts of the world and seems to defy the law of gravity; such is the skill with which he designs his works that concrete seems to be moulded like wax or flow like water. He was born in Valencia, to which city he has contributed a magnificent group of public buildings, and studied engineering there, acquiring from this experience a mastery that has enabled him to combine logic and imagination, whether he is putting up a bridge, a railway station or a museum. He has a poet's feeling for rhythm, a musician's sense of harmony, nor am I surprised that he has devoted some of his leisure to sculpture, for he makes buildings bend and curve with the kind of command that sculptors have over their own medium. Virgil speaks in the Aeneid of breathing bronze and living faces drawn from marble, and in similar vein one may feel that this man's works, without actually imitating the forms of living creatures, appear almost capable of motion. Thus the museum which he has designed at Milwaukee does not represent anything found in nature, and yet a good number of those who have seen it have found themselves thinking of an eagle soaring aloft or swooping from on high. The Latin epitaph on the grave of the painter Veronese describes him as the rival of nature and the wonder of the globe, words which one can apply equally to this honorand; for the world marvels at the boldness of his invention and delights in its beauty.

I present a Spanish magician, who has compelled steel and concrete to submit to his will, Santiago Calatrava Valls, to be admitted to the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters.

Admission by the Chancellor

Superlative architect, in whose works function and beauty are conjoined, I on my authority and that of the whole University admit you to the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters.

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Mr PHILIP PULLMAN

Author

Quas res melius aliis gentibus gesserunt Britanni? Neque in sphaeristica, ut puto, neque in coquina neque in fabulis musicis fingendis omnibus antecellunt. Sed si fabulas ad puerorum delectationem inventas examinaverimus, adfirmare fortasse audebimus nullum esse populum quem ea in arte non superaverimus. Praeterea, magna pars eorum qui libros pueris optime scripserunt Oxoniam nostram habitavit; plerique in hac universitate studuerunt atque docuerunt. Tamesis prope ripam Grahameius ventum inter salices susurrantem audivit; qui etiam hac in urbe est sepultus. Oxoniae Alicia terram mirabilium intravit; Oxoniae gens hobbitorum nata est; Oxoniae porta ad Narniam est aperta. At hic quem nunc produco hunc ipsum locum vel maioribus laudibus ornavit, quippe qui in suis fabulis Oxoniam lepide descripserit et, ut ita dicam, dramatis sui personam fecerit.

Primus Carolus Kingsley, ut videtur, cum de infantibus aquaticis scriberet, id genus fabulae invenit quod puerum vel pueros in alium mundum transfert et aliquando in nostrum rursus reducit. Quem secutus est Ludovicus Carolus, ubi Aliciam ad terram mirabilium et per speculum misit, postea etiam is qui de Petro Pane scripsit, mox Clivus Lewis, denique hic quem hodie videmus. Hoc tamen modo ab aliis differt, quod mundo illo ficto ad naturam animi humani scrutandam usus est. Socrates quidem daemonis se monitu saepe corrigi credidit; hic daemona unumquemque hominem, sive iuvenis sit sive senex, manifeste comitari fingens, arcana indolis et ingenii nostri in apertum protrahit. Itaque cum puerulos delectat innumerabiles, tum lectores adultos allicit atque arrigit. Quare ut Horatius Romanae se lyrae fidicinem vocavit, ita nos Lyrae Oxoniensis cantorem salutemus.

Praesento textorem fabularum sollertissimum, Philippum Nicolaum Outram Pullman, Excellentissimi Ordinis Britannici Commendatorem, Collegii Exoniensis et alumnum et socium honoris causa adscriptum, ut admittatur honoris causa ad gradum Doctoris in Litteris.

Admission by the Chancellor

Scriptor lepidissime, cuius ingenio non suffecit mundus unus, ego auctoritate mea et totius Universitatis admitto te ad gradum Doctoris in Litteris honoris causa.

Paraphrase

What have the British done better than anybody else? They do not surpass all other peoples in tennis, I think, or cookery or opera. But if we turn our attention to books written for the pleasure of children, we may perhaps venture the thought that this is a genre in which we have outclassed every other nation. Moreover, a remarkable number of the best children's writers have lived in Oxford, and a good many of these have taught or studied in this University. It was on the banks of the Thames that Kenneth Grahame (who is buried in the Holywell Cemetery) heard the wind rustling in the willows; it was from Oxford that Alice entered Wonderland; it was in Oxford that the hobbits came to birth; it was in Oxford that the door opened to Narnia. But the man whom I now introduce has paid this place a greater tribute, for he has evoked Oxford charmingly in his books and made it, one might perhaps say, one of the characters in the story.

Charles Kingsley, in The Water Babies, seems to have been the man who created the story pattern which takes a child or children into another world and sometimes brings them back to the real world at the end. It was followed by Lewis Carroll in both Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, and subsequently in Barrie's Peter Pan, by C.S. Lewis, and lastly by the man whom we see today. Our honorand differs from his predecessors, however, in using his fictive universe as a means of probing the nature of the human spirit. Socrates believed that he was often put straight by the guidance of a daemon; our honorand, for his part, imagines every human being, young or old, being visibly accompanied by a daemon, and uses this conception as a means of drawing the character of our inner being into open view. Accordingly, while delighting countless children he has also attracted and challenged adult readers. And so as Horace called himself master of the Roman Lyre, let us salute the celebrant of Oxonian Lyra.

I present a most skilful weaver of tales, Philip Nicholas Outram Pullman, CBE, former undergraduate and now Honorary Fellow of Exeter College, to be admitted to the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters.

Admission by the Chancellor

Delightful author, for whose imagination one world has not sufficed, I on my authority and that of the whole University admit you to the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters.

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Degree of Doctor of Science

Professor ERWIN HAHN

Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley

Credidit Pythagoras caelum sonis musicis compleri, tantam enim esse in rerum natura concordiam; sed nostra aetate indagatores naturam rerum obscuram esse atque perplexam probaverunt. Democritus quidem putavit atomos e quibus omnia constent simplices solidas immutabiles esse; hodie tamen rerum physicarum periti docent corporum etiam minimorum implicatissimam esse fabricationem viderique etiam ipsi rationi resistere. Vir quem nunc produco, quamquam cantus praesertim nervorum perstudiosus est, illam sphaerarum musicam fortasse non audivit, sed adhuc iuvenis eum effectum invenit qui turbinis magnetici resonantia nuncupatur. Monstravit particularum quasdam congeries retro quoque moveri posse, ita ut tempus ipsum retro ire videatur. Quod cum nos opici vix intellegere queamus, Tertullianum imitati credamus quia impossibile sit. Hoc certum est: propter huius viri reperta studium resonantiae magneticae, quam antea docti non magni faciebant, scientiam non solum physicae sed chimiae biochimiae medicinae maximopere auxit, nec desunt qui vestigia eius secuti, magna praemia, ut ipse, sunt adepti.

Pennsylvaniae natus et educatus, Californiam lustra plus quam decem habitavit; sed fama virorum illustrium per totum terrarum orbem resonat. Nos autem Oxonienses gratias agimus quod ter apud hanc universitatem peregrinatus sit sapientiamque suam nostris hominibus doctis communicaverit. Multos viros insignes aluit Collegium Aenei Nasi, inter quos Archiepiscopum Cantuariensem memoro, scriptorem praemio Nobeliano ornatum, solum adhuc reipublicae nostrae Primum Ministrum, qui breviter nec magna claritate summum illum magistratum exercuit. Hoc praesertim anno, in quo id collegium abhinc quinque saecula conditum celebratur, unum e praestantissimis viris qui ibi scientiam vel prosecuti sunt vel docuerunt honestare gaudemus.

Praesento scrutatorem rerum naturae oculatissimum, Erwin Ludovicum Hahn, apud Universitatem Californiensium Berkeleyianum quondam professorem, socium Collegii Aenei Nasi honoris causa adscriptum, apud Balliolenses quondam Professorem Eastmanianum, ut admittatur honoris causa ad gradum Doctoris in Scientia.

Admission by the Chancellor

Naturae investigator sapientissime, cuius famae reboat orbis terrarum, ego auctoritate mea et totius Universitatis admitto te ad gradum Doctoris in Scientia honoris causa.

Paraphrase

Pythagoras believed that the heavens were filled with music, such was the harmony of the natural order. In our own time, however, scientists have shown how mysterious and puzzling is the nature of things: whereas Democritus supposed that atoms, the building blocks of all matter, were simple, solid and eternal, these days physicists tell us that the structure even of elementary particles is phenomenally complex and even apparently contrary to reason. The man whom I now introduce, though an enthusiast for the violin and chamber music in particular, has perhaps not heard the music of the spheres, but early in his career he discovered the spin echo effect of magnetic resonance. He has shown that the evolution of certain physical systems can be reversed, so that time itself seems to run backwards. Since this is pretty much beyond the understanding of us laymen, let us imitate Tertullian and believe it because it is impossible. This at least is sure: thanks to our honorand's discoveries, the study of magnetic resonance, previously thought to be not all that important, has greatly advanced our understanding not only of physics but of chemistry, biochemistry and medicine, and a number of those who have followed in his pioneering footsteps have won glittering prizes, as he has himself.

Born and educated in Pennsylvania, he has lived in California for more than fifty years; but the fame of eminent men resonates across the whole world. We Oxonians are grateful that he has spent three substantial periods as a visitor here, sharing his expertise with our own researchers. Brasenose College has nurtured many notable men, among them an Archbishop of Canterbury, a winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, but—so far—only one Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, whose time in office was short and not particularly distinguished. In this year especially, in which the college celebrates the five hundredth anniversary of its foundation, we delight to honour one of the most outstanding people to have taught and researched there.

I present a most penetrating investigator of natural science, Erwin Louis Hahn, Emeritus Professor at the University of California at Berkeley, Honorary Fellow of Brasenose College, formerly George Eastman Professor at Balliol College, to be admitted to the honorary degree of Doctor of Science.

Admission by the Chancellor

Wise investigator of the nature of things, whose fame the world re-echoes, I on my authority and that of the whole University admit you to the honorary degree of Doctor of Science.

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Professor BARRY MARSHALL

Professor of Clinical Microbiology, University of Western Australia

Quamquam e tempore Hippocratis medici se iureiurando adegerunt aegros nullo modo laedere, hic adest vir qui ex industria effecit ut homo quidam morbum sustineret. At gradu doctoris in scientia eum nunc honestamus. Intendite, quaeso. Homines docti, quamvis angorem ab ulceribus in ventre crescentibus lenire vellent, originem morbi haudquaquam intellegebant. Alii putabant ulcera cibo aromatis nimis condito vel raptim consumpto creari, alii causam ad anxietatem animi referebant, alii fabellas aniles narrabant; hic vir culpam ad animalculum quid- dam contulit. Quod cum non pauci deridissent (putabant enim nihil in loco tam acido vivere posse), se ipsum contagione eius microbacterii tali modo contaminavit ut confiterentur fere omnes eum aenigmatis solutionem repperisse. Itaque doctrinae virtutem addidit; quamquam cantores vel saltatrices nonnumquam dicuntur artis suae gratia mala ferre, rarius hominem invenies qui scientiae augendae causa dolorem ultro passus est. Praeterea, cum ulcera in ventre latentia saepe in cancrum mutentur, hic vir non solum dolorem levavit, sed vitam hominum innumerabilium servavit. Multis igitur honoribus, inter quos praemio Nobeliano, ornatus est.

Hic in Australia Occidentali natus est et educatus; ibi illa in stomacho celata animalcula scrutatus est, ibi etiamnunc habitat. Putat enim ut apud Homerum Ulixes, nihil dulcius homini esse quam patriam suam videre. Illam Australiae partem ab aliis civitatibus vasta terrae desertae spatia separant; totam Australiam cingit oceanus; sed licet hic vir regionem a nobis remotissimam incolat, fama eius apud multas gentes celebratur, repertaque innumerabiles adiuverunt et qui nomen eius sciunt et qui nesciunt.

Praesento medicum insignissimum, qui et ipsum sanavit et permultos, Barry Iacobum Marshall, Excellentissimi Ordinis Australiae Comitem, ut admittatur honoris causa ad gradum Doctoris in Scientia.

Admission by the Chancellor

Viscerum interpres doctissime, qui prudentiam atque fortitudinem unice coniunxisti, ego auctoritate mea et totius Universitatis admitto te ad gradum Doctoris in Scientia honoris causa.

Paraphrase

Although physicians from the time of Hippocrates have bound themselves by oath not to harm their patients in any way, here is a man who has deliberately caused a person to suffer illness. You may wonder why we are now bestowing on him an honorary doctorate of science. Well, listen to this. The experts, for all their eagerness to alleviate the acute pains caused by stomach ulcers, used to be quite unable to understand their origin. Some thought that the cause was eating excessively spicy food, or eating too fast, some that ulcers were brought on by stress, while others produced various old wives' tales; but our honorand put the blame on a bacterium. When this theory proved controversial (for people supposed that nothing could survive in such an acid environment), he introduced the bacterium into his own body—so effectively as to produce general agreement that he had found the answer to the mystery. Thus he added courage to expertise: although singers and ballerinas are sometimes said to suffer for their art, it is less common to find a man voluntarily undergoing pain for the sake of increasing knowledge. Moreover, since stomach ulcers can often develop into cancer, he has not only lessened pain but saved the lives of countless people. Accordingly, he has received many honours, among them the Nobel Prize.

He was born and educated in Western Australia; it was there that he conducted his researches into those bacteria in the stomach, and it is there that he still lives. Like Homer's Odysseus, he evidently thinks that there is no sweeter sight for a man than his own homeland. His part of Australia is separated from the other states by a vast area of desert, and Australia as a whole is surrounded by ocean, but although he inhabits a land very far from our own, his fame has spread among many peoples, and his discoveries have benefited countless people, whether they have known his name or not.

I present an exceptional physician, who has cured himself and many others, Barry James Marshall, Companion of the Order of Australia, to be admitted to the honorary degree of Doctor of Science.

Admission by the Chancellor

Wise reader of the entrails, in whom sense and courage have been uniquely combined, I on my authority and that of the whole University admit you to the honorary degree of Doctor of Science.

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Degree of Doctor of Music

Dame MITSUKO UCHIDA

Classical Pianist

Quamvis cuiuslibet organi magistros multum admiremur, haud scio an clavicymbalistis maximam laudem tribuere soleamus; qui velut praestigiatores pernicitatem vix credibilem praestant, et velut coniectores cogitationes ex altis musicae auctorum mentibus ortas interpretantur. Quorum in numero femina quae adest locum praestant issimum diu occupavit. Adhuc iuvenis nomen ex eo nacta est quod opera Mozartiana lepidissime canebat; at si qui tum putabant eam plus elegantiae quam vigoris habere, vehementer errabant. Multa opera orbibus phonographicis commisit; e quibus de duobus breviter disseram. Cum ultimam illam symphoniam clavicymbalisticam Francisci Schubert audivimus, videmur ut in eius Itinere Hiemali spatium immensum transiisse; qua in canenda non pauci hanc feminam omnes superavisse existimant. Hoc virtu- tem eius arguit: licet non ita difficile sit in hoc opere chordas accurate percutere, summa arte summo ingenio opus est ut sonorum conformatio varietas magnificentia bene exprimantur. Maxima illa e symphoniis clavicymbalisticis Ludovici van Beethoven aliter se habet; quam clavicymbalistae ipsi ut altissimum cacumen artis suae simul et reformidant et desiderant; illo enim in Olympo rupes vastae imminent, valles praeruptae dehiscunt, dei epulis sublimibus fruuntur. Plerique aestimant hanc feminam et in hoc opere principem esse omnium; cuius in prima parte vim temperantiae coniunctam, in secunda alacritatem, in tertia eloquentiam et grandem et teneram, in ultima contrapuncti tetrici implicati velocissimi moderationem exhibet. Atqui nullam superbiam in ea invenies, nullam ostentationem; nam musicae ipsi non suae gloriae servire quaerit.

Praesento feminam cuius ars audientium sensum delectat animum attollit, Mitsuko Uchida, Excellentissimi Ordinis Britannici Dominam Commendatricem nuperrime creatam, ut admittatur honoris causa ad gradum Doctoris in Musica.

Admission by the Chancellor

Clavicymbali magistra lepidissima, quae digitis tuis et pulchritudinem operum musicorum et sapientiam patefacis, ego auctoritate mea et totius Universitatis admitto te ad gradum Doctoris in Musica honoris causa.

Paraphrase

Much though we applaud the virtuosi of every musical instrument, perhaps we reserve our highest admiration for the great pianists, who resemble jugglers in their amazing agility and the interpreters of oracles in the insight that they bring to bear on composers' most profound ideas. The lady present here today has long occupied an eminent place among them. Early in her career she won a name for her subtle realisations of Mozart, but if there were listeners then who thought that she was more elegant than powerful, they were mightily mistaken. Many are the works that she has recorded; I shall briefly mention two of them. After a performance of Schubert's B flat Sonata, the last of his sonatas, we seem as in his Winterreise to have completed an immense journey; a number of critics have judged our honorand's interpretation of this work the finest of them all. It stands as a proof of her quality: although in this sonata it is not especially hard to hit the right notes, the highest art and imagination are required to bring out its range, structure and splendour. Beethoven's 'Hammerklavier' Sonata is quite another matter: pianists themselves, with both longing and trembling, regard it as the supreme peak of their repertoire: on that Olympus mighty crags loom, chasms gape open, and the gods banquet on the heights. Here again a good many people have judged this lady to be the best of all: in the first movement she shows a blend of power and control, in the second vivacity, in the slow movement an expressiveness that is both grand and tender, and in the last movement a mastery of jagged, complex and precipitous counterpoint. And yet you will find no showiness in her, no bravura for its own sake, for she seeks to serve the music itself not her own glory.

I present a lady whose art delights the senses of her listeners and elevates their souls, Mitsuko Uchida, newly created DBE, to be admitted to the honorary degree of Doctor of Music.

Admission by the Chancellor

Enchanting mistress of the keyboard, whose fingers reveal both the beauty and the profundity of musical compositions, I on my authority and that of the whole University admit you to the honorary degree of Doctor of Music.

2 Encaenia

THE PUBLIC ORATOR delivered the following introduction to the Creweian Oration:

THE PUBLIC ORATOR: Honoratissime Domine Cancellarie, licetne Anglice loqui?

THE CHANCELLOR: Licet.

THE PUBLIC ORATOR: This is Midsummer Day, when sprites and fairies dance upon the lawn with printless foot and, if you look very carefully, you may glimpse the dons at play, disporting themselves in the streets and gardens of the city clad in red and pink and purple. At school we sang at the start of each term, without enthusiasm, 'Lord, receive us with thy blessing, Once again assembled here.' There was another, more welcome version for the end of term: 'Lord, dismiss us with thy blessing.' Today's event is both assembly and dismissal, an ending of the year and a commencement, an act of gratitude and celebration as we honour the past, enjoy the present, and look onward to the future.

This oration is, as you know, remorselessly cheerful, relentlessly upbeat. I try to imagine that Hazel Blears had a weekly column on the North Korean Times, and model myself on that. My aim is to make Blueprint look like the Oxford Magazine. But humility is in vogue, and so I begin by recording a thoroughly middling performance. Country Life magazine, in its search for the best county in England, put Oxfordshire tenth. At least we have risen in this Norrington Table of the shires: last time we ranked seventeenth. Our county was placed ninth for heritage, seventeenth for landscape, fourteenth for dining (one or two high tables they haven't been invited to), seventeenth for sunshine, twenty- fourth for flood risk, and eleventh for society (so wounding). In only one category did we come first: proportion of the population listed in Who's Who. So at least we know what's what.

And indeed we have triumphed in another league table. Notoriously, the Research Assessment Exercise was poorly designed and easily subject to manipulation, and it is only indicative in broad terms. None the less, when there is a competition, however unsatisfactory it may be, it is nice to win it, which we did: we were judged to have submitted more research in the highest category, or in one of the two highest categories, than any other institution. The exercise produced some linguistic grade inflation: good research was called 'world-leading', decent research was 'of international importance', and research which was not up to much was 'of national importance'. Thus the report on one department read, 'Much of the research submitted was excellent, but some was of national importance.' I recommend this phrase for future use: 'I see you have published a new book, Dr So-and-So. They tell me it is of national importance.'

Our success in research draws, of course, on the faith that our benefactors place in us, and in the generosity with which they express it. Across the centuries, we have not always been our own best advocates. I can report that the Development Office has had to let a Mr Matthew Arnold of Balliol go, after he submitted copy describing us as 'home of lost causes, and forsaken beliefs, and unpopular names, and impossible loyalties'. And he was only trying to be helpful. On the other hand, I cannot speak too highly of Mr Waugh of Hertford's excellent recruitment video, Brideshead Revisited, which showcases our quality catering provision (plovers' eggs for lunch), light touch approach to tutorials, first-class opportunities for social networking, study trips to major examples of baroque architecture, and the prospect of close personal attention from the daughters of top British peers.

That is not the Oxford, however, which has inspired Dr James Martin (already the recipient of the Sheldon Medal, that rare honour given for benefactions of a wholly exceptional kind), who has made another magnificent donation for the James Martin Twenty-first Century School. He might seem to have exhausted the vocabulary of praise, but the Professor of Poetry, whose well of English never runs dry, will have something more to say about his gift in due course. Mr Ajit Gulabchand has made a most munificent gift for the Ajit Gulabchand Professorship of Indian Business Studies at the Sa‹d Business School Executive Education Centre. When you leave this theatre, maybe you will glance at the elephant carved on the side of the original Indian Institute. It usually looks rather lugubrious, but for once I hope to detect a gratified smile. In the field of business studies, C&C Alpha Group have also given generously to support the annual Emerging Markets Symposium at Green Templeton College.

Our students always have great achievements to their credit, most of which we are left to celebrate among ourselves; but in the past year two at least have come to the attention of the national press. Mr Tim Catling of Pembroke scored three tries in the Varsity match, bringing us a narrow victory in a keenly fought contest; it was the first time that any player in this series had achieved the hat trick since 1934. And Miss Gail Trimble of Corpus, having scored more points on University Challenge than anyone in the history of the show, found herself competing for the headlines with Miss Jade Goody, for whom the oratorical research team has so far been unable to trace an Oxford connection. We need the resources to attract, sustain and nurture the very best students, and it is a pleasure this year to hail generous donations from the Helsington Foundation for University Residential Summer Schools and Teachers' Initiatives, from the Swire Educational Trust for the Swire Scholarship Scheme, and from the Dulverton Trust for the Dulverton and Michael Wills Scholarships. The Institute for Strategic Dialogue has made a substantial donation for the Weidenfeld Scholarships and Leadership Programme. This gift is a tribute to the imagination and inspiration of Lord Weidenfeld; the Weidenfeld programme funds the education and supports the careers of prospective future leaders in many countries of the world.

Leadership brings me to Gordon Brown. One significant event of the past year was the Prime Minister's visit to give the Romanes Lecture. Mr Brown made sure that he got in the two names with which he wished especially to be associated—Barack Obama and Gail Trimble—and revealed that he approved of them. His subject was science. He was in favour of that too. The last time that a Prime Minister gave the Romanes Lecture was ten years ago; on that occasion, when Mr Blair was given dinner in his college, St John's, he was, I believe, the youngest person in the room. It was like something out of Disraeli: the young duke down from town to appear among his admiring tenantry. The tone was different this time. Another notable occasion was a celebration of Darwin's 200th birthday in February, shared with the Institute of Biology; it was masterminded by Professor Raymond Dwek, who could have had a great career as an entrepreneur but has chosen to fritter away his life on glycobiology. The choir of New College and the Oxford Philomusica performed movements from Haydn's Creation here in this theatre, and the famous clash on evolution between T.H. Huxley and Bishop Wilberforce was recalled by Lord Harries and Professor Dawkins on its actual site in the University Museum. The event was, among other things, a terrific party—clearly another one to which Country Life was not invited.

Robert Streater's great ceiling painting was back in the Sheldonian in time for both these events. It is a delight to see it again after too long an absence. Pevsner acknowledged it, unenthusiastically, as a work of national importance, but now that it is restored to us, we can appreciate both how essential it is to the total effect of this building, and how fine a piece it is in itself. As our programme booklets remind us, it represents Truth descending upon the Arts and Sciences. We can make out the allegorical figures far better than before. For example, I am looking across at Arithmetic. You can tell that she is Arithmetic because she is holding a tablet on which are written 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9. Well, it's a start. When the mathematicians move into their magnificent new premises in the Observatory Quarter, we shall be expecting them to get into double figures.

Omens and portents attend the comings and goings of the great. The present Vice-Chancellor's arrival was greeted by the Sheldonian ceiling giving way, and his departure by its restoration. There is a symbolic fitness in that, perhaps. Next time the University commissions a large allegorical painting, maybe the painter could take as his model that fresco at Assisi of St Francis putting his shoulder to a collapsing church. Perhaps Dr Hood had not expected to be compared to St Francis; but when I was an undergraduate, our leader's official title was still 'The Reverend the Vice-Chancellor', though since then that handle appears to have been quietly dropped. Well, I can revere a Vice-Chancellor, but I doubt (with respect) whether I shall ever worship a Lord Mayor. To be Vice-Chancellor requires both a large vision and a care for detail. When I spent a year as a Proctor, a decade ago, I got some sense of the multitude of little matters that the Vice-Chancellor must deal with all the time. As it happens, I had to write to Dr Hood a couple of years back about a piece of entirely routine business that needed his approval, and I was struck both by the speed of his reply and by its personal touch. I was almost shocked: has he nothing better to do with his time, I wondered. He must have done many things of which we shall never know. Of the larger vision, there can be no doubt. I suspect that the grip which he has taken of the finances of the University, in all their extraordinary complexity, will be looked back upon as his biggest achievement. At all events, he now moves to the Robertson Foundation, where instead of raising money, he will have the pleasure of doling it out. He will be the object of endless flattery. I suppose it will be a bit like sailing; nothing all day but the gentle, lapping sound of the tongue being applied to the toecap. People will be telling him all the time that he is wonderful; just like being Vice-Chancellor, really. We commemorated Dr Hood's predecessor by renaming the Napoleon Room in the Clarendon Building; it is now the Lucas Room. If anyone knows of another room in the University named after a bloodstained usurper, please let Council know. Meanwhile, we thank Dr Hood for five years' tireless work, and wish him all the best in his new existence.

While we look to the future, we are also custodians and interpreters of the past, and this enterprise too needs the support of our friends. The Normanby Charitable Trust has made a large donation for the University Lecturership in Etruscan and Early Italic Archaeology. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has given liberally to the Bodleian Library and the Voltaire Foundation; moreover, the Humanities Division has benefited greatly from a number of research grants from this same source. From the will of Mrs Alice Georgina Strauss has come another substantial gift to the Bodleian Library. Mrs Strauss worked in the Bodleian for more than forty years, and was superintendent of the Old Library for almost twenty. She was one of the faces of the library for a generation of readers, most of whom will not have known her name. This is someone whose benefaction to this place has been both in her life and in her legacy.

The Pitt Rivers Museum has reopened, having achieved the conjuring trick of being brilliantly transformed and staying just the same. The Ashmolean Museum will reopen, vastly extended, later this year; meanwhile it has been imaginatively keeping itself in the public mind with advertisements on the city's public transport featuring the faces of local celebrities. I should not have flattered Mr Pullman in my oration if I had described him as looking like the back of a bus, but I have certainly seen the backs of some buses that looked remarkably like Mr Pullman. Art is among the varied purposes of the Qatar Foundation for Education's magnificent gift for the His Highness Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani Chair in Contemporary Islamic Studies, the I.M. Pei Chair in Islamic Art and Architecture, and supporting programmes at Wolfson College and St Antony's College.

Much of the research done here is necessarily technical and hard to understand, but it is always cheering when academics can share their interests with a larger public. Scientific laymen like myself have been able to learn a good deal from the lively science blog which now appears on the University's Web site and offers a flow of instruction and sometimes entertainment. My favourite headline was 'Robots get sense of d‚j… vu'; can't you see them lounging in the laboratory, drinking absinthe and engine oil, and observing in tones of ennui that life is so mechanical? Scientific and medical research is costly, of course, and our gratitude to donors is commensurate. Our part in the fight against cancer gets deserved recognition, and in the past year there have been generous gifts from the Oak Foundation, for the Institute of Cancer Medicine and the Oak Scientific Leadership Fellows, from Dr Terrence Donnelly, also for the Institute of Cancer Medicine, and from the Sir Samuel Scott of Yews Trust, for the Gray Institute for Radiation Oncology and Biology, to support clinical work. An anonymous donor has also made a very substantial gift for the expansion and refurbishment of Osler House for the benefit of medical students at the John Radcliffe Hospital, in memory of Mr Wing Tat Lee; and we have received a liberal benefaction from the Pharsalia Charitable Trust for the refurbishment of the Gastroenterology Laboratories, to be dedicated to the work of Professor Derek Jewell.

It has been a turbulent year in British politics. I have tended to boast about the political prominence of our alumni, but I notice that apology has become the fashion, and anything as achingly fashionable as this oration would not wish to be left out. Last year I noted that Mr Johnson of Balliol had silenced a critic in the London Assembly by firing at him a line of Virgil in the original Latin, thus demonstrating the usefulness of reading Greats. Since then I regret to say that the Mayor has overreached himself: he announced that London would host the best Olympic games since 753 bc. You will share my dismay: 753 was the year in which Romulus founded Rome; the first Olympics were in 776. On behalf of the Faculty of Classics, I wish to apologise for the deficiency in our value added which this has exposed. It is a little over a year since Mr Johnson's election. Back in the 1640s the king tried to rule the country from Oxford; it will be recalled that there was some unpleasantness at the time. A few centuries on we have extended our power more effectively; and last year, for a few months at least, London lay entirely at our mercy, with Mr Johnson of Balliol as Mayor, Sir Ian Blair of Christ Church as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, reporting in turn to Miss Smith of Hertford at the Home Office. But I do not want you to feel sorry for Londoners; we govern them well. These bankers and civil servants are simple, smiling folk, and truly, they are happier this way.

But events have been moving rapidly. Three Oxonians have resigned from the Cabinet in the past month, while another has been made Minister of Almost Everything. Gratifyingly, Oxonian MPs have not on the whole been conspicuous in the expenses affair, though it was an Oxford man who claimed for his moat—well, of course. For a brief period three of the four great offices of state were shadowed on the opposition front bench by Magdalen men, thus putting Mr Cameron of Brasenose in the unaccustomed position of feeling a bit of an outsider. Brasenose celebrates its quincentenary this year, and I have already hinted in a learned language that it might have hoped to mark the date by putting an alumnus into Number 10. If this does not quite work out, the college can take as its model the Turkish cigarette company that issued its product in a special package to commemorate the 504th anniversary of the Fall of Constantinople. While on the subject of anniversaries, let me note another birthday: this year the University of Cambridge marks eight hundred years of existence. In more spacious days we would mark notable occasions at other universities by sending them a prolix letter of commemoration composed in Latin—'verbosa et grandis epistula', in Juvenal's words—and I must confess to some relief that a cheery 'Congratulations!' now suffices. While joining in Cambridge's celebrations, we may recall, ruefully, that it was founded because the scholars of Oxford had been bickering among themselves. How very odd to think of dons behaving like that.

'From politics,' wrote Jane Austen, 'it was a short step to silence'; but before I too lapse into silence, I leave Westminster for the traditional visit to the parish pump. The New Year Honours brought CBEs to Professor Duncan Gallie, Mrs Rosemary Thorp, and Professor Tony Venables, and an OBE to Professor Arthur Stockwin. In the Birthday Honours, Professor Andrew Ashworth received the CBE, and knighthoods were bestowed on Professors Ian Brownlie, David Hendry, and Christopher Ricks. The last of these will shortly perform the final duty of his five very successful years as Professor of Poetry, having proved himself literally irreplaceable. We also congratulate our new honorary Doctor of Music on her damehood, announced too late to appear in your programmes, but not too late for the oration as it was spoken and as it will appear in the Gazette.

The British Academy has elected to its fellowship Professors John Blair, Martin Browning, Christopher McCrudden, Linda McDowell, Iain McLean, Peter Neary, Vivienne Shue and Mark Williams. That is sixteen new fellows from this University in the course of two years—a remarkable figure. Three of us have been elected Fellows of the Royal Society: Professors Nicholas Harberd, Angela McLean and Richard Passingham. This year fewer heads of house are stepping down than has become usual, but Professor Mike Mingos will be succeeded at Teddy Hall by Professor Keith Gull, Professor Richard Carwardine will take over from Sir Tim Lankester at Corpus, and Sir Curtis Price will follow Professor Alan Ryan at New College. Amid the farewells, we also welcome the High Steward, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry, to his first Encaenia. I remarked a year ago on the moment at which the heads of the three national judiciaries, Lord Bingham in England, Lord Rodger in Scotland, and Lord Hutton in Northern Ireland, were all Balliol men. I have since learnt that the story has a sequel. The three were photographed together in their old college, with a handsome clock behind them. Shortly afterwards, the clock was stolen, and of course the college was able to supply the police with a recent picture. The detective looked at the photograph narrowly: 'And who might these three gentlemen be?'

I end, as ever, by calling to our minds those friends and colleagues who have died in the past year, among whom were John Bamborough, founding Principal of Linacre, John Barron, Master of St Peter's, Thomas Braun, Fellow of Merton, Henry Chadwick, Dean of Christ Church (who died on the eve of last year's Encaenia), John Fenton, Canon of Christ Church, George Holmes, Fellow of All Souls, Evan James, Student of Christ Church, Peter Nye, Fellow of St Cross, Vivian Ridler, Fellow of St Edmund Hall, Michael Soper, Student of Christ Church, and Neil Tanner, Fellow of Hertford. Requiescant in pace et in aeternum luceat eis Dominus Illuminatio Mea.

And now: Arise, Sir Christopher.

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CREWEIAN ORATION 2009

THE PROFESSOR OF POETRY delivered the following Oration 'in commemoration of the Benefactors of the University according to the intention of the Right Honourable Nathaniel, Lord Crewe, Bishop of Durham':

Here we now are, nearing the end of what we have not yet learnt to call the twenty-hundreds (though we have no difficulty in referring to the nineteen- hundreds), very soon to enter the no less unsayable twenty-tens (though again, the nineteen-tens come smoothly enough). The visionary benefaction that has created the James Martin Twenty-first Century School, with its noble aspiration to understand the challenges, the risks, and the opportunities of the century, is one to stir the imaginations of poets. Poets future, present, and past.

Ezra Pound was not uniformly wise, but there was wisdom in his suggestion that `Artists are the antennae of the race'. His friend T.S. Eliot looked into the future one month after the outbreak of the Second World War:

An account of the development of Liberalism and Totalitarianism. . . has not of course anything to do with the question: who will win? But it has a great deal to do with the question—in the long run, for humanity in general, the important question: what will win? The former is a question of prediction: the latter is a question of prophecy. In the sense in which war is something that starts with the fighting and ends when the fighting stops, we may quite well win this war without ideas. But in that event the statement `we have won the war' must be countered with the question, `who are we, now that we have won it?'

A hundred and fifty years ago, this building both bestowed and received honour, when an honorary degree was conferred upon the Poet Laureate. He was furthermore—this does not always happen—the greatest poet of the age. Two hundred years old this year, Tennyson was of Cambridge, but it was Oxford that signally garlanded him, five years after his elevation, with the degree of Doctor of Civil Law. The occasion was graced by an affectionate incivility, a youthful cry to the straggly-haired poet (the cry bantered `The May Queen': `You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear'): `Did your mother call you early, dear?'

In `Locksley Hall', Tennyson had contemplated the present, the past, and especially the future:

Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime
With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time;

When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed;
When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed;

When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see;
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.—

* * *

For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm;

Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.

Such was the Alfred Tennyson Nineteenth Century schooling of his contemporaries, and in the poem's vision, its determination to hope neither too little nor too much, it still has much to teach us.

Tennyson's vision of the future was of the most ample kind: social, political, scientific, humanistic. For a deep distrust of all such visions, one would turn to another true poet, an Oxford man who is 150 years old this year. A.E. Housman, like Tennyson, did not actually gain a degree from his university; in Tennyson's case there was a family tragedy that forced him to return home, in Housman's a personal tragedy, perhaps, with a simple failure in the examinations that it is simply impossible for us to plumb. When Housman looks into the future, it is not a global future that he confronts, but an individual future—individual, though not his alone. (`Not mine, but man's'.) His poem is advice about how to face the future, and in particular what to hope from hope. The advice is funereal, while the poem moves as in a dance. We are to think about why this makes sense.

I to my perils
    Of cheat and charmer
    Came clad in armour
By stars benign.
Hope lies to mortals
    And most believe her,
    But man's deceiver
Was never mine.

The thoughts of others
    Were light and fleeting,
    Of lovers' meeting
Or luck or fame.
Mine were of trouble,
    And mine were steady;
    So I was ready
When trouble came.

And the poem's future? Housman never published it.

The last of my poets is our greatest man of letters, an Oxford man. Samuel Johnson, who is 300 years old this year, would have thought it worse than improper, impious, to contemplate the future under any other supreme aegis than that of religion. He transforms the classical world of Juvenal into the Christian world of Johnson, and when he contemplates The Vanity of Human Wishes, it is to set all of life within his vision of the only future that, in the end, matters. In the end, for this is how his poem ends.

Still raise for Good the supplicating Voice,
But leave to Heav'n the Measure and the Choice,
Safe in his Pow'r, whose Eyes discern afar
The secret Ambush of a specious Pray'r.
Implore his Aid, in his Decisions rest,
Secure whate'er he gives, he gives the best.
Yet when the Sense of sacred Presence fires,
And strong Devotion to the Skies aspires,
Pour forth thy Fervours for a healthful Mind,
Obedient Passions, and a Will resign'd;
For Love, which scarce collective Man can fill;
For Patience sov'reign o'er transmuted Ill;
For Faith, that panting for a happier Seat,
Counts Death kind Nature's Signal of Retreat:
These Goods for Man the Laws of Heav'n ordain,
These Goods he grants, who grants the Pow'r to gain;
With these celestial Wisdom calms the Mind,
And makes the Happiness she does not find.

The immediate future for Dr Johnson is the celebration of his 300th birthday in September. The Royal Mail is to treat him royally, and to issue—a month later—postage stamps that bear his unmistakable head. In the month of his death, December 1784: `As he opened a note which his servant brought to him, he said, "An odd thought strikes me:— we shall receive no letters in the grave" '. Thousands of us will now receive letters, not from him, but with him. The vision of the future will want to attend to such visionaries from the past.

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