Education: Smarties

In the '20s, according to Novelist Evelyn Waugh in Brideshead Revisited, the smart Oxford undergraduate ate plovers' eggs, read T. S. Eliot, drove a Morris-Cowley two-seater, might even carry a pet Teddy bear around with him.

In 1950, standards have changed, but not much. With its tongue barely bulging its cheek, Satire, a new Oxford undergraduate magazine, lists requirements for present-day "smarties":

¶ "It is not smart to attend lectures, unless they have not the remotest connection with one's subject . . . No smartie has ever heard of Science."

¶ "One must have read: Evelyn Waugh, Truman Capote, Raymond Chandler, Nancy Mitford. No one should be caught reading: Beverly Nichols, Elizabeth Bowen."

¶ "Most smarties know very few women. It is not smart to know women undergraduates, and it is unheard of to have a girlfriend, except in London. The very smartest, of course, know no women at all."

¶ "It is essential to have a car. Aristos [the drawer above smarties] have Bentleys or Allards; smarties, Humbers or Triumphs . . . No smartie would be seen dead on a bicycle."

¶ "As it is virtually impossible to obtain smart food in Oxford, most smarties do not eat."

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MANOJ, a police officer stationed in Mumbai, on why he and other police don't criticize their leaders for failing to meet promises to improve dire working conditions after last fall's deadly attacks on the Taj hotel

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