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."