MUST BE KEP-TFREE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 153, 1 July 1938, Page 7

MUST BE KEP-TFREE.

EDUCATION IN AMERICA.

(Received 12 noon.)

NEW YORK, June 30.

The President, Mr. Roosevelt, addressing the National Educational Association, inferentially but vigorously criticised government by dictatorship, declaring that education must be kept intellectually free.

GIFT TO AUSTRALIA.

ENGLISH MANOR HOUSE

LOXDOX, June 23

A beautiful old house, with its park, has been bequeathed to the Commonwealth, by a leading Bedfordshire citizen, as the High Commissioner's official residence. It will pass into the possession of the Commonwealth, if the bequest is accepted, on the death of the two sisters of the testator, Mr. Howard Spensley.

Possession includes lordship of a manor and patronage of a church living. The will expressed the hope that should the Australian Government accept the bequest it would appoint to Westoning Church men having experience in Au->-tralia, "so that a greater knowledge of the two countries, one by the other, mav arise."

Mr. Spensley, who was the son of a former Solicitor-General of Victoria, waa London barrister, with a town house in Montpelier Place, Knightsbridge. He was formerly a member of the Bedfordshire County Council and Sheriff of the county.

The property is Westoning Manor and consists of a pretty 100-year-old threestoreyed brick building with about 18 rooms, situated in 200 acres of parkland and farmland. The house is surrounded by lawns and flowering gardens.

It appears that Westoning Manor was originally offered to the British National Trust which declined it. It is understood that the bequest to Australia is not accompanied by an endowment similar to that" of

Chequers, the British Prime Minister's official residence, and if the Commonwealth accepted the offer it would involve heavy, possibly prohibitive. upkeep.