UNIVERSITY FUNDS.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 234, 26 June 1908, Page 7

UNIVERSITY FUNDS.

THE OXFORD APPEAL. EU TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION—COrIItIQHT. London, Juno 24. ■In response to tho appeal of tho Chancellor of Oxford University (Lord Cur son), made in May last, to raise a quarter of a million to endow now at Oxford, nearly £100,000 has boen subscribed. OXFORD . AND CAMBRIDGE NEEDS. While some of its colleges are rich, Oxford University is notoriously poor. It fails,_or barely succeeds, to make both ends meet. Tho sum -urgcnt-ty required .to onable Oxford to meet the educational _ demand of- the present day, to keen pace with tho general advance of the outsido world, and also to • maintain her existing ..institutions, is, at a minimum, a quarter of a million. In the past the colleges have made great efforts to assist the University, but further endowments are wanted. ■ ■ When raised, the required sum will be appropriated to spepific needs, in something like the following scale:— Science • .£IOO,OOO ' Additional .buildings . ... » ... «£50,000_. Bodleiaii 'Library. , '.i; ... *650,000 , Modern - language's '... ..." i£3o,ooo' History .. ... ... ... ... .£20,000 ■ Total ... .... ... - ... .£250,000 It is not a little curious to reflect, says a Home paper, when one remembers the wording in which Mr. Cecil Rhodes couched his great bequest to his Alma Mater, that it is the introduction of the Rhodes scholars moro than anything else which has led Oxford to "wake up" to the educational need of the hour. It has been brought home by Rhodes students to professors "living secluded from the world," and as "children in commercial matters," that Oxford lacks : facilities' for training in certain subjects which roceive the utmost attention from every modern, and, indeed, nearly, all other, universities. . - At Oxford, for instance, tho student who' intends to make _ engineering his profession cannot qualify himself for admission to the Institute of Civil Engineers. Many. of "the Rhodes scholars wish to be engineers, and Oxford feels that she must meet,their case. and that of the' hundreds of others who require the' training which at present they have to seek elsewhere than at Oxford. :

: The Rhodes scholars come from all the Colonies, from the United States, and from Germany; and thoy have created a new atmosphere. Oxford ' realises that while maintaining' the' old traditions of culture, sho must also offer to theso young men tho advantages of up-to-date equipment. "V

A study which has grown,, and which grows enormously, is that of English. Hero. again the demands of tho Rhodes scholars, AngloSaxon and Gorman, .are a spur to action; but the whole Empire is demanding teachers in this world-wide language, and ' Oxford's poverty is a bar to the provision of adequato instruction in this, as in other, modern' languages. The dream of a Professorship of Japanese is another that only increased funds can realise. ,

■ Both the great English universities seem'.to bo in much the samo position. While Oxford wants <£2,500,000, Cambridge's needs are set down at