GERMAN OFFER

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 256, 25 July 1930, Page 4

GERMAN OFFER

Exchange of Students FAVOURABLE RECEPTION Exchange between German students and those of Victoria College was suggested in a letter from Dr. Klaus Milbnest, of Berlin, which was received by the Victoria College Council last night. It was decided to reply that they had as yet no hostel, but when This bad been erected they would be pleased to ■ consider the matter favourably. “The work of the exchange service is based on entire reciprocity,” stated the letter. “I am very £ lnd to invite a graduate student from your university for the next academic year, if you would accept a German student for a, similar time, under the same conditions.” “We give our foreign guests room, board, and free tuition at any one of our German universities, or technical institutes while the other expenses, and for the voyage from New Zealand to Germany anil back, the student has to pay himself. “If the experiences of the first exchange prove satisfactory, and if both parties are willing to continue on the same basis, vou are entirely free to grant the German Fellowship either to the same student who was with us for the first year or to a new one. We will send only such students who are in full command of the English language.”

Hospitality Arranged. “As soon as your student reaches Germany we will regard him as our welcome guest, and we will try to make his stay in the German University he chooses as successful and pleasant as possible. In almost every German University we have special student committees who take particular pleasure in helpin- their foreign fellow-students, lhere are also several hundred of foreign German exchange students who had returned to Germany. We are very glad indeed to pay back a little part of the kindness which they have experienced abroad by helping foreign students to adjust themselves to the German life, and to make the necessary contacts. “Much too little is known in Continental universities about New Zealand, and the younger generation particularly is very anxious to learn more about the country in order to understand better her people and ideas,” concluded the letter. “The Academic Exchange Service has proved an important factor in the intellectual life among nations, and in their mutual understanding.” The Professorial Board approved the general scheme, and recommended that a reply should be sent stilting that a hostel for students is shortly to be erected, and that when that was completed the council expected to be in a position to consider favourably the exchange of students as suggested. This was agreed to.