STUDENT RELIEF

Otago Witness, Issue 3618, 17 July 1923, Page 50

STUDENT RELIEF

AN APPEAL FOR HELP. Last year Otago headed the four university districts with a contribution of £662 out of £2046 given by New Zealand to student relief in Europe. The need is still terrible, and the good work of relief is still going on. In November last Harold Gibson, director of student relief in Russia, wrote to Sir Janies Allen : —I write to thank you most sincerely for the great help which New Zealand has already given to our work of university reconstruction in Russia. This help has enabled us to feed 1000 students in Tomsk University every day since September 1, and it has undoubtedly saved life as well as giving new hope and new determination to all these students. 'I ho Tomsk LTniversity is maintaining its prewar standard of efficiency in medicine and engineering, and at least 75 per cent, of its pre-war standard in other faculties. You can be quite sure, therefore, that the students whom you are helping and the professors whom we hope to help there are all well worth helping, and will undoubtedly make a large contribution to their country’s reconstruction. Most of the professors and some of the students, whom we cannot at present help through lack of funds, are in a desperate plight. They never have enough food, and are clothed in rags. I much hope that New Zealand will be able to help our work still further. The programme at His Majesty’s Theatre in the evening was one of particular merit, and the accommodation was, as usual on such occasions, taxed very heavily. The performance was heralded by the overture, a musical production written by Mr H. J. Findlay, a student at the Otago University. The piece is a fox trot entitled “Long Ago,” and it has already proved its popularity to a great extent, the Carnival Chorus and the University Anthem followed, the balance of the programme consisting of farces of local application, and one relating to the discoveries at Luxor. The final chorus, “Gaudeamus,” and the National Anthem brought the evening to a close.