WORKING MEN STUDENTS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XXX, Issue 8450, 15 May 1906, Page 6

WORKING MEN STUDENTS.

The Trade Unions of the Home country have realised the importance of fitting their representatives for positions in public life, and have established scholarships for some of their members at Ruskin College, Oxford. This year there are no fewer than thirty six at the college, all working men, and drawn from Trade Unions, and in the majority of cases their fees are paid by their Unions. The Amalgamated Society of Engineers have sent nine students. By taking a course of training at Ruskin College, these students are not helped to rise out of the class to which they belong, for the subjects in which they receive instruction do not in any way fit them to alter their trades. Not a single working-man student who has passed through the college has failed lo return to his trade.

Another interesting feature with the college is that, for the first time in the educational history of this country, public funds are now being used to educate working men in those social and economic problems which they are called upon to solve.

The West Riding County Council has established a scholarship at.Ruskin College to be held by a working man from that district. The scholarship this year has been won by a young miner from Pontefract, who for several years has been devoting the whole of his leisure to the education of his fellow-miners in social questions.