WHAT WAR MEANS.

Wanganui Herald, Volume L, Issue 14696, 30 August 1915, Page 4

WHAT WAR MEANS.

The danger of unreadiness is emphasiced in a Utter written to Sir Alfred Pearce Gould, \ice- hj .nee 1!or of the University of London, by Colcnei Sir Wilmot, Herringham, ti:e retiring vice-chancellor,' who. is srving as consulting physician, to’ his. Majesty's fo.ces at' the' seat .of war. "1 congratulate the senate cn, tho share that the university ha; taken in the war;” he writes. “I have met many of its members here.. Most of them have, of course, been officers of my own branch, and many were under my command in former days. Biit I have s?en .several others in the combatant branches as well. When the war is over I hope . that we and the whole nation will realise that the extreme peril into -which cur"unreadiness has led us and the thousand, of lives that it ha cost, warn .us, first, that neither.in peace nor war can private effort alone .replace national enterprise and organisation, and, second, that'it is necessary for our safety to spread as widely as possible the under standing of those military principles on which the defence cf the* country and the Empire must always depend. One thing -morel '-I have once or twice said to the younger members of the univer-ity that a university education fails cf its ob'eet apiless -it induces both a more intelligent and a more willing devotion t'l’e public service. Ot all the lessons ♦hat wa shall learn from our Allies a.nd from the enemy—and thev can teach us many— non-j is bo impressive err so great as this. The sacrifice, the discipline, the' unity, of the French arid German peoples are an example to us. Thev have understood from 'the first what, this war meant , and have bent the forces cf the whole nation to carrv it out. We are amateurcompared to them, and we shall be unw'rthv both of friend and fee until we do {he like/’ ■