OWN “UNIVERSITY”

Waikato Times, Volume 127, Issue 21203, 28 August 1940, Page 12

OWN “UNIVERSITY”

INTERNED STUDENTS DIFFICULTY OVER BOOKS (.Times Air Mail Service) LONDON, August 12 An interned university is at work in the North of England. Its members are students and teachers, all German refugees, who were living in Cambridge when the round-up of C-class aliens was made, j They were interned, not because : there was any specific reason to sus- ! pect them of “fifth column” activities, but because Cambridge is in the Eastern zone, from which all Gcr- ■ mans were moved. There were about 300, most of them students between 16 and 20, but there is also a number of exiled university teachers. As soon as they were installed in their new home —a selfcontained housing estate—they founded a “university” of their own. No Degrees Yet There are courses in physics, mathematics, history and languages. Besides lectures, a tutorial system has been established, and the young Germans write essays for criticism by I their tutors like English under-grad-l uates. I The university is not—as yet—conj ferring any degrees, i The professors’ chief difficulty is j to get text-books. A few they were I able to take with them. They have I appealed to their friends outside for 1 help; but help is expensive as they are not allowed to get second-hand I books (which might convey code '\ message) and the only way to get books to them is to have new ones sent by an authorised bookseller. For the first few weeks they were in their new home, the university was almost their sole interest, as they were not even allowed to receive letters or newspapers, cr to listen to broadcasts.