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W. Earl Hall World War II stories, 1944
Letter #42
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slug-Heavy Hand-4 By W. EARL HALL Globe-Gazette Managing Editor Letter No. 42 Oxford, England--Even more than in the United States, war has laid a heavy hand on the colleges and universities of Britain. I've been deeply conscious of this during the 3 days I've spent here in this cradle of Anglo-Saxon higher eduation. With a Mason City boy, Capt. Harrison Kohl, general manager of the London edition of Stars and Stripes, I've strolled through the cloistered campus--called "quadrangle--of Morton college, with a continuous history dating back to 1274. With Col. Lester Dyke and Maj. Eddie Anderson, I've eaten in the ancient dining room of Worcester college, alma mater of S.U.T. President Virgil M. Hancher, and Oriel college, home of the so-called "Oxford movement." In the latter place, portraits of such distinguished alumni and former students as Sir Walter Scott, Beau Brummell, Cecil Rhodes and Cardinal Nesman looked down upon me and my dinner companions. With Capt. Kohl I've had tea with Lady and Sir William Severidge in the master's lodgings of University college. The famed author of the Severidge plan is head of University college. Through the good offices of President Hancher, I've lunched with Mr. and Mrs. C. K. Allen at Rhodes house and, following my dinner at Worcester, sat in on a Rhodes house reception and dance attended by representatives from as many as 25 different countries. Mr. Allen is secretary of the Rhodes scholarship trust. I've walked the length of Oxford's High street, with its ancient stone walls separating the various colleges which when lumped together constitute the world's most famous university. By many this thoroughfare is regarded as England's one most beautiful street. All these things I've seen and felt. They haven't given me an Oxford education--not even an Oxford accent. But they have, I think, given me an idea, at least in broad outline, of the nature of this great institution. My visit here came a week or two before the beginning of the regular school year. Students quite largely were youngsters in uniform, mostly that of the RAF getting special technological training. One of the colleges was occupied by Wrens, similar to our WACs and Waves. when the regular university year gets under way, the student body will be made up quite largely of youths not physically qualified for military service, with a limited few able-bodied boys assigned here for certain types of specialized training. Oxford, in this war as in the last, has a proud record. Her students and alumni are to be found wherever there is danger. The administrative and teaching staffs have been reduced to a mere skeleton. In centuries past, the 21 colleges for men and 4 colleges for women pretty much stood on their own feet. There was a large measure of self-containment within the walls of the individual college. But in modern times, the trend has been in the direction of integration and submergence, instructionally at least, of the colleges to the university authority. Common laboratories and lecture halls and an interchange of tutors and lecturers have become the rule. The colleges today are fundamentally "living" units--glorified dormitories with more than a little of the fraternity spirit thrown in. University authorities concern themselves with the over-all curriculum while college authorities have a primary concern in the mental and moral welfare of their own students. A few American universities--notably Swarthmore and Yale--have been patently influenced by the Oxford pattern but more of our institutions, including our great middle-western state universities, have held more closely to the continental pattern of higher education. -- 30 --
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slug-Heavy Hand-4 By W. EARL HALL Globe-Gazette Managing Editor Letter No. 42 Oxford, England--Even more than in the United States, war has laid a heavy hand on the colleges and universities of Britain. I've been deeply conscious of this during the 3 days I've spent here in this cradle of Anglo-Saxon higher eduation. With a Mason City boy, Capt. Harrison Kohl, general manager of the London edition of Stars and Stripes, I've strolled through the cloistered campus--called "quadrangle--of Morton college, with a continuous history dating back to 1274. With Col. Lester Dyke and Maj. Eddie Anderson, I've eaten in the ancient dining room of Worcester college, alma mater of S.U.T. President Virgil M. Hancher, and Oriel college, home of the so-called "Oxford movement." In the latter place, portraits of such distinguished alumni and former students as Sir Walter Scott, Beau Brummell, Cecil Rhodes and Cardinal Nesman looked down upon me and my dinner companions. With Capt. Kohl I've had tea with Lady and Sir William Severidge in the master's lodgings of University college. The famed author of the Severidge plan is head of University college. Through the good offices of President Hancher, I've lunched with Mr. and Mrs. C. K. Allen at Rhodes house and, following my dinner at Worcester, sat in on a Rhodes house reception and dance attended by representatives from as many as 25 different countries. Mr. Allen is secretary of the Rhodes scholarship trust. I've walked the length of Oxford's High street, with its ancient stone walls separating the various colleges which when lumped together constitute the world's most famous university. By many this thoroughfare is regarded as England's one most beautiful street. All these things I've seen and felt. They haven't given me an Oxford education--not even an Oxford accent. But they have, I think, given me an idea, at least in broad outline, of the nature of this great institution. My visit here came a week or two before the beginning of the regular school year. Students quite largely were youngsters in uniform, mostly that of the RAF getting special technological training. One of the colleges was occupied by Wrens, similar to our WACs and Waves. when the regular university year gets under way, the student body will be made up quite largely of youths not physically qualified for military service, with a limited few able-bodied boys assigned here for certain types of specialized training. Oxford, in this war as in the last, has a proud record. Her students and alumni are to be found wherever there is danger. The administrative and teaching staffs have been reduced to a mere skeleton. In centuries past, the 21 colleges for men and 4 colleges for women pretty much stood on their own feet. There was a large measure of self-containment within the walls of the individual college. But in modern times, the trend has been in the direction of integration and submergence, instructionally at least, of the colleges to the university authority. Common laboratories and lecture halls and an interchange of tutors and lecturers have become the rule. The colleges today are fundamentally "living" units--glorified dormitories with more than a little of the fraternity spirit thrown in. University authorities concern themselves with the over-all curriculum while college authorities have a primary concern in the mental and moral welfare of their own students. A few American universities--notably Swarthmore and Yale--have been patently influenced by the Oxford pattern but more of our institutions, including our great middle-western state universities, have held more closely to the continental pattern of higher education. -- 30 --
World War II Diaries and Letters
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