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THE NEW IN THE OLD

Cambridge and Oxford Universities are planning to entertain American students engaged in war work who wish to spend their furloughs in England. As many soldiers will frequently cross the Channel to get away from trench life, these institutions offer the privileges of living and eating within their walls.

Such a move will be greatly appreciated by our college men. Permission to stay, even for a very short while, inside those universities, which have been a centre of intellectual progress for many centuries, will make a welcome change from the turmoil and worries of the front. Many Americans have no friends abroad with whom they can spend their leaves-of-absence, and since they are unable, unlike English-men to return home, any opportunity to breathe again a college atmosphere is certain to be eagerly sought. In a country where everyone is a stranger, a familiar environment helps to make the man from away feel more at home.

In addition to this opportunity for rest or recuperation, the soldier-students can also satisfy their desire to see how English universities are managed, what traditions they have, and how they train their undergraduates. We all should like to find out the ways of brother-students abroad. Oxford and Cambridge are the original patterns of our American universities. Our student-soldiers may learn much from a visit to those old seats of learning.

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