In Germany

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Five German universities are closing down. They include, according to report, the internationally famous colleges at Halle, Marburg, Frankfort-am-Main. They have surrendered to poverty.

The central tragedy of the university situation in Germany is in the middle-class home. From the German bourgeois family were recruited the upholders of the liberal tradition. Today the middle-class son finds it difficult, almost impossible, to finance a university course.

The sons of speculators, industrialists and big baronial landowners fill the college halls.

The democratic element is not totally eliminated only because of a remarkable development of student selfhelp. Guided from a national headquarters at Dresden, cooperative stores, student kitchens, employment bureaus are operated. And there are loan banks to which all who can contribute, and from which the most gifted students, regardless of social status, receive money without interest during the months before their final exams. John R. Mott, through the World's Student Christian Federation, has been largely instrumental in the success of these self-help activities. The Society of Friends (American Quakers) have cooperated.

Say university professors in America: "The rich heritage of learning given by Germany to the world may be laid waste."

At Louvain

Hopes of completing the library of the University of Louvain in 1925 have sagged because American money has ceased its flow. Building operations have been suspended.

The beautiful structure which was to have replaced the famous Clothmakers' Hall, destroyed by bombardment in 1914, stands only one-fourth completed, and a fresh call is being issued to the colleges of America which in effect pledged themselves to finance this enterprise two years ago, when President Butler of Columbia University laid the cornerstone.

The building will cost $1,000,000, and so far only $300,000 has been contributed. The Committee was led to expect a dollar each from 1,200,000 American students, but whereas institutions like "West Point, Annapolis, Hunter, Amherst, Bryn Mawr, St. Stephens, Yale have oversubscribed their quotas, and half a dozen schools have fulfilled their promises, almost three-fourths of all the students concerned have failed to contribute. Another campaign is about to be made.

1925 will mark the 500th anniversary of the library, and if the present delay is not permanent, the completed building will be a timely memorial. Each institution contributing is to have a column, stone, arch or window inscribed with its name. The result will be an enduring record of America on Belgian soil.

"College Spirit"

The Americanization of Europe (which the English philosopher, Bertrand Russell, views with alarm) proceeds. The Committee for Relief in Belgium Educational Foundation, headed by Herbert C. Hoover, is selecting plans for a group of dormitories on the American plan to be erected at the University of Brussels. John Mead Howells, consulting architect, claimed for the program recently that it would encourage " college spirit " on the Continent—something which, for better or worse, the Continent has so far got along without.

Of Historical Interest