The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-02-20
ANCIENT CAMBRIDGE
 SHOWS MARKS OF WAR
Rr PHrL1P U. PArcHIN

In the streets there are many soldiers, often one sees wounded men, strolling about in the loose blue hospital uniforms with flaming red cravats, or being driven about in motor cars or carriages by kind ladies. but these men of battle are a jolly lot and they do not bring home the tragedy of it all. England suffers, but her wounds are not open ones, like those of Belgium, with ruined Louvain, or France, with the cathedral at Rheims standing gaunt and hollow. But there are evidences of what it all means and how vital 1t is. A few days ago I was taken to Cambridge University by a don of one of the colleges there. There the truth came home. There was the evidence-the proof of what England was doing.
 Beautiful Cambridge. The ancient cradle of British learning is deserted. Streets, courts and buildings that should be echo ing the glad ring of college life are empty. The thousands of young Britishers who should be there are gone. departed to the four quarters of the globe, to fight in England's numerous wars-in Flanders in the near east, Africa, Mesopotamia. It is like an American university in summer time-deserted; but with a difference There are enough students and instructors left to make the thing more poignant, to suggest what was and what ought to be, and-what really is The presence of tha few, the absence of the many-it strikes one with dreadful force In all Cam . bridge University, in the various colleges that make up the whole, there should be 4000 undergraduates. There are 600 The rest of these boys, many of them barely of military age, are in khaki. Many of them are dead.
 On this day had visited half-a-dozen of the famous colleges of Cambridge Corpus, Trinity, Christs, Jesus Kings beautiful, old-world places every one, en- trancing in their antiquity, splendid in their architecture, but best in their atmo- sphere of British breeding-of things clean and fire. And as we walked on from one place to another, in haze of grandeur mixed with antiquity and quaintness, the place was empty. No punts on the Cam no undergraduates strolling about tf- letic fields showing disuse. We went into the buildings-empty. Gate porters let us in here and there. They were the only people we saw. Windows closed every where and everywhere silence.
 That night I spoke of it to one of the worlds most famous philosophers, a
 
 rible it all was He, like other professors must have felt it far more keenly, with the empty class rooms, and with many of him own scholars amongst the killed and wounded He agreed quite simply
 ''Yes, but we wouldn't have it any other way"
 And that is the way they all feel ahout 1t. Sad that undergraduates, almost to a man, have departed for the front, but proud that Cambridge men see clearly their duty and do not lack the hardihood to carry it out.
 And it is not only the undergradu- ates of Cambridge who have shown the spirit the institution breeds. Of the graduates there are upward of 10000 who have gone to serve. At last ac- counts nearly 700 of these have heen killed and hundreds of others wound ed. The situation with regard to the instructors is much the same as that concerning the undergraduates Of those of military age nearly everyone has departed Those staying behind do so because of age or physical disa- bility
 What classes there are are sparse in numbers, One of the masters of lead ting college said the other day that he has one lecture where his class con- sists of one solitary student and he is an Indian. But the lecture goes on, this AAiebolCA SOlCAl1A4y QO1aN6IlHS IL tO HIS single student. Of the 600 who remain in Cambridge there are very few who could be expected to perform military service. Many are Indians. Some are Americans. A considerable number are medical students who so far have been advised not to go. Now, however 1t is contemplated to permit these boys to enlist. This is being met with vig- orous opposition, for it is foreseen that if the medical students are permitted to drop their work there will, later on, with all the loss to the profess sion through the war, be serious shortage of doctors in this country There used to be number of German students at Cambridge Now that they have gone and have become officers in the German army it is being recalled at Cambridge that some of them used invariably to spend their holidays on motorcycles and that they always went to the east coast. If ever there is an invasion of England by Germany it is anticipated that these ex-Cambridge students will be in the front rank it will probably be good many years before Cambridge university is graced by another German student.
 Aside from the sad tale empty Cam bridge has to tell this sudden evacua- ton is serious matter to the great institution. Financially the war is a terrific blow from which the univer- sity may be unable to recover without some sort of state grant. This would be distressing to those belonging to Cambridge, robbing the old place of its independence. The financial loss comes in the shape of lost fees of course.
 And what will become of the tradi- tions of the school is another thing that causes deep concern. There are certain ways of doing certain things in Cambridge, as in all schools, rituals ceremonies, some of serious nature some otherwise, but al important These customs have been going on for centuries, handed down by the upper classmen, and when the university re- opens say two years hence, the stu dent body will consist of one large mass of freshmen Men who were there before the outbreak of the war, in their second or third year, will not care about returning to school. They will have become too old besides having acquired in the field habits and cus- toms that will make them shrink from the schoolroom. They will have love of the open and experience which will have set themeyears beyond the school boy period. It will be a struggle to inculcate in all these freshmen all the valued traditions of the university In one of the colleges a professor told me of the situation there:
 we had" he said, nearly hun dred undergraduates here. Now we have nine. Of these eight are medical stu dents. The other is boy of 17-under military age-but it is plain that he can't hold out much longer and we will soon lose him, I fear. The spirit or the boys is remarkable. Not all of them II. nIlhf r.