Tulsa daily world. [volume] (Tulsa, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1905-1919, 1917-05-20
COLLEGES FELT THE
FIRST CALL TO ARMS
English Institutions Deserted
and American Schools Feel
the Ferment of War.

tCorresponderce OF The Associated Press)
LONDON, April 30.-The war
seems more intensely real at Eng
lands university centers than any
where else in the country. This was
not so apparent in the early days of
The conflict. The transformation is
especially pronounced at oxford and
Cambridge where there is desolat-
ing loneliness of the college buildings.
of the river and the playing field.
Not only the undergraduate has
gone from these seats of learning but
also the younger don. Everyone of
military age except the invalid and
the crippled, has vanished. What
ever of life there is in the colleges in
alien to the place.
The examination schools at oxford
have been transformed into a hos
pital Part of the other buildings
have been given up to training Of
cadets for the army. Terms begin
and end unheoded. The only students
left are students of war; the only arts
cultivated are those of destruction.
Seized With the Impulse.
A. c. Benson, the widely known
author and master at Cambridge. dis
cussing recently the gradual trans
formation at the English seats OF
learning, said: "It was question of
instinct and feeling from the start.
The high-spirited and adventurous
went first, then the sedater sort: then
the men of an altogether quieter type.
and then those who We're naturally
"Verso from the fighting life"
All the natural population of the
universities and colleges have gone
What staffs are left are turning out
death dealing weapons. The staffs Of
nearly all the various departments at
Leeds university are now doing war
work of NEST specialized kind. The
coal, gas and fuel industries depart
ment is testing high explosives pro-
duced In Yorkshire, and analyZng
uoal-tar for toluene and benzine. The
engineering department. besides other
moro elaborate duties, is teaching ele-
mentary machine work to intending
munition workers. The textile indus
tries department, the color chemistry
department, the agricultural depart
ment, are engaged by the government
to deal with army cloths, with dyes.
and 9th foodstuffs
Outlining before parliament the
other day the work now being done
at the universities, Herbert 4. l..
Fisher, head of the educational de-
professor and lecturer the research
assistant and the research student
have suddenly become powerful as
sets to the nation. Whatever uni
versity you may choose to visit, YOU
will find II to be the scene of delicate
and recondite investigation, resulting
here in a more deadly explosive, there
in stronger army boot, or, again, in
some improvement to the fast-ad
vancing technique of aerial naviga-
ton"
Fcrmcnt In the Colleges.
Commenting on the effect Of the
war upon American seats OF learning
the Daily Telegraph says: Those
who know anything of the colleges
and universities of America can we'll
imagine what ferment is going on
within them at the present time, and
with what feivid zeal their students
and professors alike will throw them
selves into the war.
1T Is not" continues the paper
'the American fashion to do anything
| by halves, and some of the American
niversities-notably. we believe Har-
vard-already number their old
scholars who have been fighting and
| working for the allies In the various
| theaters OF war not by the score, but
actually by hundreds.
However congress may decide "a
raise the new armies. Harvard. Yale,
| Princeton, Cornell and all the leading
American universities will vie with
one another to supply the state. not
only with officers and fighting men,
! but with the men of science who, In
| this war are equally indispensable. "