Foreign Students in England
IN the autumn of 1917 there was opened at 32 Russell Square, as a memorial to the men from the universities of Great Britain who were giving their lives in the war, a club which was designed to be a meeting place for students from overseas who come to this country to complete their education. It was the first large-scale experiment of the kind • and there were not a few who predicted that it would never succeed.
They were wrong. Having survived the initial stage of enthu- siastic exuberance, and the more difficult period of growing pains, the Student Movement House settled down to some twelve years of steady, if somewhat variegated, development. From that point onwards, the point at which Miss Trevelyan takes up her story in
this bool the club has had to face the severest testing of its capa. to stand the strains which it was built to stand. "I have seen," writes, "in these years how the more or less normal life of stud. was first disturbed by 'a cloud no bigger than a man's hand' w. Germany left the League in 1933; how the clouds gathered rue coming of the first refugees from Nazi oppression later in same year ; how the first real clash came with the recall of Abyssinians and the Italians to their own homes to fight each oth and how, through years of swift-Moving drama, hatred, suspici lying and deception culminated in the outbreak of war on September, 1939."
In a series of vivid extracts from her diary, which have someth of the character of brilliantly conceived " shots " for a great she brings home the effect upon the personal life of hundreds men and women, Jews, Czechs, Austrians, Germans, Fre Indians, Chinese, Arabs, of the break-up of the twenty years un. peace and the break-down of European civilisation.
She dqes more than this. Her reflections on the life of for students in this country, supplemented as they are by observatio first-hand of the conditions which await them on their return their homes in India, China, Japan and America, lay bare a sit tion which demands some very far-sighted " planning " by 't who desire to promote better understanding between East and W But above all she demonstrates what can be achieved, often pitiably inadequate resources, by the power of skilful impro isat an inexhaustible sense of humour, an infinite capacity for taking most diverse types of human nature on their merits, and above by a profoundly Christian faith in the purpose of God for mu understanding and respect. This is the kind of faith that mountains: she got £25,000 out of Lord Nuffield.
It is impossible in a brief review to do justice to the geniu this little book. I know what I am talking about, for I have kn, the Club since the day it was opened and was a member of its Club Committee. Anyone who desires to get a fresh insight what things like Atlantic Charters really mean in terms of hu happiness—or tragedy—would be well advised to read this boo -
F. A. COCK!.
Previous page
