A joint donation of peculiar interest has been made to
the funds now being raised to meet the needs of the University of Oxford. It is the gift of sixteen distinguished Americans on whom honorary Oxford degrees have been conferred, the list including the names of the present Ambassadors to Great Britain and Germany, Mr. J. H. Clhoate, Mr. John Sargent, R.A., Mr. W. I). Howells, Mark Twain, and several distinguished Professors, one of whom, Dr. Charles Eliot Norton, has already passed away. Dr. Murray Butler, the President of Columbia University, in sending the donation, observes that, as many of the donors are men of small means leading an academic life, they were unable to "make any response to the appeal which would be useful or important by reason of its amount. It has seemed to us, however, that we must testify to our loyal affection for Oxford, as well as to our admiration' of her scholarship and her ideals, by making an addition, how- ever small, to the new funds which are now being raised." The donation has been suitably acknowledged by the Vice- Chancellor of Oxford (Dr. T. H. Warren), who is only( expressing the views of every Oxford man when he lap stress on the peculiar and historic significance of such a gift, and the encouragement and stimulus which it lends to "our beloved University to renew her youth." The money itself is absolutely nothing. It is the names of the donors and the spirit of the gift which matter. It is delightful to know that the statesmen and men of arts and letters named above feel themselves to be Oxford men.
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