ACADEMIC TRADITION

The Archbishop of York has come and gone, but his words remain with us as a revelation to some and a reminder to all of the great part our mother universities have played in the war. We have seen Harvard much affected, but compared to Oxford and Cambridge the changes here have been insignificant. The academic life at these English colleges is nearly at a standstill; only a handful of wounded soldiers and physically unfit still work at their old tasks. Many of the colleges have quartered in them some kind of training corps, which change the old atmospheres of academic case to the modern air of military vigor. Apparently the old traditions have been lost forever. But we have the word of the Archbishop of York that in spite of this great change, there is no danger that when the war is over that students will not have the benefits of the long years that have gone before. There will be a change, it is true, but a change that will be a deepening and ennobling of old-established custom.

Even in the imminent presence of the enemy, and while serving with their whole strength, Oxford and Cambridge can keep alive their old spirit. So much the more ought we, who have not been shaken so seriously, to remember and revere the academic traditions of the University.