HERE AND THERE

The Rhodes scholarships, intended to develop cordial relations among the English-speaking nations of the world, left their task half accomplished. Americans have poured across the sea to Oxford and the association with Englishmen in their own country has been profitable. But the feeble trickle of Englishmen to American universities has prevented the thorough understanding which Rhodes intended. "Reciprocity", in this case, is necessary, and the stimulation has been provided. Each year the Davison scholarships will support one student from Oxford and one for Cambridge at Harvard, Yale and Princeton; in all six men. As with the Rhodes scholarships, general fitness and ability, as well as scholastic aptness will be the determining factors in selecting the men, and similarly, all expenses will be covered.

Six students seem a vanishing quantity among the thousands at Yale and Harvard, but if six come, more will follow. There are less than 100 Rhodes scholars from America--but there are 250 Americans at Oxford. The scholarships, in each case, form a definite nucleus around which to build up a permanent student representation. However, small numbers may almost prove of advantage. At Oxford, there is danger lest the size of the group of Americans defeat its purpose, for the students are surrounded by their own countrymen, and thorough intermingling with the English is hampered. The two Englishmen at Harvard will have no such obstacle to becoming acquainted with the peculiarities of Americans. They may well fear partial "Americanization".

They will find, however, that the United States is not as wholly Anglo-Saxon as Col. Harvey may have indicated. Many Americans cling to their British ancestry with increasing pride, but an element of growing numbers has nothing in common with the British but their language. The Germans, Italians, Jews and Slavic peoples who have been immigrating in steady streams, have no national cordiality for England; and these transplanted colonies have failed to accept the prevailing traditions and friendships,--which are essentially British. Anglo-American kinship, once close, has become more and more remote.

But this dilution of the British-descended population merely necessitates greater efforts toward mutual understanding. Association must, in the future, develop the sympathy which has hitherto resulted from the ties of blood. And whatever regrets one may feel at the decrease in the proportion of Anglo-Saxon Americans should be diverted to efforts, such as Mrs. Davison's, to perpetuate Anglo-American unity.