LIASON WITH EUROPE

Students in the University have shown an increasing indifference in the last few years to the Student Friendship Fund. That this has been in some measure due to the decrease in the vital need for relief in European countries it undoubtedly true. That it is equally to be explained by an ignorance of the actual aims and achievements of the Student Friendship Fund becomes apparent upon examination of the facts.

The legacy of poverty and suffering left by the war is even now far from fulfilled. Especially in Central European universities, the need for books and scientific equipment is still acute. The problem of medical attention, and that of Russian refugee students, are both such as to warrant the continuation of such an endeavor as this.

As the material situation is remedied, however, the possible advantages to be gained from the stimulation of friendship between students become legion. Its immense significance to the cause of peace need not be emphasized. If international good-will is ever to be achieved, it will be only through mutual understanding, through the dissipation of the miasmal mist of national prejudice and bigotry which have in the past played the role of fairy god-mothers at the birth of war.

There is another aspect of this work however, which claims the attention of the American undergraduate. Much of the energy of the Student Friendship Fund, with that of the Confederation Internationale des Etudiants, has been directed toward the encouragement of internationalism in learning. The exchange of students between countries will affect not only their political relations, but to a great extent their intellectual development. The world of learning has moved far from the medieval ideal; already our universities have become more national in character and appeal. That this situation has been radically changed since the war, and that it is every day being changed, cannot be doubted in face of the visiting professors and students who have sought and carried learning across political boundaries. However vague and ideal may be the aims of an international organization of students, it will unquestionably have justified its existence if it can recreate for the world a little of the opportunity and the inspiration that carried students from the farthest limits of Christendom to the feet of Abelard in Paris.