HELPING BRITAIN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 6, 21 January 1942, Page 6

HELPING BRITAIN

<». FREE UNIVERSITY TRAINING PART OiF THE WAI? EFFORT i Free university education for hoy? and girfts eager to take part in Britarn's war effort is to he granted ( those who pass a certain standard in phj'sics, chemistry or mathematics, writes Joan Littlefield from London. Thej- will be awarded Statp scholarships admitting them to universities and technical colleges in all parts of the country. Some students will take a oneyear course, others will be allowed to stay on till they have passed degree examinations. The}* will then help to meet the growing demands of the armed forces and industries for technicians and experts. Many of them will be absorbed in radio work, engineering and chemistry. A comprehensive plan, inspired by Winston Churchill's Rolicy of "establishing a state of society where the advantages and privileges hitherto enjoyed by the few should be far more widely shared by the men and youth of the nation as a whole," is coming into being. Part of it is an experiment. Oxford House, Bet final Green, is making of giving poor boys of East London their own preparatory school in the country. This has been established in a beautiful seventeenth century farmhouse among the hills of Montgomeryshire. Its aim is to make it possible for slum-boys "to enter public schools with no embarrassment due to speech, manners: and general j background." Owing to. cost —it takes about £150 a year to keep one boy at the school ■ —numbers will be kept small at • first. Public school headmasters are ' interested in the scheme, and some i are offering to lend their best masl ters for a year. All educatio«<sts . know that there is much talent and > energy in the slums which for gen- - orations lias been thrown away. This 1 scheme is an attempt to draw the i nation's talent from the lowot a> well as the higher standards ul' snei e! y . ? ]n addition t< the trad'tienal sylv 'übiis, music, botany, architecture : ami Canning will Ik- taught. C. rent > 'ni ()• >r I a p.ci' wil! Ik* aL la .lied to the i usi ■ made of lei. : u:v hours.