FOCH PROFESSORSHIP AT OXFORD

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 112, 5 February 1919, Page 5

FOCH PROFESSORSHIP AT OXFORD

.£25,000 FROM SIR B. ZAHAROFF.

The Oxford University correspondent of the London "Times" writes: "An announcement of great interest has just been made public at Oxford. Sir Basil Zaharoff, K.8.E., has intimated to the Vice-Chancellor his desire to offer to the University the sum of ,£25,000 "for the establishment of a Chair of French, to be called the Marshal Foch Professorship of French Literature, and,for other purposes connected with the promotion' of French studies." A decree will be brought forward by which the. University will gratefully accept this munificent benefaction and will ask the' Vice-Chancellor to take the necessary steps for carrying the founder's wishes into, effect.

The sum is generous; the name of Marshal Foch is most felicitously chosen; the foundation is most apt, and timely alike as a commemoration of the recent great events nnd as a preparation for the intellectual entente of the coming years. French—the beautiful and lucid langunge and the classic, yet pre-eminently living, literature alike—will be now for the first time enthroned in Oxford side by side with Greek and with Latin, endowed on 'the 6ame scale and commanding tif. same attention. Sir Basil Zaharoff lays Oxford and England under a real debt, and, though he modestly veils his own name undo , that of the great French soldier, it will not be forgotten in the long memory of .the University. It is understood that he contemplates, among other mindr but not unimportant points, the provision of occasional special single lectures by leading French savants and the provision of travelling scholarships for students, and that it will bo arranged that the University of P,ans shall bo strongly represented on the board nf election. The ancient ties between Paris and Oxford, pioneers each of them among tho universities of Wesl> orn Europe, will be happil.y reinforced by this fine foundation. ' Sir Basil Zaharoff, who is a Greek by birth, presented to France, the country of his adoption, in -1913, IOO.OOOfrs. (,£4000) for ii Chair of Aviation in the University 'of Paris. He afterwards founded a similar Chair in the University of Petrograd. and last .Tulv it was ;.i)'noui)red that he had placed at tho disposal of the British Government .£25,000 to endow a. Professorship of Aviation, and that a Professorship of the University of London, attached to tho Imperial' College of Science and Technology, .would accordingly be established. Hβ ii> ■an Officer of the Legion of Honour.