THE EXPORT" OF BRAINS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 82, 31 December 1934, Page 6

THE EXPORT" OF BRAINS

Of late years publication of each new annual report of the Rhode-. Trust on the activities of Rhodes Scholars past and present has revived complaints that scholars from the British Dominions ana especially from New Zealand, say some, critics—do n'” return to theii home countries, upon completing their courses at Oxford. Playing right into the hands of these critics, Saturday’s news included, besides a summary of the trustees’ statement for the academic year 1933-34, a personal paragraph recording the appointment of a 1924 New Zealand scholar to an important teaching post at the British Post-Graduate Medical School of London University. Yet the second item supphe.one answer to criticism which may be aroused by the first. Few medical men anywhere are in a better position to influence the thought and research of the profession than Dr. R. S. Aitken will be in London, with graduates from every corner of the British umpire and.many foreign countries passing through his classes. In the narrowly selfish sense’ his talents are '“lost to New Zealand,” but .that which is loss to one little Dominion is gain to the Empire and the world. Intellectual nationalism is more to be deplored than even economic nationalism. And there is point, too, in an argument used by Dr. A. E. Porritt. another Rhodes Scholar from the University of Otago, at the annua! New Zealand University dinner in London last month. Rhodes in ms will, said Dr. Porritt, wished his scholars to return to imbue 'he Dominions with the spirit of Oxford; but a certain-number must remain away to keep alive in England and other places the points of view of their own Dominions.