EMPIRE SCHOLARS

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2412, 29 January 1909, Page 2

EMPIRE SCHOLARS

THE CONVERSE OF THE RHODES SCHEME. A NEW EEALANiDEII’iS'.PEOiPOSAtL In 'an article in the “Manchester Guardian/’ ‘Mr P. A. Yaile, ol : Auckland, broaches a scheme to do for the youth of England what the late Cecil Rhodes aimed at doing for colonials, Americans, and Germans ■With his Scholarship Trust. : “If the world can learn from England, shall England imagine that she lias nothing to learn from other countries? Is not England ' considering much legislation that has already ■been long and profitably aised in other countries? Has she not of late years passed into law Acte that have, been in dailv use for decades by her children? If these are. good now, were they not equally; so in nearly every case a score of years ago? Might wo not just as well have enjoyed them eif that time? Would we not in all probability have had them sooner had we had Empire scholars studying them twenty years ago ?f And so Mr Yaile suggests that England should equip with scholarships young Englishmen who can write and speak, and send them out to gather knowledge for the Mother Country’s use.

“AA’e should find here in England young men of ability, .writers or speakers, or both, to whom wo should grant scholarships of, say, the same duration and value as-those under the Rhodes scheme. AA 7 e should scud them out to study the ways and science of other people in other countries. Each student would go to liis allotted country and task with the prestige of lliis position'. He would stand accredited as a searcher from a great institution. The Press of the couutrv rind the responsible authorities would recognise him and help him in many ways. IHO would have knowledge of England nud English' ways and English -science to spread, while he in his turn was learning all he could. Each month or each quarter he would send back across the sons the knowledge he had gained, to he spread far and near. He would draw from the frosh thought of the country hb was in, and send hack hie message to assist in rejuvenating the thought of his Motherland, or ho would see the errors and (abuses that obtained in the land of his sojourn., and warn his fellows against them. AA r hen the term of his scholarship had expired lie would return to England, and, in accordance with its conditions, lie would write or lecture for six months or a year throughout the United Kingdom on the result of his study. The scheme cannot be carried out without money; hut neither could Cecil Rhodes’s ' great scheme. Says Air Valle: “If this, the converse of that idea, should be considered better, we find someone who will not he above printing his mine on the history of his 'country and earning a nation’s gratitude.”

OXFORD AND THE EMPIRE. On the same day that Air A 7 ai!e’s article was published, Professor Egerton, the iß’eit Professor of Colonial History at Oxford, read a paper before the 'Colonial Institute on ‘Oxford and the Empire,’ with special reference to the Rhodes scheme of scholarships. Most observers, said the professor, were agreed that the influence of the presence of Rhodes scholars at the University had been considerable already. The value to the Empire would greatly depend upon the after career of the present Rhodes scholars. It had been calculated that before many years were over there would be some 2,000 men about tbe world who, at the most impressionable time of their lives, would have come under the spell of Oxford. It \\<is surely not rash assumption that the whole point of view of these men regarding many questions would thereby he greatly modified. iLast'yoar, of over 160 Rhodes scholars in residence, only one was reading for a. pass degree; and, whilst the Englishman too often drifted aimlessly'along, uncertain till the end of his -University career ms to what was to be his course in life, the Rhodes scholar, lie believed, nearly always came to Oxford with a definite scheme mapped out regarding his future life. The Rhodes scholar wars, as a rule, older in years ‘and in many ways more a man of the world than his British contemporary at Oxford; yet he could also 'learn much from the Englishman, which was of real value to him. A man educated 'at Oxford, who had come under the spell of its perennial beauty, who had made intimate friendships with Englishmen, and for two or three years had recognised Oxford .as lliis second home, might in future come to criticise British policy ; but as an opponent his point of view would be wholly different from that of the mere outsider. An Imperial penny post and cheap magazines were not sufficient to break down walls of prejudice. The fresh .air of personal contact could alone clear the cobwebs of misunderstandings and prejudice which germinated in the stuffy chambers of isolation and ignorance. If fan Imperial Conference, at. four or five years’ interval, did good by promoting personal contact and intercourse between statesmen whose (political creeds bad become firmly crystallised, and who, perforce, had one eye directed upon the political .gallery at home, pvlint would be the effect of such mteicourse when mind went out to mind in. tloo free give-and-take of college intimacy? • , - . On. the future of Oxford Professor Egerton spoke with ia tone of optim-

ism. - “Oxford, we may be sure,” he said, “has before her many and many generations of vigorous lile.” Air Vaile’s ‘Rhodes Scheme Reversed’ is the subject of a -sympathetic leading article in the ‘Evening •Standard,’ which declares that the Aucklander “has brought to light an idea —an idea which is worth careful thought and investigation, -a IT idea which raises big problems, and which suggests big possibilities.” Air Vale's scheme “retains the flavor of the greatness of conception which his most hitter critic would not deny to - the mind and character of Cecil Rhodes.”