KING'S MONUMENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1028, 19 July 1930, Page 26

KING'S MONUMENT

GREAT UNIVERSITY AT MADRID

COST TO BE £10,000,000

Spain’s dream of again having, as in the Middle Ages, one of the greatest universities in the world, is rapidly becoming tangible.

Four thousand workmen are constructing the huge “University City” in a beautiful 900-acre park in the outskirts of Madrid. Half a dozen buildings are completed. It is hoped that in less than four years this “new Athens of our cen tury,” as Spanish writers have called it, will be completed, at an estimated cost of about £10,090,000. It will accommodate about 15,000 students and its grounds, it Is said, will be larger than those of any other university in the world. The land was given by King Alfonso, to whom it belonged as a royal preserve. It is hoped to make this the foremost educational centre of the Span ish-speaking world. Argentina, Cuba, Chile. Uruguay and Peru are already pledged to erect buildings for students from their countries. All lands of Spanish speech are expected to do likewise. A fine dormitory for United States students is already completed. It is the gift of > Gregorio del Amo, a Spanish resident of Los Angeles, Cal., who gave 2,000,000 pesetas for its construction.

The funds so far have been raised by Nation-wide popular subscriptions in Spain, by gifts from wealthy Spaniards at home and abroad, and by special Government lotteries organised to raise money for the university. The “University City” is intended to be a monument to the reign of Alfonso XIII. It results from the raising of popular subscription to commemorate, in May, 1927, the twenty fifth anniversary of his coronation. About 43,000,000 pesetas were given. Then the King was heard from. In effect, he said: “Please do not use this money for a monument that will merely be a beautiful thing to see. Use it as the beginning of a fund for a really great university, one that will draw closer together all the lands of our language, as well as attracting students from every other country. That will be the finest monument anyone could have." Later, when plans were well ad vanced, King Alfonso regretted that the world still had to concern itself with preparations for possible wars. Modified military training, it had been decided, would be included, although not compulsory, in the curriculum of the new university.

In outlining the plans the King said there would be "indirect military training, a terrible social necessity that as yet cannot be eliminated from custom, nor from life.”