OXFORD BY POST

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 March 1942, Page 4

OXFORD BY POST

STALAG PRISONERS WORK FOR DEGREES. British prisoners of war in Germany are working for honours degrees at London University. In all, 1,832 of our men there are now preparing for their return to civil life as engineers, accountants, geologists, bookkeepers, poultry raisers and for other careers. They are studying French, German, Chinese, Japanese, even Provencal philology.

This unique educational departure has been made possible by a feat in organisation working from the New Bodleian Library, Oxford, where Miss Ethel Herdman, M.A., of the Red Cross Book Department, is arranging these and similar courses of study for our prisoners of war. In a long room lined with tables arc the sections for each prison camp to which material for study is sent and from which letters have arrived asking for vocational, cultural or educational advice. Engineering is the most popular subject, then modern languages. Wireless is very popular, too, but books on it have been prohibited. In addition to the arrangements made for prisoners by London University to work for honours degrees, many trade and craft institutes are co-opera-ting with Oxford —the College of Estate Management, Pitman’s College, the Gordon College, Aberdeen, the grocers and others.

The plan is run through the camp leaders who act as general admifiistrators and the work is arranged to enable prisoners to advance towards specific examination when the war is over and they all come home.