Abstract
DR. RAYMOND PRIESTLEY, vice-chancellor of the University of Birmingham, devoted his address at the annual meeting of the Court of Governors of the University to a discussion of war conditions. He said that the university, until now, has fared very well. Numbers are almost up to normal and on the science and applied science side the great majority of students will remain until they have graduated. "Reservation is not intended to prevent, and will not prevent, university-trained youth from playing its part in the country's war effort. Their advent is merely deferred until they are fully prepared to pull their weight. "In this way fully trained men will become available at the end of each academic year, and there will be a proportion able to play their part in the reconstruction that must follow the end of the War if European civilization is to make up leeway and resume its advance. Dr. Priestley went on to say that he believed it is not necessarily bad for young university men to pass through the Army, the Navy, or the Air Force on the way to their normal work in the world. He quoted his own experience of the War of 1914–18: "I came out of it a better man—more humane and better able to deal with situations and with men". When the War ends, the universities and university men will have a more important part to play even than in war-time, and it would be fatal if a false impression got abroad that university personnel claims to be set apart from the generality of citizens.
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Universities in War-time. Nature 145, 381 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/145381b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/145381b0