THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY UNION IN PARIS

What it is, and What it Proposes to do

Sometimes it seems as if there must be a vast deal of unnecessary duplication in the innumerable agencies which have been put into operation by American citizens to safeguard their sons who have gone into service across the ocean. But each agency, as it is examined, proves to have its special qualities of indispensability, its special claim for support.

Such is the case with the American University Union in Europe. Some of the things which it can do might be done very well by the Red Cross; others are in process of being far better done, within sound of the guns, by the Young Men's Christian Association; the War Department, too provides machinery for accomplishing several purposes which the Union has set before itself. But in all of these there is lacking something of the special interest, something of the personal touch, which many an American parent would give almost anything to feel sure might, at the critical hour, be exerted in behalf of a son "over there".

And there is only one means by which the special interest and the personal touch may be extended: that is through an organization which is part and parcel of family association, is easily accessible, and stands for sympathetic and informal contacts alike to parents and relatives on the one hand, and to their soldier sons on the other. For many thousand men who have gone into service on land and sea and in the air above, and for those whom they have left at home the college provides the one organization that meets the requirement. When college men began to hasten abroad in steady streams, there was nothing for it but that their almae matres should, in some wise, tumble after.

Apparently, Massachusetts Institute of Technology was the first to discern that in war time it is for the college to follow the flag. In the spring of the present year a generous gift to the Institute Corporation made possible the starting in Paris of a regularly constituted Technology Club whose purpose was expressed with perfection of clear brevity in a bulletin issued in July. Said this:

"While the French soldier is able to return home during his furlough, the American soldier is unable to enjoy this privilege and the Club aims to give to Tech men an American club, so conducted as to be the nearest approach to a home it is possible to have under the circumstances."

The Technology Club started auspiciously in a fine apartment building near the Arc de Triomphe. Membership was free to all men of the Institute and its charges for rooms and meals were moderate. Simultaneously with its projection, plans for a Yale Bureau in Paris had been formulated. Twelve specific objects were enumerated in its prospectus. They are worth quoting in full, for they show very clearly the intimacy of contact which the University felt capable of maintaining between friends and relatives separated by the whole breadth of ocean in time of war. The list is as follows:

1. To supply, in cooperation with the Yale Alumni Association of Paris, and such other organizations as may seem desirable, a headquarters in France for Yale graduates, Yale students and prospective students, and their friends.

2. To keep an address list of all men with Yale connections in France, and as far as possible, in other European allied countries.

3. To be of service to parents and friends of Yale men in answering inquiries regarding them.

4. To supply the facilities of a simple club, including information bureau, writing materials, American papers and magazines, and facilities for recreation; also probably rooms for Yale men on furlough.

5. To cooperate with the American Clearing House in sending parcels to men at the front.

6. To visit the sick and wounded in hospitals.

7. To communicate with families of Yale men regarding casualties, and to advance money for relief in special cases.

8. To attend to purchases and other commissions for Yale men at the front.

9. To serve as a temporary depository for funds, etc.

10. To aid Yale men in all cases where advice or assistance is needed in dealing with the American Embassy, French officials, Red Cross, etc.

11. To cooperate with the University authorities, Military Committee of The Yale Club, Yale Civic Club, and other organizations in all ways which have to do with looking after the interests of Yale men engaged in military, relief, Red Cross, Y. M. C. A., and other forms of service in connection with the war.

12. To serve as a Paris base for the Yale Mobile Hospital Unit, which has been sanctioned by the French and American Governments.

With Technology and Yale both in the field, and other institutions speedily recognizing a similar responsibility the absurdity of attempting to maintain innumerable distinct bureaus, one for each college became fully manifest. Meantime, furthermore, a group of American college men abroad had met in Paris during mid-June and formed the American University Alumni Association in France. The movement toward concentration of effort was irresistible. Out of independent beginnings in various places developed the idea of the American University Union in Europe.

The meeting where its organization was finally' decided on and a constitution approved was held at the University Club, New York City, July 15, 1917. The plan of organization there formulated included a representative Board of Trustees in America, a small Executive Board in Paris, and an Advisory Council in Paris. Membership in the Union is open to every American college man, it being assumed that his college is among the financial supporters of the Union, paying regular dues in proportion to the number of its alumni. Dartmouth's annual share, $250, has been paid from the Alumni Fund for the current year.

So much for the plan of the Union. What is it doing? Already it has taken the Royal Palace Hotel at the head of the Avenue de 1'Opera and opened it as a college man's club. Here officers of the Union have been established and here too, are the various special college bureaus. Here are the usual public rooms for social and reading purposes and some eighty bedrooms, half of them equipped with baths. In the restaurant luncheon may be had for ninety cents, dinner for one dollar. The rooms rent from one dollar and a half to two dollars per night. An inclusive rate of three dollars per day may be had.

Of course there are American perioodicals of all kinds on hand, and among them the publications of the colleges: alumni and undergraduate alike. There are, too, opportunities for the playing of various games and the enjoying of numerous outdoor sports. To the successful and useful operation of the Union the Executive Committee in Paris is bending all its energies. Of this committee consisting of Messrs. George H. Nettleton of Yale University, Van Rensselaer Lansingh of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Paul Van Dyke of Princeton, Lewis D. Crenshaw of the University of Virginia, James Hazen Hyde 01 Harvard University, and Cnarles B. Vibbert of the University of Michigan, all but one have been specially sent abroad by their various universities solely to undertake duties in connection with the Union.

it is a tine group of men, who know college life and college students and their ways and are hence fully capable of giving the Union an atmosphere conducive to making it what it should be, a much sought home for college men abroad.

Back of this Executive Committee again is the Advisory Council made up of prominent American college and university alumni resident in Bans. Of this body Mr. Edward Tuck of Dartmouth is chairman. On this side of the water a Board of Trustees, nine in number, of which Mr. Anson Phelps Stokes is the active head.

The Union was opened in October. On the first night representatives of thirty colleges were present. Within two weeks the accommodations of the Union were taxed to the uttermost and its officers set about finding additional quarters. So much for what might be called the general social aspects of the Union. Their importance in a city like Paris in war time could hardly be overestimated. After the war it is hoped that they may prove valuable in stimulating the interest of Americans in undertaking graduate work, in France.

The expansion of the Union outside of Paris has already begun. There is a branch now at 16 Pall Mall East, S. W. I., London, and ere long a branch may be opened on the Riviera as a recuperating station. Other branches will be opened as necessity and opportunity dictate.

Naturally all of this work costs money. Though much of the service is given for little or nothing, there are bound to be some heavy expenses connected with the work, particularly as it branches out into places beyond the confines of Paris. The estimate for the first year is $50,000, which includes certain guarantees of rent and very moderate expenditures for clerical assistance, traveling expenses, cable charges and the like. To meet this expenditure the various institutions participating in the Union are taxed from $100 to $500 each year, depending upon the number of their alumni. In addition individual subscriptions are invited.

But the cost of operation does not end with the expenditure of $50,000. When America's participation in the war begins to mean long casualty and invalid lists the Union is pretty likely to be swamped with responsibilities far beyond the fulfilment of its overworked Executive Committee and any clerical staff that could be devised. To cope with a situation that is likely, at any time, to arise, various colleges are establishing special bureaus acting under the general direction of the Union officers, but dedicated to the care of men of a special institution.

The purposes of these bureaus will be very much the purposes outlined by Yale when its bureau was first projected, except that the social aspects of the case will have been already cared for by the general Union. But if Tom Jones of Yale is sick or wounded or in trouble of mind or body, either he can find a Yale man at the Union who can identify, understand and decently look out for him; or if he is knocked out and in hospital somewhere along the front, a Yale man can be counted on to hunt him up and bring him a word of cheer, and,—more than that—to report at first hand on his condition and prospects. A bureau function, furthermore, will be to keep record, of the men of a given college who pass in and out of the Union, and to keep track of them and their fellows in so far as may be.

There are now more than sixty colleges and universities supporting the Union. Clearly not every one of them can be represented by a special bureau; and some kind of cooperation is likely to prove necessary here, as well as in the establishing of the central Union. This has occurred in the case of certain New England colleges which have come together to constitute a bureau under the present general direction of Harvard, but in whose expense and operation, Amherst, Bowdoin, Brown, Dartmouth and Williams have undertaken to bear a share. The measure of this share will depend upon the burden which each institution places on the Bureau, and this in turn will depend upon the ability of the institution to find the money needed for such special requirements.

In the case of Dartmouth, through the medium of the Alumni Fund, $250 has been paid toward maintenance of the Union. Another $250 has been turned over on account of the New England Bureau rent and for clerk hire. It may be possible to find a Dartmouth alumnus ready to pay his own charges as special representative of the Bureau in Paris. The expenses of maintaining records, of rendering reports, looking up the sick and troubled will have to be met in ways not yet fully determined. In general, the cost of special service in the way of investigation and cabling will have to be met by the relatives or friends of the man concerned; and rates for this kind of thing will have to be established.

Already Dartmouth is prepared to offer to secure information concerning men of the College who are abroad. Later it will be possible to publish more specific information as to ways and .means for this kind of thing. In the meantime it is fair to suggest that the service in process of development is of more importance to parents, relatives and friends than to the colleges, or than to the men who have gone abroad. No appeal separate from that of the Alumni Fund will be made to the alumni of the College in behalf of the New England College Bureau; but those other than alumni who wish to help in keeping clear and certain the avenues of access to Dartmouth men abroad are invited now and will be invited later to share in financial responsibility involved.

Those who wish to avail themselves of the Bureau service, or to assist in its maintenance should address themselves to the Business Director of Dartmouth College at Hanover, N. H.