By a Staff Reporter
German Catholic students who thought Mr. &vin was a Cardinal — Cardinal Sevin — a German University students' chaplain who had not heard of the Pope's Five Peace Points, students who had not heard of the death of Chesterton— these were a few of the items 1 discussed this week with Catholic students at London University.
They comprised a committee of five—four men and one girl. One of the men, Tony Weiler, University College. and the girl. Miss Pat McCrudden, were on the recent universities' delegation to the British Zone and it was they who told me the Cardinal Bevin story. The Committee is operating the Catholic Society's scheme for the adoption of the University of Munster, briefly reported Last week.
BUNDLES OF BOOKS
Miss McCrudden told me what was being done to relieve the situation. " We send books. Already many parcels have been sett off. Many cx.s. and C.S.G. booklets and pamphlets—all those which contain Papal social documents, a mumher of copies of the Pope's encyclical on Germany, on Marriage, on Woman's Civic Rights and duties— the whole range of pamphlets on these subjects.
" Then we send bundles of all the Catholic papers. We should like to get more copies of reviews, Blackfriars, the Dublin, the Month, etc: we have sent Mr. Dawson's works, copies of Mr. Beales' Penguin Book, the Sword publications—in fact all we can gather. We would like to send much more: Chesterton, Belloc. and the younger Catholic writers like Grahame Greene and Evelyn Waugh. Apart from this the whole range of English literature is needed."
Was anything else needed 7 Mr. Colin de Grotot of the London School of Economics took over. " I am in charge of the correspondence scheme which is already under way. Our members take a name from a list of young Germans I have compiled and they write. Our first batch of letters went off a couple of weeks ago and we have not yet re ceived replies. But we kitow that they will come."
THE STAMP COLLECTOR John Downs of Northampton Engineering College told me how this was financed. John collects foreign stamps: John has all the members of the society collecting foreign stamps. The original idea was that these stamps would be sold to pay for postage on parcels. But a comfortable margin of profit was made and this is being used to purchase books. Incidentally if the reader has any books or stamps which could be used in or for German students, John's address is: 38 Carberry Avenue, W3.. In conclusion, I asked the students how they would like their scheme to develop.
The answer came almost in chorus.
They want the Catholic graduates to help and eventually they want the University of London to adopt the University of Munster.
" he work we are doing is not confined to Catholic students. The Allied Control officer in charge of education who has helped us tremendously asked if we would place the hooks of general interest we are sending at the disposal of the whole university, Of course we agreed. This means that the Catholic students get the books of purely Catholic interest: books of general interest are for all."