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When American college men decide to study abroad after graduation, they migrate instinctively to Oxford, and to a lesser extent, to Cambridge University. They scarcely ever go to the interesting little French universities, where they would come into close contact with a foreign people, but seem to prefer Oxford, which is not very much different from the better type of American colleges.

The most valuable feature of studying abroad is the chance it offers for making comparisons between vastly dissimilar peoples. For graduate students, going to France is a broader application of William Allen White's dictum. If you live in the East, go to a Western college; if in the West, go East. Professors, who knew long before Mr. White of the advantage of change of locality in education, never weary of trying to flail inert undergraduates into seeking interesting experiences, and although they are usually unsuccessful, now and then a bold student cuts himself off from the mother-country's apron-strings and risks the perilous journey to alien lands.

As Professor Esteve points out on another page of this issue, in his article on French colleges, living expenses are much less than in England, and the instruction, which is somewhat similar to that of American colleges, makes the transition less difficult than is the case at Oxford or Cambridge. Why do almost all American students, then, follow supinely along the beaten track to Oxford, instead of hazarding a new experience? Do they think an Oxford degree carries more prestige with it, or do they believe that outside of two English universities, Europe is an academic wilderness? The much-vaunted American initiative apparently does not apply to education.