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THE IMPACT OF
THE FIRST WORLD
WAR ON BRITISH
UNIVERSITIES
Emerging from the Shadows

JOHN TAYLOR
The Impact of the First World War
on British Universities
 John Taylor

The Impact of the

First World War on
British Universities
Emerging from the Shadows
John Taylor
Lancaster University
Lancaster, UK

ISBN 978-1-137-52432-4 ISBN 978-1-137-52433-1 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52433-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018939748

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse
of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by
similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt
from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the
authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein
or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to
jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover image: © Apexphotos/Getty

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
part of Springer Nature
The registered company address is: The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, United Kingdom
 In Memoriam
This book is dedicated to the memory of two very special friends:
Professor Colin Platt, 1934–2015
Colin was my Ph.D. supervisor, my supporter and my inspiration.
He taught me so much.
Ellie, 2004–2017
Ellie was always by my side; such love and loyalty.
Thinking of her makes me smile.
 Preface

The history of universities before 1945 is still under-researched. There

are many examples of “vertical” research, normally studies of individ-
ual institutions, normally over an extended period. This book aims to
provide a “horizontal” view, based on a number of institutions over a
shorter, specific period. As such, the book considers the position of uni-
versities within a wider social context.
The book deliberately makes extensive use of original documentary
material; in particular, quotations are used not only to support specific
points, but also to provide additional depth, colour and context.

Lancaster, UK John Taylor

vii
 Acknowledgements

I have enjoyed many happy hours working in different university

archives during the preparation of this book. I am grateful to all the
staff I have met. It has been interesting to observe how different univer-
sities value their archives in different ways, reflected in widely varying
levels of support, opening hours and facilities. Similarly, the extent to
which universities encourage the use of their own archival resources var-
ies widely. As a passionate believer in the importance of historical study
of universities, and of higher education in general, I hope that archives
and their archivists will not simply survive pressures for change, but will
thrive in the future.
I am very grateful to the Society for Research in Higher Education
(SRHE) for the grant that funded much of the travel that underpinned
the early stages of this project. Small grants of this kind are so impor-
tant for the support of research in the humanities and social sciences.
Put simply, I could not have undertaken this work without the funding
from SRHE.
For most of the writing and preparation of this book, I was accom-
panied in my study by my wonderful German Shepherd dog, Ellie.
Sadly, she died before the book was finished; she is much missed and

ix
x   Acknowledgements

will never be forgotten. Now, I am joined by another wonderful friend,

Lucy, a German Shepherd cross. I don’t know what she is crossed with,
and it doesn’t matter. They have both helped me far more than they will
ever understand.
Finally, but most important of all, I want to thank my wife, Gill, for
all her support and encouragement. I doubt whether the book would
have been finished without her help. In particular, I have really enjoyed
sharing with Gill my enthusiasm for universities and their history and
for her unfailing interest.

John Taylor
 Contents

1 Universities Before the War 1

Introduction 1
The Universities on the Eve of War 7
Funding 9
The Student Community 14
Research Before the War 19
Some Final Reflections 25

2 Responding to the Demands of War 29

The Immediate Response 29
Belgium and the British Universities 33
German Nationals Working in British Universities 41
Student Issues 47
Staffing Matters 56
Dissenting Voices 64
Student Numbers 66
Coping with the War 74
Preserving International Links 78

xi
xii   Contents

Medical Students: Some Special Considerations 80

Looking Ahead 83

3 Funding of Higher Education 91

The Shock of War 91
Making Savings 95
Economies in the University of Oxford 95
The Response of Government 102
Special Funding for Universities 102
Looking to the Future 123
Changing Ideas: The Kidd Memorandum 133
The Universities’ Deputation of November 1918 139
The End of the War 155
The War and University Finance: Some Reflections 166

4 Developments in Teaching and a Changing Workforce 171

New Priorities 171
Military Education 171
Working with Industry and Business 173
The Bristol Partnership 174
Sponsorship by Industry 176
New Programmes in Commerce and Administration 178
Developments in the Social Sciences 183
Social Sciences at the University of Liverpool 183
Social Study at the University of Manchester 186
Modern Languages 188
The Changing Professions 194
Medicine at the University of Edinburgh 194
Veterinary Science 199
Education and Teacher Training 201
Imperial Studies 205
Adult Education and External Lectures 208
Changing Priorities 209
A Changing Workforce 212
The 1918 Staff Memorandum 213
 Contents   xiii

5 Supporting the War Effort 223

Supporting the Forces 223
Honours and Casualties 223
The Officers Training Corps 228
The OTC at the University of Leeds 229
The OTC at the University of Bristol 231
Changes Towards the End of the War 233
Munitions Work 235
War-Related Courses 237
Manufacturing and Production of Key Supplies 241
Courses for British Prisoners-of-War and Serving Soldiers 241
Supporting the Community 244
Agriculture and Food Production 244
Working with Schools and Colleges 247
Hospitals and Public Health 251
Buildings and Land 257
Students and the War Effort at Home 261
A Final Reflection 271

6 The Importance of University Research 273

Introduction 273
Establishment of the Committee for Scientific
and Industrial Research 274
McCormick’s Memorandum of 1915 275
Research in the Universities 284
New Structures and Procedures 295
Extending Links with Business: New Functions
and New Departments 298
The Department of Glass Technology,
University of Sheffield 302
Textiles Research at the University of Leeds 309
The Changing Position of Research in Universities 311
Internationalisation and the Development of the Ph.D. 318
Some Final Reflections 323
xiv   Contents

7 Final Reflections 327

The Emerging Public University 327
The War and Science 337
New Horizons 343
A Final Comment 346

Bibliography 349

Index 353
 1
Universities Before the War

Introduction
The half-century before the outbreak of the First World War in 1914
witnessed significant changes in British higher education. A succes-
sion of Royal Commissions and Acts of Parliament gradually eroded
the influence of the Church of England over the Universities of Oxford
and Cambridge, strengthened the role of the Universities and reduced
the influence of the Colleges, encouraged the teaching of new subjects
and began to regulate University and College finances. Moreover, some
limited attempts were made to encourage the admission of students to
Oxford and Cambridge from working-class backgrounds by allowing stu-
dents to study on a non-collegiate basis; both Universities became cen-
tres for the University Extension movement after 1873. In the 1870s,
both Oxford and Cambridge began to accept female students, but with-
out any semblance of full equality. Nevertheless, despite a succession of
Royal Commissions and exhaustive discussions on reform, Oxford and
Cambridge retained their independence and distinctive character. In
1907, Charles Gore, Bishop of Birmingham, spoke in support of another
Royal commission for Oxford and Cambridge “in order to secure the

© The Author(s) 2018 1

J. Taylor, The Impact of the First World War on British Universities,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52433-1_1
2   J. Taylor

best use for all classes of the community”. He continued, “I venture to

think that there can be no reasonable doubt that at present our ancient
Universities are allowed to become to an extent altogether beyond
what ought to be tolerated, a playground for the sons of the wealth-
ier classes”.1 However, the social background of the students at Oxford
and Cambridge was changing. In the years immediately before the War,
Anderson notes “a strengthening of the universities’ middle-class char-
acter as the proportion from landowning families fell, and as business as
well as professional families made increasing use of both public schools
and universities”.2 These were also years of significant educational change
for both Universities with the emergence of a model of teaching based
on discussion and analysis, and underpinned by close contact between
teacher and pupil, the Oxford tutorial and the Cambridge supervision.
This approach began to replace College lectures in the period 1880–1910.
The years before the outbreak of War also witnessed important
changes for the University of London. Central to these changes was
the tension between the role of the University as an examining body
and the desire of constituent Colleges to develop as teaching institu-
tions in their own right. At one point, in 1887, University College and
King’s College threatened to break away to form a separate University.
However, two years later, the Selbourne Commission concluded that a
new charter should be granted to the University of London as a teach-
ing institution and that no other University should be established in
the capital. Finally, the charter was granted and a reformed, federal
University of London emerged as a teaching and research University
in 1900. However, further instability followed the award of a charter
to the Imperial College of Science and Technology in 1907 and subse-
quent arguments over the possible development of Imperial College as
a separate University. In 1913, another Royal Commission concluded
that Imperial College should not become an independent University
and should be integrated within the University of London; at the same
time, the Commission urged a greater role for lay governance of the
University, an indication of growing frustration within Government
with infighting within the federal University.
In Scotland, the Universities maintained a high level of freedom,
sustained by independent funding from Government, and were active
 1 Universities Before the War    
3

in the pursuit of reform. The University of Glasgow at the end of the

nineteenth century pioneered attempts to encourage students from
poor backgrounds to enter the professions (Robertson 1990)3 and St
Andrews was active in encouraging the admission of women. From
1892, the Scottish Universities could accept and graduate women
(Rayner-Canham et al. 2008).4 Traditionally, the Scottish Universities
admitted students from a broad social base, wider than their English
counterparts, with about a fifth of students drawn from “working class”
backgrounds. Anderson (2006) writes: “One reason was that Scottish
secondary education was cheap and relatively open, university bursaries
were numerous, and from 1901 the Carnegie Trust … paid the fees of
any Scottish born student who applied. Another reason was a stronger
tradition of graduate schoolteachers in Scotland than in England”.5
However, the most important changes in the years before the First
World War occurred outside the Ancient Universities, through the
establishment of a cluster of “new” or “modern” Universities offering a
very different form of higher education. In 1868, Matthew Arnold had
argued for change:

We must get out of our heads all notion of making the mass of stu-
dents come and reside … at Oxford or Cambridge, which neither suit
their circumstances nor offer them the instruction they want. We must
plant faculties in the eight or ten principal seats of population, and let
the students follow lectures there from their own homes with whatever
arrangements for their living they and their parents choose. It would be
everything for the great seats of population to be thus made intellectual
centres as well as mere places of business.6

The second half of the nineteenth century witnessed growing demands

for enhanced technical skills among the workforce. At the same
time, a series of Acts of Parliament served to transform school educa-
tion. Forster’s Education Act of 1870 and the subsequent Elementary
Education Act of 1880 required free, compulsory education for all up to
the age of 10 years. Developments in secondary education were a little
slower to have an impact. However, the work of the Bryce Commission
(1894–1895) laid the foundations for the Education Act of 1902 which
4   J. Taylor

created Local Education Authorities, responsible for all education below

University level. These Authorities took over responsibility for many
voluntary schools and were expected to create new secondary schools
where no other provision existed. As the numbers studying in secondary
schools began to rise at the start of the twentieth century, demand for
University education also began to increase; moreover, the expansion in
school education, both elementary and secondary, required an increased
supply of educated and trained teachers to work in the schools.
In this way, growing interest in University education, changing
social expectations and increasing demands from business and industry,
often fuelled by international competition, not least from the USA and
Germany, prompted a rapid expansion in higher education. University
Colleges were established in Manchester (1851), Newcastle (1871),
Leeds (1874), Bristol (1876), Nottingham (1877), Birmingham (1880),
Liverpool (1882), Reading (1892), Sheffield (1897), Exeter (1901) and
Southampton (1902). These Colleges did not yet offer their own degrees
and were initially concerned mainly with the preparation of students for
Oxford, Cambridge and University of London examinations, and with
professional qualifications. Typically, University Colleges emerged to
meet the needs of local employers, but soon took on a wider range of
interests. Dent (1949) described this process as follows:

… the foundation, through the generosity of one or more private bene-

factors, of a college designed to teach chiefly scientific and technical sub-
jects to the people of a great industrial town; the expansion of this into
a university college by the addition of “faculties” in the human subjects
and a department for the training of teachers; and finally the securing of a
Royal Charter.7

In Wales, University Colleges were established in Aberystwyth, Bangor

and Cardiff (the University College of Monmouthshire and South
Wales). These merged in 1893 to form the federal University of Wales.
At the start of the twentieth century, interest in higher education
was growing, fuelled by concerns about the perceived erosion of
Britain’s global influence and economic competitiveness. Supporters
of the “national efficiency movement”, including Joseph Chamberlain,
 1 Universities Before the War    
5

first Chancellor of the University of Birmingham and a driving force

behind the University’s establishment, and “liberal imperialists” led
by Lord Rosebery were vocal in their criticism of British science and
technical education, and in their advocacy for a new emphasis on
University education, based on the needs of industry and commerce.
This new focus on the importance of a skilled workforce and on the
opportunities for self-improvement through education resulted in a
significant growth in student numbers. In particular, changing social
attitudes helped to stimulate an expansion in the numbers of women
entering higher education. In 1910, there were 27,728 full- and part-
time students in Britain compared with 20,249 ten years earlier, an
increase of 37% in a decade. This is estimated to represent 1.3% of
the age cohort in England and 1.9% in Scotland. The number of
female students expanded from 3284 in 1900 to 5654 in 1910, an
increase of 72%.8
Underpinning this expansion were important structural changes. A
single Government Ministry, the Board of Education, was created in
1899 and the 1902 Education Act aimed to create “a really national
system of education”, with a “rational or organic connection” between
primary and secondary schools, “and through the system of second-
ary education, with the University education which crowns the whole
edifice”.9 Anderson concludes that “the new grammar schools allowed
the universities to insist on higher entrance standards, and an honours
degree became in practice a prerequisite for secondary teaching. No
measure did more to fill the arts and science faculties of the civic uni-
versities, and to loosen their dependence on immediate local needs”.10
Moreover, in 1911, students who promised to become teachers were
given grants for degree study, providing further encouragement for
University recruitment.
Against this background, the University Colleges rapidly grew in
institutional self-confidence. A key step forward occurred in 1880 with
the establishment of the federal Victoria University able to offer its own
degrees, initially based on Owens College, Manchester and soon to
include University College Liverpool and Yorkshire College, Leeds. At
the beginning of the twentieth century, with the University of London
increasingly preoccupied with the delivery of higher education in London
6   J. Taylor

itself rather than across the country, and with increasing aspirations
towards institutional autonomy, both in governance and in academic
provision, the movement to create independent University institu-
tions in the large centres of population in England gathered pace. The
University of Birmingham was granted its charter in 1900. Soon after, the
Victoria University was dissolved, giving rise to the Victoria University
of Manchester (1903), the University of Liverpool (1903) and the
University of Leeds (1904). Before the start of the War in 1914, Sheffield
(1905) and Bristol (1906) had also gained University status. These were
years when, according to Anderson, the “civic universities” “came of age”,
with a regular recruitment base, some degree of state funding and royal
charters which reduced their dependence on local support.11
Life as a student in these “new” Universities would have been very
different from their counterparts in the Ancient Universities. Writing
in 1943, Bruce Truscot, pseudonym of Edgar Allison Peers, Professor
of Hispanic Studies in the University of Liverpool, painted a pic-
ture of “Bill Jones”, an imaginary student in a modern or “Red Brick
University” who he compared with a student at Oxford or Cambridge;
little would have changed from thirty years earlier before the War:

Poor Bill Jones! No Hall and Chapel and oak-sporting for him; no invi-
tations to breakfast at the Master’s Lodgings; no hilarious bump sup-
pers or moonlight strolls in romantic quadrangles; no all-night sittings
with a congenial group round his own – his very own – fireplace. No:
Bill goes off five mornings a week to Redbrick University exactly as he
went to Back Street Council School and Drabtown Municipal Secondary
School for Boys – and he goes on his bicycle, to save the two-penny
tram-fare. Exactly as at those earlier institutions, he climbs the ­similar
flights of dirty, sordid stairs (only there are more of them), sits in a rather
larger classroom of the same type and with the same grimy outlook and
answers to his name called from very much the same kind of register.
His lunch consists, according to the state of his finances, of a sevenpenny
made-up meat-dish, or of a roll and a cup of coffee, taken hurriedly at
the University Union and followed by the meeting of some society sand-
wiched between lunch and afternoon lectures because no society that
meets in the late afternoon can hope for more than the most diminutive
attendance. Between four and five o’clock he goes home to the same sort
 1 Universities Before the War    
7

of high tea as he has had all his life and then attempts to settle down
to an evening’s work, either alone in an unused sitting room, in his
unheated bedroom or, more probably, in the living room, where Lizzie,
at the same table, is wrestling with her algebra (and) Bertie is continually
appealing to him for help with his French.

Truscot also pointed to some advantages of the modern universities that

were enjoyed by Bill Jones:

His ten-week terms, if more humdrum, have also been less hectic than the
eight-week terms of the other. When they are over, he can still, if he likes,
go to the University all day long and work in the Library, or, if his home
is not in the university town, he can take out books for the vacation.
A second, and perhaps the principal, advantage of the modern over the
ancient university is the greater care with which the former looks after its
alumni. To that rare bird, the brilliant student, gifted with initiative, confi-
dence and resource, this may be no help, but merely an irritation or even a
positive disservice, but to perhaps ninety-five per cent it means a great deal.12

Truscot’s picture of student life reflects a highly stereotyped and gen-

eralised view of the University world. However, in most respects, his
description would have been recognisable before the First World War.

The Universities on the Eve of War

In 1913–1914, there were about 26,700 full-time students studying in
British Universities13:

England
Birmingham 867
Bristol 487 (+69 Merchant Venturers Technical College)
Cambridge 3679
Durham 370 (+543 Armstrong College, Newcastle; +201 College of
Medicine)
Leeds 663
Liverpool 861
London 4026 (all colleges)

(continued)
8   J. Taylor

Manchester 1014 (+285 School of Technology)

Nottingham 263
Oxford 4025
Reading 399
Sheffield 349
Southampton 127
Wales
Aberystwyth 437
Bangor 296
Cardiff 497
Scotland
Aberdeen 1043
Edinburgh 2885
Glasgow 2825
St Andrews 500 (includes Dundee)

In 1913–1914, the Universities were enjoying a period of rela-

tive financial stability and growth in student numbers. A year earlier,
the Council of the University of Leeds noted that “each year sees the
University more firmly established as a living force not only in the edu-
cated, but also in the industrial and social life of the country”. Ten years
after gaining its independence, the University was looking to the future
with growing optimism despite ongoing financial constraints:

In the field of research, important results have been achieved and new
lines of work of far-reaching influence have been taken up. In the pro-
vision of teaching, additional facilities have been afforded and fresh
enterprises, both within the University and outside its walls, have
been carried through with gratifying success. The social and corpo-
rate life of the students and of the University in general has, as before,
been carefully fostered and has been marked by an added zest which
encourages good hope for the future. Valuable donations, memo-
rial trusts which have a personal interest as well as an intrinsic value,
important additions to the staff, increased provision for the superan-
nuation of members, extended premises and other evidences of sub-
stantial progress have also contributed to make the year’s record a
pleasing one.14
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Pogo Planet
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where
you are located before using this eBook.

Title: Pogo Planet

Author: Donald A. Wollheim

Illustrator: Hannes Bok

Release date: March 11, 2024 [eBook #73148]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: Columbia Publications, Inc, 1941

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POGO

PLANET ***
 POGO PLANET

By MARTIN PEARSON

(Author of "Cosmos Eye", "The Unfinished City", etc.)

Introducing that modest little superman, that shrinking

violet of destiny, Ajax Calkins, and a world where you
had to hop, in some way, to get where you wanted to go!

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

Future combined with Science Fiction October 1941.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
As my ship hit the darkness that was the outer atmosphere of
Midplanet, I thrilled to the thought that I, Ajax Calkins, had at last
achieved my rightful place among the pioneers of space. Even when
my ship bounced on the green soil, flew end over end upwards to
come down ka-plunk in the wrong side of a gooey thick swamp, I
exulted that I was the first in possession of a major planet that had
been overlooked by the rest of the interplanetary crowd.
As I picked myself up from the midst of a pile of miscellaneous
equipment, hiking ropes, elephant guns, para-rays, spare shoes and
cans of Unifood, and rubbed my bruised arms and head, I thought of
how many millions would give their all to be in my place.
Midplanet! How the whole system had thrilled when its discovery
was finally determined last year! For decades science had known
there was a planet between Saturn and Uranus, ever since Pickering
had proved the perturbations of those planets' orbits pointed to a
body between them. Yet telescopes had always failed to detect it.
Few had taken it seriously. Yet, it was there.
It was discovered finally by electromagnetic induction coils at the
Mars Prime Observatory. It was rechecked from Flagstaff and
searched for by Tycho Eye. The latter could not see it. It was still
invisible, a strangely dark world.
It was then that I conceived my great idea. For years I had secretly
nourished my grievance against the world into which I found myself
born. All the great heroic acts had been done. The major planets
pioneered, Gretelspoon had at last opened up Pluto, and there was
nothing left for me to do to show that I too was made of godlike stuff.
But Midplanet ... there was my chance!
Hastily I outfitted a small spaceship with all that I would need. Hastily
but craftily I had the orbits charted and the controls processed. My
destiny was always certain for had it not been my destiny to come
into a large fortune early in life? Surely this had been ordained?
Then I had hurtled through space towards Midplanet alone, secretly.
The world would not know of my triumph until I returned to tell them
and receive their adoring plaudits. Months went past while I endured
the hardships of space-sickness, the cosmitch, and voidal ague.
At last Midplanet loomed dark in the celestial panorama. Still it cast
no light, still it was a black orb sailing silently on its mighty orbit,
unattended by any moon.
Finding that my ship was irrevocably destined to hit the planet, I
determined to land rather than turn back. So it came about that I
plunged down through the darkness and found to my amazement
that after several hundred yards of opaque gaseous envelope, I
emerged into brilliant blue sky and rapidly approached the green
surface.
After the crash and after I had picked myself up and rubbed arnica
on my black-and-blue spots, the problem of the dark planet turned
light demanded my attention.
I realized that some strange gas or mixture of gases chanced to
make up the outermost strata of the atmosphere of Midplanet. A
gaseous compound that absorbed light one way but would not pass
it once it had struck the surface of the planet. So that above the
planet remained swathed in lightless mystery, while below the sky
seemed to radiate blue and the lighting and warmth was held in to
appear as a beautiful spring day on Earth.
This then had been the circumstance which had kept Midplanet
veiled from the sight of man until I, Ajax Calkins, tore aside the veil. I
felt a glow of warmth suffuse my body with pride for this
accomplishment.

Buckling a para-ray to my belt (for I did not think heavier weapons

were necessary in this peaceful looking scene), I stepped to the door
of the ship and forced it open. At my feet the swamp oozed and
gurgled. A scant distance away the bank of solid ground lay. I leaped
the distance and I am proud to say misjudged it by a mere foot or so.
Dragging myself out of the thick gummy mess I clambered to the
bank of the strangely greenish soil, placed one foot forward,
scowled, and raised my right hand.
"I hereby take possession of this land in my name, Ajax Calkins, and
proclaim it subject to my will as Emperor." This I pronounced with
firm dignity becoming a Magellan or a Cortez.
You may seem surprised that I should make myself ruler of this land
and not merely annex it to the Interplanetary Union? Why should that
surprise you? Was it not mine by right of priority? And how, indeed,
do you think kingdoms and empires are won?
I am not a modest man. I have always said that I am a man of great
destiny. Why should I bow to traditions?
Having satisfied my will, I looked about.
Before me stretched a long rolling plain, green as if covered with
fields of grass. Yet it was not grass but a curious green hard clay that
seemed to make up the soil. Far to the distance low hills rose. The
oddest feature of the soil was the fact that it was interminably
interlaced with deep sharp cracks like a clay that had been baked
improperly and cracks all over.
It seemed to me that there was a strange discoloration far off in the
base of the hills from which white and grey plumes of vapor arose as
if marking the factories of some hillside city. A city it could well prove
to be and if that were so, then I had found a capital and subjects!
I set out to walk the several miles to the hills. I had sufficient
equipment for such a reconnoiter already on me.
The going was not easy. The ground was flat and hard enough to
walk on, but the deep cracks and narrow crevices which one
constantly came across made the trip difficult. I would have to leap
perilously over the more narrow cracks or else carefully find a way
around the wider ones.
It seemed to me that it would be difficult to make roads across such
a terrain, the bridges would be innumerable. I wondered how the
natives got around. I had seen no sign of animals as yet, but that
was not to be considered surprising if there were a city so near.
There were plants, a large number scattered here and there in
clumps, reddish and greenish masses somewhat like the vegetation
of our American Western deserts.
After walking and jumping and still more walking and leaping I
became tired after about an hour. The city was still a distance away
but it could now be seen with greater distinctness. It was indeed
what I had thought, a cluster of buildings obviously constructed for
intelligent beings and there were indeed columns of smoke rising
from them. More than that I could not distinguish.
I had come across no roads as yet which was odd if this were a city
though comprehensible considering the nature of the ground.
At last I saw a building of some sort in my path. It was a small
structure, hardly more than a frame-work construction of clay. I made
my way to it and looked at it. The building itself was nothing, just a
frame-work as I had said. It was what was propped up beside it that
puzzled and amazed me.
It was a nine-foot cylinder of shining metal. About the middle of this
metal shaft was fixed a circular frame. There were a number of what
might be controls set in the cylinder just above this central railwork
and a large mass like a doughnut running underneath the metal
hoop which might have held an engine of some sort. The bottom of
the shaft was capped by a large rubbery mass.
I could not figure out what this was. I stood it upright (it was not too
heavy) and looked at it from all directions. It was a puzzle. Then I
climbed on to the hoop affixed to its middle and sat down. The
central shaft ran between my legs, the engine was under me and the
controls faced me. It occurred to me that here was a machine
designed to be operated by someone in my position and of my
general size.

Because I am afraid of nothing, I touched the controls and pressed

them. Below me there was a sort of murmuring and rumbling. Then
the cylinder seemed to vibrate slightly, to grow more tense. I grasped
the metal bar tightly.
There was a terrifying hiss and then a terrific crash and the cylinder
suddenly hurtled into the air. I held on for dear life, my composure
dreadfully shaken. The whole machine bounced upwards into the air
and then came down on its rubber-capped bottom. I held on. It hit, a
shaft within the cylinder contracted and absorbed the shock and
suddenly flicked out again and up we went.
As I grasped the main tube for dear life I realized what it was. A pogo
stick! A giant, mechanically controlled, powered pogo stick!
Up and down, jarring and violent, down and up. I was dizzy and ill
and I didn't know how to stop it. It was progressing madly in the
general direction of the city. I pushed buttons wildly when I wasn't
holding on for dear life but I didn't seem to get the right combination.
The stick would hurtle wildly forward into the air many dozens of feet
then come down to hit the earth with a shock, contract, and then
recoil violently again and up with a sickening jolt into the air again.
I saw that it was a means for travel over terrain impassible because
of its crevices and cracks to wheeled vehicles or beings on foot. I
saw this as the unguided power-pogo came down directly into a
narrow crack. The capped bottom slid between the sides, the engine
box hit the sides of the narrow cleft hard, there was a terrific kick and
the shaft hit out again futilely in the airy emptiness of the depth
below it, and I went sailing out head over heels to land several yards
away in the midst of a band of Midplanetarians.
The next thing I knew I was being pinned down by a number of grey
fuzzy arms while a kangaroo looked down at me and questioned me
in a squeaky language. At least it looked like a kangaroo for it had
the giant legs and the long powerful tail of one, it had upstanding
mousey ears, a pointed rodentlike face, and a mammalian body
covered with short grey-brown hair. Around its waist was strapped a
belt-like harness from which several pouches were slung. In one
hand it held a weapon like a sort of combination of pistol and sling-
shot.
Naturally I did not answer its questions. It, the chief kangaroo-man,
shrugged its shoulders and motioned to its fellows who were holding
me down. They allowed me to get to my feet when I was surprised to
find that I was still all in one piece and that they had not touched my
equipment including my para-ray.
A little distance away was standing a simply gigantic power-pogo,
towering a couple of dozen feet high, with a large circular platform
set around its middle. Facing that they started to walk towards there.
Started, I say, for they walked in kangaroo leaps and I simply fell
when they tried to make me do the same.
They picked me up bodily and bounded over and up to the platform.
There they hold on to straps attached to the main cylinder and
waited. I think I must have fainted because I have no recollection of
the trip outside of a nightmare of terrible leaps and falls.

When I came to again it was in the city by the hills. Several of the
creatures were standing around me trying to question me in their odd
language and, of course, making no headway. I felt that this was not
the time to inform them of my imperial accession, I was not sure that
they were the most fitting inhabitants of this world to receive that
honor. There might be other intelligent races inhabiting the same
planet even as there are on Venus.
Accordingly I kept my mouth shut and stared them down. That was a
feat of which I could be proud considering the odd nature of their
eyes and faces.
Finally they led me away in short bounds to a building and up a ramp
to a room. There they thrust me and closed the door.
The room was large, partly open to an interior patio. But it had
another inhabitant. A girl!
She was standing by the open semi-balcony staring into the
courtyard. When I exclaimed, she turned sharply and looked at me.
She was dressed surprisingly like an earth girl, she looked very
much like the earth type. I congratulated myself on having picked for
my empire a planet which held a race so similar to my own. But my
hopes were dashed two seconds later when she opened her mouth
and said in perfect English:
"Hello, stranger, how'd you get to Midplanet so soon?"
I recovered my composure and introduced myself modestly, not
telling her of the position I had taken upon myself. "And who are
you?" I asked.
"Oh, I'm Nadia Landor and I came with the Official I. U. Expedition.
Our ship is about thirty miles away and I came here on a geological
survey in a single-seater flier. I stopped to say hello but our hosts
don't seem to know the meaning of the word."
"Oh," I said and fell silent. What was I to say? I had been so certain
that I could get to Midplanet first and now it seemed that the Union
had beaten me out again. Then, I squared my shoulders. This was
no way for Ajax Calkins, Emperor of at least half Midplanet, to act.
My destiny would see me through.
"You need have no fear," I said. "I will find a way for us to escape."
She looked at me oddly and smiled. "Oh, that? That's all settled.
We'll escape immediately if you want to. I've fixed things with our
buggy friend."
"With whom?" I gasped.
"Why, haven't you seen the buggers yet? Look, there's Bosco in the
yard." She beckoned to the inner courtyard. I went over to her side
and looked.

In the courtyard, standing just below us stood a monstrous insect. A

thing somewhat larger than a horse. A big squat compact looking
broad-backed creature. For a moment I stared at it without
comprehension and then suddenly its appearance struck a
responsive chord in my brain. It was a flea, a gigantic flea!
"Isn't he cute?" murmured Nadia. "He's agreed to help us escape."
"He's what? Do you mean to say he's...." I started.
"Intelligent?" she finished. "Yes, the buggers have a rather high
intelligence. Not as good as our kangaroo friends but nonetheless
clever. The fleas are a sort of semi-barbarian group inhabiting a
section about a thousand miles away. This fellow, whom I call Bosco,
was captured and doesn't like the idea of making a banquet for some
kangaroo holiday."
I goggled at the creature and it stared with an interested flicker of its
feelers at me.
"I'm glad you still have your para-ray. It was all that I was missing.
Come on, let's go now." Nadia suited her actions to her words by
vaulting the stone balustrade and landing astride the monster bug's
back. I gingerly followed her and seated myself in front.
"Now what?" I said for I didn't know how this was going to help us
escape.
"Hold tight and use your ray when the guard appears," she said and
then screamed at the top of her lungs. I was nearly paralyzed myself
with the sound but the guard who opened the gate was more so and
I beamed him nicely.
Bosco seemed to sink lower and then his monstrously powerful legs
smashed down and we made the most colossal bound I have ever
dreamed of. That super-flea must have covered at least three
hundred yards with that first bound and he must have made two
hundred at least with every subsequent bounce.
We held on for dear life and the air whished past us like mad. Behind
us the city of kangaroos sprang to life as they saw their assorted
prisoners escaping and very soon I saw over my shoulder that a line
of gigantic steam-powered pogos were bounding along after us,
each manned by several armed creatures.
The flea was fast but the pogos, powered by terrific steam-boilers,
were equally so. And thus we raced across the clay creviced terrain,
two humans on the back of a flea-colossus followed by a single-file
line of puffing steel pogos, their plumes of smoke leaving a trail
behind them.
I turned and tried to pick off the riders with my ray but it was
hopeless, so violently was everything going up and down. I gave up
and clung for dear life to the hard neck of our steed.
But it seemed to be impossible to shake off our followers. They
remained fast on our trail and after a while I realized that Bosco was
tiring out, his leaps were not so high or far.

"What shall we do?" called Nadia to me. "We can't shake them."
It was then that the idea occurred to me that saved us. We were
already very close to where my spaceship had landed and I
succeeded to conveying in signals what I had in mind to our quite
intelligent flea.
On we went and when we came to the side of the swamp in which
my ship had landed, Bosco gave a terrific leap which must have well
set a record for all Midplanet and sailed fully five hundred yards
across the swamp to land exhausted on the other side.
But the pogos could not make that great leap, nor could the giant
things stop so easily. On they rushed and one after another they
landed in the middle of that thick gummy deep swamp-like mass.
The automatic vibrations of their shafts continued but their bases
were hopelessly gummed in. The crews were hurled off in all
directions and fell helplessly into the gooey morass.
We were saved! My ship was around at the other side but we could
walk it. Nadia signalled our thanks to the bugger and it bounded off
alone towards the distant horizon.
As we walked, Nadia complimented me on my trick of the swamp. I
glowed within and, turning to her, said:
"Let us stay here and master this world, my Empress. I, Ajax Calkins,
lay my heart and a planet at your feet."
But women are fickle creatures and cannot understand the ways of
the great. She laughed and said: "Don't be silly, my husband is
waiting for me at our own spaceship."
And then when we found that my ship had, while I had been away,
sunk into the swamp completely and that we would have to walk the
twenty or so miles to Nadia's craft, she laughed even louder. Women
do not appreciate destiny.
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