CO129-562-18 Hong Kong University- vacancy for Vice Chancellor 17-2-1937 - 3-8-1937 — Page 17

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this, as I have suggested, is not the drawback that it might seem. Hong Kong, in my belief, would be lucky to get Mr. Sloss.

(Signed) OLIVER ELTON.

Copy of letter received from Professor W.G.Fraser, dated 22.6.37.

Dear Sir

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I have pleasure in answering your telegram of 21st June con- cerning Mr. D. J. Sloss's candidature for the Vice-Chancellorship of Hong Kong University. I knew Mr. Sloss by reputation before 1920 and have known him personally since that year, when he came to Burma as Professor of English in Rangoon University. From 1920 to 1933 I was closely associated with him in the University, at first in English teaching and examining and latterly also in College and University administration. Before coming to Burma he had already in his recommendations for the English courses in the new University of Rangoon shown his power of planning the work of an English de- partment from the lowest to the highest courses, and when he came to Rangoon I very soon learned to admire the skill and energy with which he organised the English department to teach the courses he had planned. He came as an outsider to be head of an already existing English staff: his scholarship, his gifts as a teacher, his organising ability, and his forceful personality soon won the respect of all his colleagues. With regard to his scholarship, I should remark on his important contribution to knowledge in his published work on Blake; the subject demanded his special gifts of penetrating thought and patient scholarship. In Rangoon his department was soon working efficiently and harmoniously. He saw that the achievement of the University would depend in great part on the quality of its entrants and largely owing to his efforts, improvements in school organisation and examining were effected. As a member of the Governing Body of the College and the administrative bodies of the University, Mr. Sloss displayed such breadth of outlook, such a large grasp of the problems of University teaching (not only in his own subject), of student organisation, of the management of the University site and the planning and erection of its buildings, of the relations between the University and the Government and between the University and the public, that he soon came to occupy a unique place in University affairs, so that it was natural that he should succeed the retiring Principal of University College.

He worked as Principal at a time when the office was exceptional- ly onerous, owing to the progress of the building scheme of the