HIM TIE PREJUDICES FALL

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20504, 21 May 1938, Page 15 (Supplement)

HIM TIE PREJUDICES FALL

Students in Foreign Lands ;: Ideas Greatly Modified

(Robert W. Desmond in Christian Science Monitor.)

NOBODY KNOWS how many study lamps have been shining, during these weeks, upon alluring literature describing courses of lectures at foreign universities and summer institutes. Probably thousands. College students and faculty members throughout the United States have been dreaming of Oxford’s spires, the Snrbonne and the tree-shaded Boul Mich in Paris, old Heidelberg, Ihe view of Mount Blanc from Geneva, and of far-off skies.

A thousand pencils must have traced, experimentally, the names of Grenoble, Vienna, London, and Fontainbleau; of Munich, Berlin, Cambridge, Salzburg, Perugia, and Mexico City f and all the other dear, delightful places where learning combines so pleasantly with fun and friendships—especially In the summertime. These are the days of planning. And in a few weeks the ships will be carrying several hundreds of those who have planned. They will be outbound for Europe, particularly, to attend summer courses in foreign languages, in literature, history, art, music, and other subjects. Some will be going as exchange students, to spend a year or more abroad, and other ships will be bringing other exchange students into the United States, not only from Europe, but from Latin-American countries, the Far East, and other parts of the world. In time, these earnest voyagers will return to their homes, their families, their native environment. What will they carry back ? Will it have been worth while for them to go so far from home, or to spend the money required? Will they have learned anything important, either in formal courses, or from their experiences? The answer is an emphatic "yes” to both questions, although the "yes” may have to be modified in individual cases because some persons carry so little to such an experience, that they may not be equipped to benefit from it. In general, however, summer lecture courses are interesting, the personal contacts and experiences are more than interesting; they are educational in the fullest sense. And exchange students, who stay for a year or more in a foreign environment, benefit proportionately more. But let the students tell of it! The advantages rests, for one thing, in having to meet new and unfamiliar situations and make decisions, says one young woman, who went to Paris to do hor third year college work at the Sorbonne. Having to conduct all her affairs in a foreign language and a foreign currency developed in her both Self-dependence and Self-restraint, she believes, and so helped her to "grow up” and acquire a maturity that otherwise might have been slower in developing. This girl was impressed by the vast sources of information available to her in Paris, and the contact she seemed to have with centuries past through actually being in the places where history was made. Access to the finest operas and theatres, for the price of a motion picture show in the United States, also permitted her to enjoy great music and great literature, performed by famous artists; galleries, museums, and monuments were always at hand. "To me it seems impossible that anyone could live in this atmosphere and not imbibe some of the culture and inspiration which are so vital a part of its existence,” she said. "That culture cannot be quickly or easily forgotten. It becomes a part of the person who has shared in it, no matter for how brief a time. " I believe," she added, "that I know a sure road to peace. If one-fourth of the world’s population would mingle with foreign nations enough to know them, to understand them, and to have close friends among them—there would be no more war. We could not wilfully destroy things which had become so dear to us.” This accords with a view expressed by Dr. Stephen Duggan, director of the Institute for International Education, of New York. The Institute was established in 1919 and receives support from the Carnegie Corporation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Carl Schurz Memorial Foundation. It fosters understanding between countries through cultural relations between their peoples, particularly students and educators. In a recent annual report, Dr. Duggan suggested that "it would be a fortunate thing for our country and for civilisation in general were either our military or naval attache in foreign countries to be replaced by an educational attache." With undoubted sincerity, students who have had the opportunity to live abroad for a time attest to the affection and understanding which they come to feel for the people among whom they have been dwelling. Persons in the United States hear of "purges” and political violence in European countries, and form an opinion that life there must be unsafe and difficulty. But persons in Europe hear of gangsters and kidnapping and crime and lynchings in the United States, and from similar opinions. Stories about censorships, militarism, inefficiency, dirt, immorality, brusque manners, and other matters become current in one country about conditions in another, and they Take Root As Prejudices. Exchange students often start upon their adventures with some such personal misgivings, and not uncommonly with real alarm to friends and relatives. As a matter of fact, a student may actually be unfavourably impressed, at first. Things are different. His attention is distracted by matters of no intrinsic importance. Here you can’t buy toothpaste on Sunday. There the laundry is slow in being returned, and has red threads in it. This food isn’t to his liking. That shopkeeper shortchanged him. Those persons seemed aloof and unfriendly, while others couldn’t understand his language. Here is too much fuss about passports and identity cards. These people salute constantly, those people seem unconcerned about dirt in the streets. And so it goes. It is the sort of thing the tourist often reports on the basis of a quick trip, concluding that there is, after all, no place like home. But those who stay long enough to know the people, to get some sort of working knowledge of the language, and to make some friends, return with a realisation that that country and its people, like any country, hss some faults, but that by and large the people are likeable, and the country as good as most others, and maybe better.

So prejudices cease to have any special importance. A German girl, now in residence at a southern university in the United States, sees three advantages w’hich a student gains through such an experience as she is having: (1) A more intelligent understanding of his own country because of the perspective gained through foreign residence. (2) A fuller development and discovery of his true self and character, gained through being forced to think a bit when faced by the problem of adjusting oneself to an environment so different from that at home. (3) An appreciation of the culture and hospitality of the country visited. This is hardest, because it requires, first, an understanding of the differences between the countries and then the ability to trace and analyse the conditions to v'hich these differences are due.

A French exchange student now in America says that her friends in France could not understand why she should go to America to study, as they believed it "had little to offer in an intellectual or cultural way.” Former exchange students encouraged her, however, and corrected the impression she says is common in France, that America is "a nation composed of New York City and the Statue of Liberty.” " They cannot realise,” she adds, "that, as in France, there are small country towns and villages which, if different in appearance, are always the same as to the inner life of the inhabitants. The movies have created the impression that life is easier economically in the United States, and that living is on a much more luxurious level than in France. Thus it becomes difficult to believe that there are men in this w’ealthy United States working in fields and factories and Facing the Same Economic Problems as the French. Through the movies, also, we gain the impression that American youth has much greater license and liberty than French youths. But on coming in contact with American life we learn that youth is universally the same everywhere. " We exchange students, having been able to see for ourselves how different America is from what we had imagined,” says this French girl, "shall have the opportunity on returning to our native land, of introducing America as we have discovered it to our friends and to our teachers. We can hope that some day, due in part to our efforts, there may be established between our countries a permanent friendship based on true understanding, and that we shall have the privilege of having shared in this great task of improving world relationships.” Thus, students may start by feeling, in the United States, for example, that dormitory life permits no privacy, that "a cave would be a more habitable place, that everyone knows everything about everyone else,” and that "the system produces extroverts, and everyone tries to behave like one.” Or, in Europe, for example, that the entire system is without plan or efficient direction, and that they don’t know enough to keep warm in cold weather. But such matters cease to be important as interest in the new experiences of each day crowds them out. " Mere details of living are glorified by the magic of unfamiliarity,” says one American student in Germany. " Even our breakfast pat of unsalted butter is an experience; the problem of extending it to cover two brotchen and a piece of schwarzbrot, a gay game or a grim struggle, according to one’s morning disposition. And the day in the week when we have hot water is almost as important as Christmas." There are, during this academic year of 1937-1938, Tnore than 200 youthful Americans abroad as exchange students or on other special grants, all arranged through the Institute of International Education. Most of them are in France and Germany. In addition, there are more than 60 Rhodes scholars at Oxford, and other American students at Cambridge, the University of London, Edinburgh, and elsewhere. How many additional students pay their own way it is impossible to say. Summer courses on the continent of Europe attracted nearly 700 Americans last year, many others went to British universities, and more than 500 went to Mexico City to study Spanish. In 1934, the United States Department of State issued 9635 passports to students and 6917 to teachers, which indicates something of the Enormous Tide of Travel by this group. As to the tide in the other direction, there w’ere during the 1936-1937 academic year 7343 foreign students in the colleges and universities of the United States. This was a larger total than in any year except 1926-1927, when there were a few more. The largest numbers come, in this order, from Japan, China, Canada, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Cuba, Germany, England (including 31 Commonwealth Fellows), Mexico, Korea, France, and so on down a list including countries in every section of the world. These students, many of them exchange scholars, flock in greatest numbers to the University of California and the University of Southern California, Yale, and Harvard, George Washington University, Columbia, Cornell, and the University of Chicago, Louisiana State University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the University of Michigan, and to the State universities of Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Washington. Just as American students abroad may turn for guidance and help to the American University Unions in London and Paris, and to student unions in Geneva and Berlin and elsewhere, so in the United States there are so-called " International Houses” at Columbia, the University of Chicago, and the University of California. There, in particular, and in smaller institutions in some other university communities, foreign students also find the friendships and contacts which help them. Through the Institute of International Education, particularly, and the specific efforts of Dr. Duggan, Miss Jessie Douglass, Secretary of the Student Bureau, and other members of the staff, the idea and ideal of worldwide education is being fostered. Not only does the Institute make available many scholarships, and administer others, but it arranges lecture toui’s in the United States by well-qualified men and women, and carries on important activities by way of cementing friendly cultural relations between the peoples and the nations of the world.