A novel exchange-of-persons program was developed during the past summer by the New York State Community Service Council of Young Adults, under the auspices of the State Education Department. Six young adults were chosen from the up-state communities of Ithaca, Glens Falls, Jamestown, and Schenectady, to live with families in Sweden, Denmark, England, and the Netherlands. Since their trips were made possible by the people of their communities, they went as responsible "community ambassadors".

In arranging for the "ambassadors" to go abroad, a local Council of Young Adults in each community appealed for contributions to finance. the projects. (Approximately $750 was required for each "ambassador".) Each representative, chosen by a committee of townspeople, was briefed concerning his own community so that he could more adequately present an effective picture of life in America to people overseas.

Travel arrangements for the "ambassadors", as well as the selection of their places of residence in Europe, were made through the facilities of the Experiment in International Living, Putney, Vt. After having spent from six to eight weeks abroad, the young "ambassadors" have returned home to fulfil their responsibility to their communities by reporting their experiences to the people in their towns and throughout the State by means of the press and radio and through personal appearances.

Although expected to become an effective means of promoting mutual understanding among peoples of this country and other nations, this project was designed primarily for the purpose of enabling people overseas to learn firsthand about people in the United States from young community leaders. The New York State Education Department is preparing a manual describing the "community ambassadors" project which may be obtained by addressing the Department at Albany 1, N.Y.

The Carl F. Curtis Elementary School of Los Angeles, California, recently observed "World Friendship Week", aimed to instill in students ideas of friendliness and world citizenship in keeping with the ideals of UNESCO and the United Nations.

AP Photo

Barbara Hall, left, of Ithaca, N.Y., and Jean Hogan of Glens Falls, N.Y., who visited Denmark as "community ambassadors" during the summer, discuss their itinerary with Count C. A. Moltke, U.N. attaché from Denmark.

Koreans Get Books From Kansans

A treasure chest of books is being sent to school children of Korea by pupils of Planeview School and Will Rogers Elementary School in Wichita as a UNESCO project.

The treasure chest will include moderns, old favorites, and classics. A scrapbook will have snapshots, poems, drawings, letters, original articles, games, puzzles, pictures, newspaper clippings, names and addresses of pen pals-all prepared by the Wichita pupils. A blank scrapbook to be filled and returned by the Korean children is in the chest.

Brazil Combats Illiteracy

A campaign in Brazil aimed at teaching illiterates of all ages to read and write has resulted in the establishment, since the beginning of 1947, of nearly 14,000 schools. It was largely due to Mexico's example that Brazil embarked on its campaign of fundamental education.

Of the schools established, 3,000 were founded by industrial and commercial firms and other organizations, while 10,540 were set up. by the Federal Government in collaboration with State authorities. It is expected that the number of students will exceed one million in 1948.

UNESCO MUSIC PANEL

AIDS FOREIGN COMPOSERS

An outstanding project inaugurated during the summer by the Panel on Music of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO was the raising of funds for the assistance of foreign composers. The money thus obtained will be disbursed under the auspices of UNESCO. To carry out this project, a special group was organized under the chairmanship of Carleton S. Smith of the Music Library Association. Through the cooperation of Serge Koussevitsky, conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the International Society of Contemporary Music, the project was launched at a concert in the Tanglewood Music Shed at Lenox, Mass. Speakers on behalf of the movement were Dr. Koussevitsky, Archibald MacLeish, a member of the National Commission; Justice Felix Frankfurter of the United States Supreme Court; Aaron Copland, prominent American composer; and Howard Hanson, director of the Eastman School of Music, president of the National Music Council, and a member of the National Commission, who is chairman of the Panel on Music. As a result of the concert, approximately $10,000 was raised.

Among other activities of the Panel on Music announced by Mr. Hanson is the preparation, now in progress, of two catalogs, one of contemporary American orchestral music performed in the United States and the other of solo and ensemble music suitable for various smaller organizations, such as clubs and schools. A third catalog of recorded American music is also planned. The Committee on Rehabilitation, in cooperation with other organizations, has collected and sent abroad quantities of music materials for the war-devastated countries. The Committee on Exchange of Persons and Concerts will encourage a series of UNESCO concerts in colleges.

Chairmen of the five committees established by the Panel on Music are (1) rehabilitation, Mrs. Guy P. Gannett, past president, National Federation of Music Clubs; (2) radio and recordings, Gilbert Chase, Education Division, RCA Victor; (3) music in education, Vanett Lawler, associate secretary, Music Educators National Conference; (4) exchange of persons and concerts, Donald M. Swarthout, president, National Association of Schools of Music; and (5) composers and compositions, Mr. Hanson.

Washington State Plans
Active UNESCO Program

The Washington State Coordinating Council for UNESCO is making a concerted drive throughout the State to provide information in schools and communities on the activities of the organization.

At the Third Annual School Administrators' Mountain Conference held at Mount Rainier and attended by over 300 school administrators, Mrs. Pearl A. Wanamaker, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, a member of the National Commission, and chairman of the Washington State Coordinating Council, led a discussion on UNESCO, stressing her State's part in the program in this country-particularly in the field of educational reconstruction.

Among others appearing on the program were James Avery Joyce, London barrister, who spoke on "The Constitutional and Psychological Implications of World Citizenship", and Mrs. Otis Lamson of Seattle, Washington State delegate to accompany the Christmas Ship to Europe, who discussed economic and social conditions abroad, stressing the great need of children there for food and other necessities of life in order to carry on their studies.

At an earlier meeting of the State Coordinating Council it was agreed that the Council should meet at least once a year. The chairman was authorized to appoint a workable executive committee representing all parts of the State and all areas of UNESCO interest. It was suggested that an annual State-wide conference for UNESCO be organized, patterned somewhat after the San Francisco Regional Conference.

In launching a UNESCO program, the SeattleKing County Unit has initiated a survey of the activities of organizations there which have a bearing on UNESCO's aims. The material will be compiled by the University of Washington for distribution to cooperating organizations for the purpose of stimulating other UNESCO-related proj ects throughout the State. Organizations also have been invited to designate representatives to serve in a liaison capacity with the Seattle-King County Unit for UNESCO and are urged to present a program on UNESCO to their memberships.

Plans for the creation of an international association of universities were adopted by educational leaders from 36 countries attending the Preparatory Conference of Representatives of Universities which met in Utrecht, the Netherlands, during the late summer.

The conference, which was sponsored jointly by UNESCO and the Netherlands Government, created an interim committee of 10 persons to develop plans for such an organization for sub

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Mr. Zook

mission to the next General Conference of Universities to be held after August 1950. Among those elected to the interim committee was George F. Zook, president of the American Council on Education and a member of the National Commission.

The aims of the association will be to provide an international cooperation center for universities around the world, summon conferences of university leaders, choose special problems for investigation and study, and administer an International Universities Bureau, the immediate establishment of which was also recommended by the conference.

The International Universities Bureau will function as a clearinghouse of information concerning the universities of the world. It was pointed out by delegates that, although some universities are at present served in this respect by national or regional bureaus, there is no international information office covering the university field as a whole. It was also shown that no common basis for comparative statistics exists and no satisfactory single publication is available to serve as a directory to all institutions of higher education. The proposed International Universities Bureau will serve as the appropriate instrument to provide these and other services.

Other Bureau services will include facilities for the interchange of professors and students by the dissemination of data on scholarships, summer courses, and staff vacancies, and by the promotion of travel between countries. The Bureau will also provide for the publication, at regular intervals,

of comprehensive directories of institutions of higher education. It will establish a library of reference works and official publications of the different universities and will try to improve the distribution and exchange of laboratory materials, books, and other technical equipment for university study and research.

The delegates called upon UNESCO to finance both the interim committee and the Universities Bureau during the initial stages. Once the international association of universities is formally brought into existence, member universities will pay annual dues adjusted according to the size and financial resources of each institution. From time to time grants from UNESCO or private foundations are envisaged for special activities.

Fall Conferences Planned

A two-day meeting for the formal organization of the Missouri Council for UNESCO will be held in St. Louis, Mo., October 8 and 9. Among the National Commission members participating in the conference as speakers will be Chairman Milton S. Eisenhower, Ben. M. Cherrington, Mrs. Louise Leonard Wright, and Arthur Compton.

The temporary committee planning the conference is headed by Dean Willis H. Reals of Washington University and includes Mrs. D. T. Blake, State president of the American Association of University Women; Sherman D. Scruggs, president of Lincoln University; H. E. Slusher of the Missouri Farm Bureau Federation: C. R. Mooney of the American War Dads; and Icie Johnson of Central Missouri State College.

Other councils planning State conferences during the fall months include Arizona, Southern California, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Utah.

Tjerandsen Heads Kansas Commission

Carl Tjerandsen, director of the Institute of Citizenship at Kansas State College, Manhattan, Kans., has succeeded Robert Walker as chairman of the Kansas State Commission for UNESCO. Mr. Walker has accepted a position with the Department of State in Washington.

FULBRIGHT EXCHANGE PROGRAM GETS UNDER WAY THIS FALL

Two war heroines are among the first four foreign students to receive travel-grant awards from the Department of State to come to this country and study under the Fulbright Act. One is Bai Matabay Plang, a Moro princess from the island. of Mindanao in the Philippines, who joined the underground when the Japanese overran the Islands. She procured medical supplies for guerrilla fighters and worked behind enemy lines to organize hospitals, schools, and housing for évacués. The other is Ma Aye, a Burman, who spent the war years in the jungles behind Japanese lines organizing the community life of the évacués in rural villages.

Miss Plang will study at the University of Chicago School of Social Work on a fellowship from the American Association of University Women, and Miss Aye will study in the New York School of Social Work, having received a scholarship from that school. Two other Filipino students comprise the original four receiving the awards.

Among the first Americans to receive awards under the Fulbright Act are 11 graduate students, including 8 World War II veterans, who were granted scholarships for study in China, and 15 educators and research scholars, recipients of grants-in-aid, 10 of which are for research fellowships in China, 3 for visiting professorships in Burma, and 2 for agricultural teaching positions in secondary schools in Burma.

The Fulbright program, which is just getting under way, is expected ultimately to embrace more than 20 countries and will involve the expenditure of more than $150,000,000 during the next 20 years. Agreements have also been concluded with Greece and New Zealand and are now under consideration with 9 other countries.

The scholarships are provided by foreign governments out of the proceeds from the sale of United States overseas surplus materials and provide the means by which foreign countries may pay in part for these surpluses in their own currencies.

London Times Lauds UNESCO as "Influence for Understanding"

Indicative of the growing interest abroad in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is the fact that the London Times, in a recent issue, devoted well over a third of the space on its editorial page to UNESCO, carrying a full-column editorial, a lengthy special article, "UNESCO in Transition", and a letter from Sir Ernest Barker, who is chairman of the British Cooperating Committee for Philosophy and the Humanities.

The editorial states that "Nothing but good can come from giving reasonable publicity to international works of mercy" and adds: “UNESCO, in fact, for all the cynicism which attended its birth, is becoming an influence for understanding in the world .. The improved prospects of UNESCO are due largely to its having exchanged the role of prophet for something more like that of postman That UNESCO is growing in stature while its parent body is still the token of hopes deferred is not due to any defects in the constitution of the United Nations, but simply to the fact that the same consciousness of common interest between the nations does not exist in polities as in culture-a truth which would no doubt emerge with fresh force if UNESCO were to undertake the useful task, suggested by Sir Ernest Barker this morning, of compiling an international political glossary."

Sir Ernest, in his letter, alluding to a suggestion of Bernard Shaw's that the British Government produce a dictionary of political terms, had stressed the need for such a venture on an international scale and mentioned UNESCO as the "natural organ" for executing the project, adding: "I cannot imagine a more useful task for UNESCO. It would be a natural complement to the series of international translations which I believe that UNESCO is planning."