teachers. Then the fire began to spread. Having mastered the mystery of reading and found that it was not, after all, as difficult as they had feared, the villagers were all set for the next stage. They decided to process their palm kernels in a communally owned oil press. With the profits they bought materials such as cement to build a cooperative consumers' shop. All the actual build

ing was done on a volunteer basis, and so was the collecting of local materials such as poles, clay, sand, etc. Their next effort was a reading room to replace the temporary structure where they had learned to read. Then followed a small maternity center. All this took six months and was carried out by a community of some two thousand people.

"Within eighteen months the bush fire had spread to 30 surrounding villages, and six months later to 40. Most of them began with an adult literacy class, following that up with communal development. This took various forms according to the needs and ideas of each village. The projects included village schools, dispensaries, cooperative shops, maternity homes, reading rooms, village halls, and water tanks. In all these projects there were two dominant features. One was the unanimity with which the whole village joined in the work. The other was the voluntary labor given by all members of the community-men, women, and children.

"This volunteer work was particularly striking in the road-making projects. Ten villages made motor roads from their villages to the nearest main roads so that cars and lorries could reach their cooperative shops, dispensaries, and maternity homes. These roads varied from three to ten miles in length. Some bridged rivers, others cut through hills. Their making took from 5 thousand to 23 thousand man days of free labor.

"Udi, where the bush fire started, is now a name to conjure with in Africa. Perhaps in another broadcast we can explore further the secret of its success-why the bush caught fire."

UNESCO Plans Science Exhibition

Mrs. Christina Buechner of Boston has accepted a two months' assignment at UNESCO House in Paris to work on a proposed traveling exhibition on the popularization of science for Latin America. She will prepare a detailed report on the setting up of such an exhibition, which, it is contemplated, will consist of about 12 separate exhibits on the fundamental principles of science,

engineering, medicine, and related subjects. The exhibition will be loaned to scientific and educational centers in Latin America.

Mrs. Buechner is executive secretary of the Committee on Inter-American Scientific Publication, American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

NBC Official Aids UNESCO
In Mass Communications

Miss Judith Waller of the National Broadcasting Company attended an educational radio conference called by UNESCO in Paris during the last week in June. She was one of several U.S. authorities in the field of mass communications invited by UNESCO to advise on its program for the coming year.

Miss Waller

Miss Waller, a pioneer in educational broadcasting, is director of public services in the Middle West for the NBC. In 1942 she was a major figure in the launching of the first NBC-Northwestern University Summer Radio Institute, organized for the purpose of training replacements for men and women whom the war had called out of professional radio. Since the war the Institute has continued on the graduate level, specializing in advanced training of people, who, for the most part, have had much professional radio experience. Mt. Holyoke Holds U.N. Institute

Mount Holyoke College's second Institute on the United Nations opened on the college campus on June 26 and will continue through July 23. Combining with Mount Holyoke in sponsoring the Institute are neighboring colleges, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and other organizations and individals concerned about present tensions in world affairs.

Among the speakers scheduled for the various sessions is Erwin D. Canham, editor of the Christian Science Monitor and member of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO.

UNESCO Now Has 46 Member Nations

Switzerland and Siam have become full members of UNESCO according to an announcement from UNESCO in Paris, bringing the total membership to 46 nations. Ceylon has applied for membership, and a decision on this application will be taken at the Third General Conference of UNESCO. in Paris next September.

MUSEUMS, PUBLIC INFORMATION
DIRECTORS NAMED BY UNESCO

Two recent high-ranking appointments to the UNESCO Secretariat in Paris are those of J.K. van der Haagen of the Netherlands, who will head the Museums Section, and Carlo a Prato of Italy, who will direct the Bureau of Public Information.

Mr. van der Haagen, formerly with the Dutch Ministry of Education, succeeds Miss Grace Moreley in administering the Museums Section. Following his appointment he visited the United States for several weeks to confer with museums directors, members of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, and others in New York, Washington, Cleveland, and Chicago. During his stay, Francis Henry Taylor, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, gave a dinner in his honor, which was attended by 28 persons, including Chauncey Hamlin, president of the International Council of Museums, Ralph Beals, director of the New York Public Library, directors of other museums in the New York area, representatives of foundations, and Effingham P. Humphrey, Jr., member of the UNESCO Relations Staff.

Mr. a Prato, an early and energetic opponent of Fascism and Nazism and a distinguished journalist, helped to produce some of France's early underground newspapers during World War II. In 1941 he came to the U.S. to help create a national committee for Italian liberation, and the following year he became head of the Italian Section of the Voice of America. During his stay here he founded the monthly review, Free World.

Stanford Holds Model U.N. Assembly

A model United Nations Assembly was staged on the campus of Stanford University in the late spring under the sponsorship of the Institute of International Relations, a Stanford student organization. Student observers attended from the Universities of California and San Francisco, Mills College, University of Santa Clara, Menlo College, and Martin and San Mateo Junior Colleges.

An international note was introduced by the foreign students at Stanford, who, wearing native costumes, served as advisers to the "delegations." Consular officials in San Francisco attended as observers.

UNESCO Given Recognition

By Colorado State Government

Lawrence Martin, associate editor of the Denver Post and chairman of the Colorado Council for UNESCO, in a letter to Milton S. Eisenhower, Chairman of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, urges that UNESCO be made real to every American, "from the first grade on up the age line." He adds:

"Here in Colorado, we intend if we can, to see that everybody knows about UNESCO. We shall spend little time talking to people who do know, and a great deal talking to people who don't . . . . We have no state appropriation, and no political tieups. But we do have relatively the same position in the state, through official action [a recent act passed by the Colorado legislature and signed by the governor], that the National Commission has in the nation. We are so impressed with our opportunity here to help build the peaceful world community from the bottom up that our faith and our effort will go towards enlisting as many common people as possible, not in an organization for UNESCO necessarily, but in knowledge, understanding and active support of UNESCO's aims.

"Let the top men squabble and the vetoes obstruct; let us, on the lower level go patiently forward building peace through the people-through UNESCO and U.N. It will be slow, but it will be It will eventually be community, not just a a union of governments."

sure.

California Education Expert
Completes UNESCO Assignment

James I. Quillen, professor at the Stanford University School of Education, recently returned from UNESCO House in Paris, where, for the past year, he headed a world-wide UNESCO project aimed at improvement of teaching materials for international understanding. During his connection with the UNESCO Secretariat, Mr. Quillen prepared a model plan for the analysis and improvement of textbooks and for a common study of their own textbooks by UNESCO member states. He also prepared a handbook for the improvement of textbooks and teaching materials.

Mr. Quillen cites as one of the great needs of the United Nations and its specialized agencies. the procurement of well-trained individuals with suitable foreign-language background for work in the international field.

U. K.'S UNESCO COMMISSION
IS STILL TOO "OFFICIAL,"
SAYS MANCHESTER GUARDIAN

The broad and representative nature of the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO, as well as its activities, aroused the interest of representatives of other countries at both the Mexico City and Beirut General Conferences. There was general approval of the U.S. Commission's contention that the hope of UNESCO lies in citizen and community participation in its programs. It also was recognized that many commissions were heavily weighted with Government representatives and did not, as in the U.S., represent many national organizations and citizen interests.

Although the United Kingdom has moved to broaden its cooperating body, already more representative than many others, the following excerpt from an editorial in the Manchester Guardian is interesting in its relation to this situation:

"Mr. Hardman 1 was at his best in the Commons on Friday in his speech on UNESCO. The organization has been at work for less than three years; in its scientific section and in the field of reconstruction it has done some fine work; elsewhere it has sometimes stumbled, and here Mr. Hardman showed himself an acute and reasonable advocate in replying to the critics. Translators may turn a sensible resolution in Spanish into something very odd in English; and, again, the British delegation has only one vote at plenary sessions of the annual conference, and must abide by majority decisions. Mr. Hardman admitted that he had himself found it hard to find out what UNESCO and other United Nations specialized agencies were doing, and hoped for an improvement in the information services and a move to eliminate overlapping. He was less convincing when he replied to criticisms that the Ministry of Education has too tight a hold of the British wing of UNESCO. Of course it has. The whole composition of the United Kingdom committee needs reconsidering. Is it reasonable to ask the Minister, on top of all his other duties, to act as chairman? If it is, ought

1D. R. Hardman, Parliamentary Secretary to the British Ministry of Education, headed the United Kingdom's delegation to the Third General Conference of UNESCO in Beirut, 1948.

As a special feature of the "Youth Festival," staged by Washington students during the April meeting of the Pacific Northwest Conference on UNESCO in Seattle, four students of Roosevelt High School present a Czech dance.

his Parliamentary Secretary, his Permanent Secretary, and his Welsh Secretary also to be there in a body of only twenty-one? Need the chairmen of the Arts Council and the British Council be present at this top level? At present the committee has an excessively official complexion, and far too little is heard of its meetings and policy decisions. The membership of the various cooperating bodies is more varied but also open to criticism. Who chose these good people? Are they supposed to speak in their own rights or as delegates? An early step towards putting an end to 'ill-informed, inaccurate criticisms' of UNESCO should be to abolish the atmosphere of secrecy and officialdom and let the general public into the council chamber."

Torres Bodet Addresses U.K. Commission

Dr. Jaime Torres Bodet, Director General of UNESCO, was guest of honor at the first public meeting of the recently established United Kingdom National Commission for UNESCO, which was held in London on April 11. In commenting on his visit, a special article in the London Times Educational Supplement says of Dr. Torres Bodet: "This Mexican missionary is in a hurry to prove that UNESCO can mean something to the common man, and in that endeavor he deserves the backing of a country which has done as much for that citizen, educationally and otherwise, as any other in the world."

U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1949