Page 2. DECEMBER 1952

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FROM THE UNESCO NEWS ROOM

* France : A new type of mobiletheatre is to give performances in thewar-devastated Normandy area, whereso many theatres were destroyed. Themobile unit was designed by theatredirector Paul Douai.

* Lebanon : An international com-mission, created in Beirut for thetranslation of masterpieces of Arabliterature, has just published one ofthe most important books of Al-Gha-zali in French, English and Spanish.This book, 0 Disciple, is one of theoutstanding works of the famousMoslem mystic, whose great inftuenceon the philosophy and theology ofIslam remains after eight centuries.Two other classics of Arab literaturehave appeared in the same Unesco-sponsored collection : The Book of theDirectives and Remarks, by Avicenna,and The Book of the Misers, by AIDjahiz.

* Brazil : One hundred fellowshipstudents have arrived in Rio de Ja-neiro from 20 Latin American countriesto participate in a nine-month courseon vocational training. The coursewas organized by the Brazilian Gov-ernment in agreement with theUnited Nations. Also from Brazilcomes word that the InternationalLabour Organization has sent in ascore of specialists to help in thegovernment's technical training pro-gramme.

* Peru : A wide campaign againstilliteracy soon will begin in thePeruvian countryside, following therecent creation by the governmentof a rural education departmentEducational missions will teach ruraldwellers how to read and write, andwill also help try to organize a better

use of natural resources.

* Gold Coast : Blind people in theGold Coast may soon have their firstvocational training school in Accra.The new school is to start with 25trainees who will be taught suchhandicraft as basket-making, weavingand rope-making. A workshop willbe opened later to provide employmentfor the school's graduate students.

* Unesco : A regional conference forthe extension of free and compulsoryeducation in South Asia and thePacific region will be hald in Bombay,under Unesco auspices from December12 to 23. About forty experts fromthirteen countries are expected toattend. Delegates will have on handthe results of special Unesco enquirieson primary education now beingundertaken in eight countries of thearea.

* Austria : To stimulate theexchange of letters between schoolchildren of different countries, theAustrian government has issued aspecial stamp to be used only on schoolcorrespondence.

* Burma : A Unesco seminar inRangoon on the Education of Youthfor Living in a World Community wasattented by youth leaders from 13nations in South Asia and the SouthPacific. Four Member States ofUnesco, administrating territories inthat region-France, the Netherlands,the U. K. and the U. S.-also tookpart. The aim of the seminar wasto encourage the participation ofyouth in the improV'ement of commun-ity life at all levels-local, nationaland international.

* Unesco : The influence of technicalchanges on the traditional juridicaland social structures of countries inthe Near and Middle East was studiedat a Symposium in Athens held underUnesco auspices by the Greek Societyfor International Studies. Socialscientists from the Near and MiddleEast countries studied the effects oftechnical progress in these regionsduring the past 20 years. Members ofthe Greek National Commission forUnesco and regional representatives ofUnited Nations Specialized Agenciesattended the symposium.

* International : Ten European na-tions have selected a site near Genevafor a great nuclear research laboratory,which is to house what may be themost powerful atom-smashing cosmo-tron in the world-a huge acceleratorthat will be rated at thirty thousandmillion electron volts. There willalso be a synchro-cyclotron with arating of six hundred million electronvolts. The laboratory will take aboutseven years to build and equip, andwill cost the participating countriesan annual total of almost $4, 000, 000.It is to be used exclusively for purescientific research. Results will besupplied freely to all member-nationsof the European Council for AtomicResearch, an organization foundedrecently with the help of Unesco.

* Belgium : A large-scale exhibitiondesigned to show that art shouldmake its impact on everyday life, andnot simply be cloistered in museumsand art galleries, has been held inBrussels. Entitled"Monumental Artin Public and Industrial Premises",the exhibition used examples ranging

from factories to bridges, and fromprivate homes to post offices. It alsoshowed that architects, painters andsculptors can and should collaboratein bringing works of art before thepublic, and in helping to revive suchbranches of art production as themaking of stained glass windows,ceramics and tapestries.

* Unesco : Unesco Gift Coupons areto be promoted throughout Australiaby the Australian Association for theUnited Nations. Unesco already hassupplied the Association with a list ofthe needs of educational institutionsin nine countries. Australia thusbecomes the seventh donor country toparticipate in the Unesco scheme thatenables voluntary groups to sendcoupons abroad to institutions needinghelp. These coupons are a form ofinternational currency. With them,the recipients order required equip-ment from suppliers, who later arereimbursed in their own currencies byUnesco.

* International : United NationsAssociations in Cuba and Japan haveorganized a scheme for an artistic andcultural exchange between primaryand secondary schoolchildren in thetwo countries. To start off thescheme, between 200 and 300 drawingsare being sent by Japan to Cuba, forpublic display and later distributionamong individual children. Later,Cuba will send a similar exhibition to

UNESCO'S SEVENTH

GENERAL CONFERENCE

UNESCO'S seventh General Conler-ence opened in Paris on No-vember 12, and is due to con-

clude about December 10. It willdiscuss Unesco's programme and bud-get for 1953 and 1954. On theopening day, Sir Sarvepalli Radha-krishnan, Vice-President 01 India, waselected president on the Conference.Philosopher, theologian, statesmanand diplomat, he has heoded hiscountry's delegation to every one 01Unesco's General Conlerences, andwas a member 01 the Executive Board01 Unesco Irom 1946 to 1951. Thepresident 01 last year's Conlerence,Mr. Howland H. Sargeant, UnitedStates Assistant Secretary 01 State,opened the Conference in Iront 01 therepresentatives 01 58 01 Unesco'sMember States as well as observersfrom many international and inter-governmental organizations. Speakerson the opening day included represen-natives of the United Nations, theWorld Health Organization, the Orga-nization 01 American States, and theCouncil 01 Europe. This issue or theCourier goes to press as the Confer-ence is beginning its meetings, andfurther details of its work will bepublished next month.

Tokio. The organizers hope that thescheme will also lead to a greateramount of"pen-friend"correspond-ence between children of the twocountries.

* India : Villagers in the Indian Stateof Uttar Pradesh have surpluses offruits and vegetables at harvest time,shortages during the rest of the year.Dr. Garbasins Weber, of the UnitedNations Food and Agriculture Or-ganization, is to advise the State howit might best adapt the traditionalIndian earthenware jar for foodpreserving purposes. The goal ofthis experiment is to help raise nutri-tion standards among the 60, 000, 000people in what is India's largest State.

* The Netherlands : An exhibition onman's technical and cultural progressthroughout the centuries has beenopened at the Delft Prinsenhof Mu-seum. Organized boy the Delft StudentSociety, the exhibition displayed man'smost primitive agricultural imple-ments along with very modern ones.The world's cultural development wasillustrated, among other things, bythe fight for social justice undertakenby such world figures as Pope Leo III,Pestalozzi and President Lincoln.Present day efforts to promote worldpeace were represented by publica-tions about the United Nations andUnesco.

* Unesco : Forty-five museum expertsand educators from 25 European,Asiatic and American countries met inBrooklyn, New York, at a Unesco-sponsored international seminar toseek effective methods of co-operationbetween museums and schools, espe-cially in the art, science and history.Delegates recommended that practicalcourses in museum work oug'ht to begiven at teachers'training colleges.Other recommendations included esta-blishing international mobile museum

units, more travelling exhibitions, in-ternational exchanges of staff, andthe creation of fellowships.

* Turkey : About $15, 000 worth ofUnesco Book Coupons have been soldto institutions and individuals inTurkey since this country joined theBook Coupon Scheme just over a yearago. Coupons, which are sold throughthe Turkish National Library in An-kara, have been used to buy books andperiodicals on education, science, artand other cultural subjects in hardcurrency countries such as the UnitedStates and Switzerland. Purchasesmade in this way are not subject tothe usual currency restrictions.

* Unesco : Two more countries,the Philippines and Cuba have ra-tified the Unesco-sponsored interna-tional agreement abolishing importduties on a wide range of educational,scientific and cultural materials. Theagreement, which came into forcelast May, has now been ratified by 11other nations-Cambodia, Ceylon,Egypt, Israel, Laos, Monaco, Pakistan,Sweden, Thailand, Vietnam and Yu-goslavia. Eighteen other governmentshave signed it, but have yet to ratify.

* International : A world-wide radiocommemoration of the Declaration ofthe Rights of the Child will be heldon December 18, anniversary of thedeath of Eglantyne Jebb, author ofthis Declaration. The commemorationwill be sponsored by the InternationalUnion for Child Welfare, following adecision by delegates, representing36 nations, who met in Zurich,Switzerland.

* Indonesia : Eight Indonesian en-gineering students are to receive six-year scholarships in Sweden offered bythe National Union of SwedishStudents, which will pay all tuitionexpenses. After studying the country'slanguage and resources, the Indonesianstudents will be apprenticed for somemonths in an industrial works andwill later study physics, chemistry ormechanics at the Royal TechnologicalInstitute.

* Venezuela : Encouraged by thesuccess of its travelling teacher planto combat illit'eracy, Venezuela isto provide more teachers so that even-ing classes can be increased, and anumber of new centres opened. TheMinistry of Education is also to inau-gurate a special office for the anti-illiteracy campaign.

* Pakistan : Canada is helping Pakis-tan to make an extensive aerial sur-vey of the country's natural resourcesas a Canadian contribution under theColombo Plan. The techniques to beused will be similar to those alreadyutilized successfully and on a largescale in Canada itself. Geographicaland geological mapping will be doneby Canadians from aerial photographs,and will provide Pakistan with aninventory of her latent resourcescontained in an area of 123, 000 squaremiles. The inventory is designed tohelp the country plan its economic de-velopment, and especially its futureirrigation and hydro-electric schemes.

* International : A hundred teachersin Britain, and a similar numberin the United States, have taken overeach other's posts under an interna-tional teachers'exchange scheme. Nowin its seventh year, this programmehas made possible the exchange of1, 426 teachers between the UnitedStates and other countries.

* Belgium : Belgian authorities havegranted free postage for all Braillepublications for the blind postedwithin the country or sent abroad.This decision follows recent changesin the Universal Postal Conventionmade on Unesco's recommendation.

* Israel : The first demonstrationand teaching centre on the building ofhouses from packed earth is to beestablished in Israel, following anagreement between the Israeli govern-ment and the United Nations Tech-nical Assistance Administration. Thecentre will conduct research on howpacked earth houses might be used inthe arid and semi-arid regions ofvarious countries. The United Nationswill provide technicians, laboratoryequipment and machinery.

* International : Since 1950, Novem-bèr 8 has been celebrated in manyparts of the world as Town andCountry Planning Day. Last year, forexample, it was observed in twentycountries. The aim of this commemo-ration, which was initiated by theTown Planning Institute of BuenosAires, is to bring together in a com-mon effort, town and country planners,technicians and all those who are con-cerned with improving the living con-ditions of people everywhere. Reportson this year's celebration emphasise theimportance given to projects aimed atimproving social life in rural areas andof providing amenities to put thecountryside on the same level as urbanareas. In France, such discussions be-tween engineers, administrators,mayors and Prefects took place atParis University.

UNESC :,

DECEMBER 1952. Page 3

U. N. Photo.

TEACHING WORLD UNDERSTANDING

IN THE GEOGRAPHY CLASS

CC fN what way can geography teaching helpfoster better international understand-ing ?" In the past few years Unesco has

provided a number of replies and clarifications tothis question. In 1950, Unesco called an interna-tional seminar on the subject at Montreal andpublished a small volume entitled Some Sug-gestions on the Teaching of Geography (1). Now,as a complement to this booklet, it has broughtout a Handbook of Suggestions on the Teachingor Geography (2) which embodies the main con-clusions and suggestions of those who took partin the seminar.

I think that it would be worth while toreturn to this subject for it seems to me thatneither the authors of the first booklet (of whomI was one), nor the members of the seminar (inwhich I also participated), nor even the authorof the second booklet, have sufficiently stressedthe tremendous possibilities for the developmentof world-mindedness which geography offers.Nor have they. I feel, laid sufficient emphasis onthe serious difficulties which teachers are likelyto meet in encouraging an attitude of mindfavourable to better international understandingamong their pupils.

But first let us try to reach a clear definitionof the fundamentals involved : What do we meanby education for better international under-standing and what, exactly, do we mean bygeography ?

First of all, one thing that education for inter-national understanding should not be is just ahigh-sounding, vague phrase. For it is onlywhen we understand exactly what we are tryingto achieve through such teaching that we candetermine with any degree of precision or claritywhat methods to use. The definition that I propose is one that Iformulated with my study group at the recentUnesco seminar in the Netherlands on teachingabout Human Rights.

The definition, as formulated by the group, was :(1) Give youth an understanding of the past

and present-day life of peoples in other countries- their traditions, their chief characteristics,their problems and the solutions they have foundfor them.

(2) Make youth conscious of the contribution ofeach nation to the common heritage of humanity :technology, science, arts, literature. Civilizationis a vast network of reciprocal debts betweennations.

(3) Make youth conscious of the fact that, ifthe world remains dangerously divided as far asinterests and passions of political origin areconcerned, its solidarity in the fields of

(1) Out o {wins.(2) Price : $0. ì5 ; 4/- ; 200 francs.

\ by Louis FRANÇOIS

Inspector General of Public Education in France,Secretary General of the French National

Commission for Unesco.

economics, science, techniques and culture isnevertheless becoming daily more evident, andthat a deep desire for peace exists in all peoples.The organization of the world on an internationalbasis is not only possible, but has become anecessity. It is a question of making the differentcitizens conscious of their future responsibilitiestowards this international organization, andtowards world peace.

(4) Make youth conscious of the fact that thenations must work together in internationalorganizations for the common good, and mustfind ways of collaborating even if they areseparated by different ideologies. The worldcannot be uniform, but the different nations mustunite to maintain peace.

(5) Organize schools and universities so thatthey are able to initiate children and youth in alltheir future social responsibilities from a material,as well as from a moral and intellectual point ofview, and in the idea of liberty through self-discipline. Youth can serve this same appren-ticeship in the various youth movements. It ispersonal experience which will make youthconscious of their duty both as citizens of theirown country and as citizens of the world.

To this definition, however, must be added adouble word of caution :

(a) Education for living in a world communityis merely the complement and the development ofliving in a national community.

(b) To understand is not always to accept ; itis sometimes to censure, even to show oppositionand resistance when certain great higherprinciples such as liberty, justice and solidarityare in danger of being destroyed or of disap-pearing.

Geography consists in locating, describing, ex-plaining and comparing scenery and humanactivities on the face of the globe. This defini-tion may appear rather sweeping with regard tohuman activities. Do painting and philosophy,for example, come within the scope of geography ?Here we should perhaps give a more preciseexplanation.

We mean human activies insofar as theyare directly affected by natural conditions andinsofar as they exercise a direct influence on theappearance of the world's landscape. Thus, theMoslem religion is of interest to the geographer,but not in its complicated doctrines nor in theliterary and artistic works it has inspired. Thegeographer is concerned with its essential ele-

ments ; first because it reflects an image of thedesert and semi-desert world from which itsprang and in which it expanded ; second becauseit has inspired original ways of life ; third becauseMoslem cities with their houses crowded aroundtheir mosques have given the landscape an ap-pearance distinctly different from that ofEuropean cities dominated by their churches.

Geography, then, is a natural science, but evenmore is a human science. These two aspectscannot be separated because nature directlyaffects man's mode of living and because manexercises a limited or complex action on naturewhich varies in degree with time and place. Thepattern of human existence on the earth's surfaceis thus one of the basic concerns of the geo-grapher.

Every society has its individual traits andsometimes even exceptional characteristics causedby different factors. It is up to the geographerto emphasise them for the very destiny of manspeaks for his greatness and explains the flower-ing of civilizations. But like every science,geography seeks to generalise and to find acommon measure for natural and human factorsby means of appropriate explanations and com-parisons.

The mode of life of the Tibetan people, forexample, permits many picturesque descriptionswith which any teacher may let himself becarried away and by means of which he maystrongly impress his class. But the explanationfor this pattern of life is to be found in Tibet'shigh altitude, and the restrictions of mountainlife there are also found in other moutainousregions of the world. By the same token,Buddhist practices of Tibet are to be found inmany parts of China and South East Asia. Inthis way, the geographer succeeds in situatingpeople within the framework of humanist)'\ was awhole, and in fitting them into one vast andcommon undertaking. And this applies even tothose people who live at an altitude of 16, 000 feeton the"'roof"of the world.

If geography is a science, it must also be anart. It does more than list facts and explainthem ; it ingeniously assembles ideas and showstheir relationships, especially through description !of countries and their inhabitants. To"'put over"his subject in such a way that people will reallprofit from reading his work or listening to himthe geographer must possess a mastery both ofcomposition and of style.

Let us take as an example Holland's polderswhich are tracts of low-lying land reclaimed fro : rthe sea. First of all, the geographer describefthese"low countries"justas they were painted by Ruys- (Connnueddaël and van Goyen ; peaceful, on next page)

COURIER

Page 4. DECEMBER 1952 UNESCO

GEOGRAPHY AND INTERNATIONAL UNDERSTANDING

(Continued from distant landscapes studdedprevious page) with windmills and churchtowers and overshadowed bymountainous, turbulent clouds. He depicts thedyke walls and, running alongside them, the greenwaters of the canals, the meadows on whoselush grass herds of black and white cows graze,the multicoloured fields of flowers around Haar-lem and the chess-board pattern of the marketgardens near Amsterdam. He takes his studentsinside the towns criss-crossed by canals, into thepeaceful, prosperous and bourgeois Venices of thenorth. Through his description he tries to interesthis class in the country, to arouse in them afriendliness and admiration for Holland.

MAN'S PACIFIC CONQUEST

THEN he goes on to explain how, through anunceasing fight, polders have been wrestedfrom the brutal grasp of sea and river waters,how thousands of acres have been put tocultivation, and entire provinces have beencreated even though the land lies below sea-level.

Finally, the geographer draws comparisonsbetween the Dutch polders, those of Belgium andFrance and the German marschen. He showshow men of many countries are heroes in acommon effort of conquest-a pacific conquestwaged solely for the benefit of man, for hisprogress and for his happiness.

In these areas, war has always brought abouta brutal step backwards to conditions of centuriespast ; the dykes have been blown up ; the lockshave been destroyed, and the sea has once againinvaded land that men had won back patientlyand progressively. Is not this the sort of expla-nation likely to inspire a better understandingand a greater affection for the Dutch people, toshow the benefits of peace and the follies of war ?And is it not also a real lesson in geography ?

There is no need to distort geography in orderto make it contribute to international under-standing. If it is taught thoroughly, intelligentlyand honestly, the result will be obtained quitenaturally.

Geography will be taught thoroughly if theteacher explains the principal characteristicsand features of a country or of a geographicalphenomenon, always bearing in mind that hemust locate, describe, explain and compare agiven geographical situation It will be tho-roughly taught especially if the teacher explainseverything that the children of his class arecapable of understanding and assimilating.

Geography intelligently taught makes use ofvarious scientific facts so as to build them intoa coherent whole ; it must on the basis ofscientific facts become an art.

This transition from science to art requiresskill, flexibility and sureness of touch. Geographyteaching must never be sterotyped, but must varyin both method and approach. In short, it mustcombine the initiative and improvisation of thecreative mind with the logic and sense of propor-tion necessary in evolving a synthesis.

Geography is honest insofar as it is completeand establishes true relations between variousfacts, insofar as it strives for objectivity andseeks after the truth, and insofar as it repudiatessensationalism and political propaganda.

Is this, however, an over-simplification ? Itmay be argued that, however skilfully it is done,geography teaching is aimed primarily at thepupil's intelligence, and that while it may verywell produce a complete intellectual knowledgeof the country under study, this in itself is notsufficient to create a desire for co-operationbetween peoples. For is not a spy supposed tohave the best geographical knowledge of thecountry against which he is operating ? There-fore, we should not only appeal to the intelligenceof young people, but also to their willingness andfeelings.

A determined and tenacious will is most oftenproduced by a clear understanding of things.Intelligence is still the best, the most powerfuldriving force of true will power. So all geo-

graphical studies should include recognition ofthe following facts :

(1) In order to live and raise their livingstandards, men must either fight nature or workwith it. Naturally conditions vary according todifferent regions, but the experience and theefforts are common to all, and all men benefitfrom these efforts to some extent.

(2) No nation, even under conditions offreedom and peace, is self-sufficient. All haveneed of one another to live and prosper.

(3) Thanks to scientific and technical develop-ments, and to the progress of communication andtransport, the earth has so shrunk that it is nowpossible to conceive as a not too distant realitya world economic and political organizationwhich would be of benefit to all.

The emotional response of children can bebrought into action by a form of teaching thatis concrete, alive and active. Verbal anddidactic teaching which only crams names andfacts into young minds and buries the spon-taneous enthusiams of youth under a ponderousweight of knowledge must be abandoned. Youngpeople must learn to discover the natural beautiesand the worthy achievements of their owncountry as well as those of other countries whichare sometimes even more creditable.

I remember a class of boys aged between 13and 14 to whom a young student teacher hadgiven a lesson on Yugoslavia.

Towards the end of the lesson I had arrangedfor some slides to be shown ; the pupils weregrouped in teams, and asked to identify theregion or city projected on the screen. As Ishowed the first, I said :"At the upper left cornerof the slide is a monument which should helpyou to name the city."While the boys discussedthe photo among themselves, I asked the studentteacher if he had found the answer. He shookhis head and said'''No.''But very quickly eachteam gave me the following report :"In the upperleft corner of the photo is a Gothic church ; Gothicstyle usually signifies a Roman Catholic church ;the photo then shows a large town in the predo-minatingly Catholic area of Yugoslavia ; the townin question is Zagreb, capital of Croatia."I wentover to the young teacher and pointed out to himthat teaching should be less concerned withcramming home facts than with helping thepupils to discover these facts for themselves.

I should like to stress the enormous interestthat geography arouses in the young people ofthe world today, and the difficulties which facethe teacher of geography because of this. Thecuriosity of young people about the world isconstantly being aroused by the newspapers andmagazines specially published for them andillustrated with magnificent photographs. Theircuriosity is aroused by the radio and televisionwhich they listen to and watch as often as, ifnot more often than, their parents. Throughthese modern media of information the worldthrongs into the minds and imagination of theyoung ; their memories become filled with notionsthat are often confused and false, but sometimes,too, extremely clear and exact.

This formidable competition must be takeninto consideration by the teacher.

No longer do children obtain all their know-ledge from their teachers or their textbooks.Their interest in geography centres on theliving and up-to-date picture of the worldthat it brings them. If they realize that theirteacher is not aware of recent discoveries or thelatest changes in economic or human affairs, theteacher loses his prestige and geography itsfascination.

Today pupils may be better informed thantheir teacher and so discover that his knowledgeis out of date. There are some teachers who donot know, for example, that Canada hasbecome a great industrial and commercialpower, who have never heard of the extensiveirrigation works already completed or beingexecuted in North Africa, who are unaware ofthe recent upheavals in the geography of oil.

Geography teachers must therefore aim ata form of teaching that is both concrete and

alive, making as much use as possible of photo-graphs and even occasionally of films. Theymust keep themselves constantly up-to-date,especially through books and periodicals with thesudden changes so common in the modern world.

Finally, we come up against the most seriousobjection. Can one really advocate teaching whichstrives to develop international understanding ina world where passions and hatreds engenderedby the Second World War are still fresh in manyminds and where new hatreds are growing ; in aworld split into two camps and resounding withabuse and even the clash of arms ? Even if weagree that this kind of teaching is to be desired,in what way can it be achieved, and how cansome of the difficulties be overcome ? What cana French teacher who may have been torturedand deported say about the Germans ? Whatcan an American teacher say about Russia or aRussian teacher about the United States ?

When emotions are unleashed, a thinkingperson worthy of the name tries to rise above theconflict and to reach as informed and reasonedan opinion as possible. When the personconcerned is a geography teacher entrusted withthe task of describing and explaining a worldrent by passions and factions, his duty is to givehis teaching as objective a character as possible.

Objective teaching is patterned on its subjectmatter. It is not vitiated with subjective prefer-ences of a personal, social, political or nationalcharacter. Because its aim is truth it eschewsall propaganda and is as complete as possible,for propaganda tends to deform facts.

It takes the form neither of a panegyric nor anindictment, neither of praise nor of systematiccriticism. It recognizes the many diversitiesthat exist in the great and common enter-prise of mankind, because not all peoples liveunder the same geographical conditions nor havethey attained the same stage of historical deve-lopment. Geography also remains apart frompolitics. It is the facts supplied by the geo-grapher which are selected and used to developpolitical systems and to justify their aims.

CLEAR VIEW OF REALITIES

*T'0 recognize the speed of recent economicprogress in the U. S. S. R., which has immensereserves of manpower and resources, doesnot constitute a defence of Communism. Itis merely a simple and objective expression of ageographical fact which is explained by themanifold possibilities of a natural environmentand the co-ordinated activity of men. Nor is itan expression of anti-Communist sentiment tospeak of the difficulties of communicating andtrading with the U. S. S. R. and neighbouringcountries which have the same political andsocial systems. It is again to state a geographicalfact which hurts the common effort of mankind.

There is no praise implied in recognising thatGermany has become a great economic power inthe 20th century. Rather it is, once again,a simply and objectively stated historic factwhich is due to the progressive unification ofGermany, the country's rich coal deposits and thehard-working and dogged qualities of theGerman people. Nor is it criticism of Germanyto describe the periodical outbreaks of impe-rialism-the Drang nach Osten and the Drangnach Westen. To do so is simply. to state factswhich are explained by the absence of naturalfrontiers and the racial overlapping of Easternand Central Europe.

Today it is more vital than ever to separateteaching from political or national passions andprejudices, and to promote a spirit of toleranceand of mutual understanding, not founded onblissful pacifism or timid resignation, but on aclear-sighted view of present day realities and onthe will to contribute something, however small,to the achievement of world peace. For thegeography teacher needs a clear vision of hisresponsibilities both towards his subject and hisaudience-the young people who must go outinto the world imbued with courage and the willto peace.

DENMARK'S FIRST SPEEDBOAT

LIBRARY FOR ISOLATED READERS

Fishermen and farm workers on the many small islands lying off thecoast of the Southern Danish province of Svendborg are now beingprovided with reading matter by the first water-borne library serviceto be organized in Denmark. The county library of Svendborg, likeall other Danish country libraries, supplies its rural branches by usingbookmobiles, but some of the smaller islands in the county havebeen deprived of this service because the lack of harbour facilitiesmakes it impossible to land these vehicles. The Svendborg CountyLibrary has overcome this problem by installing a library of 500 bookson a high-powered motor boat which has started to make regulartrips to these small islands. The service is warmly welcomed as wasshown by the results of the first trip made to three islands where fora total population of 230 people, 365 volumes-fiction, non-fiction andchildren's books-were borrowed. On every trip a trained librarianis on board to help and advise the library users. Svendborg's isolatedislanders now look forward eagerly to the arrival of the floating librarywhose services will also help them to pass the long winter evenings.

COURIER DECEMBER 1952. Page 5

All types of ocean-going vessels ranging from whalers to weatherships andfrom merchant ships to cable ships (above) have been adopted by schoolchildren

in five European countries. As soon as"their"ship docks at her home portthe children are eager to go aboard to meet their sailor friends. (Photo COI).

MY SCHOOL HAS'ADOPTED'A SHIP

ARRIVING at a port of call oneday, Captain Kelly, master ofthe merchant ship irish Cedar

found a letter addressed in a child-ish hand waiting for him. He open-ed it and read :

"Dear Captain Telly,

"My name is Patrick Smite, 1 ameleven years old and I am a boarderat Avoca School. There are 254 boysin the school, of whom 14 are board-ers.

"Please could you send me someinformation about your ship ? I knowthat it weighs 8, 000 tons and I haveread your messages. I have alsoseen its photo and I like it verymuch. You see I am very interestedin ships, the things they carry andwhat ports they are calling at.When you come back to Dublin 1should like to come on board.

"1 also hope that you will be gladto receive this and many otherletters."

The letter came as no surprise toCaptain Kelly, for he knew thatPatrick Smith and the other boys ofAvoca School at Blackrock, CountyDublin, had just"adopted"his ship.Like thousands of other children inWestern Europe and Scandinavia,these Irish boys go to one of theschools associated with a Ship

Adoption Society, through whichboys and girls are in constant touchwith the captains and crews ofhundreds of ships sailing in all partsof the world.

These Societies have already beenformed in five countries : Denmark,Great Britain, Holland, Ireland andNorway. The oldest and largest isthe British Ship Adoption Society,founded in 1936 after a successfulexperiment in 1934, when a Londonship-owning company allowed fourof its ships to be"adopted"by fourLondon schools.

In Britain today there are some1, 000 ships and over 800 schoolsassociated with the movement, andofficial recognition of the educa-tional value of the scheme is evidentin the number of educationalistsand ministry representatives servingon the committee of management.

In Norway, a similar orgazinationwas set up shortly before the warthrough the efforts of teachers'associations and shipping com-panies. Its work, interrupted by thewar, was resumed after Norway'sliberation, and 1946 saw the forma-tion of Norsk Skipsadopsjon (Norwe-gian Ship Adoption Society) towhich 370 schools are now affiliated.

The Dutch Ship Adoption Society,Nevas, which was also founded in1946, today has 200"adopted"ships.

Letters from children to their adopted ships are delivered in the Port of LondonThis London river postman is a member of a family which, for 150 years, has beendelivering all mail to crews of ships lying in the Pool of London. (Photo COI).

The president of the Netherlands Ship Adoption Society explains to a classthe history and voyages of the mail steamer"Merweda"-which the bcys andgirls have adopted-and presents them with a coloured painting of"their"ship.

The most recently formed, that ofIreland, began operating in 1948.

Liaison between ships and shoreis maintained chiefly by correspond-ence. A steady exchange of lettersbetween pupils and crews forms thebasis of a friendly and useful liaisonwhich adds life and zest to class-room lessons.

Descriptions of journeys, cargoes,ports of call and weather conditionsduring the trips open up new hori-zons for the children. True storiesand adventures lived and recountedby their friends transform.'justanother geography lesson"into awonderful journey into reality.

"We sighted the Azores one even-ing just before nightfall,"wroteCaptain A. R. Spearman, master ofthe British motor tanker Nicania."Their rugged peaks were silhouett-ed in the red rays of the settingsun. When they were first dis-covered back in the 14th centuryby the Genoese, they were uninha-bited. They now belong to Portugaland the people are mostly Portu-guese.

"The islands have a mild climatewith a high and steady rainfall.The soil is very fertile and three orfour crops a year can be produced.

Maize and beans are the principalcrops, others are wheat, millet andbarley. Sugar and beet are alsogrown, and fruit grows abundantly.-there are sweet potatoes, pine-apples, grapes, bananas and abricots.Tea, coffee, tobacco and flax arealso cultivated, and there are sugarand tobacco factories."

From such first-hand descriptionsas this, the chapter on the Azoresin the geography textbooks takes ona new interest. During the voyagewhich took him to the Bahamas, toFlorida, New Orleans and Curaçao,through the Panama Canal andacross the Pacific, Captain Spear-man sent accounts of what he saw- vivid pictures and instructive andpicturesque details which all helpedto enrich classroom lessons.

The children bombard their sea-faring friends with innumerablequestions : How long did the voyagelast ? Where do you go to refueland how much did it cost ? Thereplies are detailed and instructive.They teach the schoolchildren howsailors live and work at sea, thekinds of products.imported and (Continued onexportedbydiffer-next page)

Page 6. DECEMBER 1952 UNESCO

LESSONS BECOME A VOYAGE TO REALITY

Not all the stories ti1e children hear from their sailor correspondents have happy ending's. Sometimes they read of storms,typhoons, of ships being disabled or even wrecked. But such accounts only tend to bring them closer to the seamen

(Continued from ent countries,previous page) and the customsand habits ofpeoples in foreign lands.

Here, for example, is an extractfrom a letter sent by a member ofthe crew of the Lutterkerk to theboys and girls of a Dutch school :

"This time we have been makinga trip to the Persian Gulf. One ofour stops was Ashar which lies inIrak near Shatt-el-Arab, a riverwhich flows from the Euphrates intothe Tigris. I want to tell yousomething about Ashar which was,according to legend, the birthplaceof Sinbad the Sailor.

"From the harbour we had a clearview of the city, which is surroundedby date trees. They grow along theriver for several miles, and theirfruit is the outstanding export. The,first thing that strikes you about thecity is the cupola of the mosque.Two stern looking Arabs are sittingat the entrance. According toreligion custom, I must take off myshoes before entering, and I am sureto have a hole in my sock. Thebuilding is made of sandstone andthe cupola is decorated with mosaics- thousands of tiny multicolouredstones.

"'Outside the mosque is a busystreet, where mules pull heavy carts

filled with vegetables and dates.The women in the street are heavily

veiled and dressed in black-apractical garb offering protectionfrom the millions of flies which existhere even in winter."

The value of this exchange ofletters extends far beyond thegeography class. Details of shippingtransactions are used in economicscourses. Descriptions of feedingarrangements on board are usefulfor domestic science classes ; copiesof the engineer's logs can be used inthe mathematics period ; an articleon Palestine will illustrate a Biblelesson ; a letter on the growth of aport of a coastal town may providehistorical information.

Sometimes they provide materialfor a lesson on international co-operation. For instance, one captainwhose tanker visited Rotterdamwrote :

.'woe spent about four days at theloading berth, and during thistime I was able to go down to theHague and have a look over theInternational Court of Justice build-ing-the Dutch call it the PeacePalace. It really is a very lovélybuilding. Every country that isrepresented has contributed some-thing. England's gift was the lovelystained glass windows, Italy contri-

Schoolchildren in the Norwegian valley of Gudbrandsdalen received a lettercontaining a series of questions from the crew of the"Herva"which they haveadopted. In their reply, the children illustrated their answers to this friendlygeneral knowledge test with simple drawings and decorations (shown above).

buted marble from which they madethe floor-a marvellous bit of work,as it is composed of thousands ofinch-square blocks set into the mostintricate design. A Dutch painterdid the murals. Japan presented aset of beautiful tapestries, made asonly the Japanese can make them ;Burma contributed teak and maho-gany, and so it goes on. AnEnglishman was responsible for thelay-out of the gardens whichsurround the palace."

If the maximum benefits are tobe drawn from the ship adoptionscheme, teachers must play animportant role. They must linkfacts recounted in the letters withclassroom lessons, encourage chil-dren to use their initiative, andorganize all sorts of activities to helpbring children in touch with the lifeof their adopted ship.

Photographs of the ship arepinned on classroom walls togetherwith copies of telegrams giving herposition, notes on the types ofweather experienced, details of thecargos carried, and so on. Thechildren follow the ship's progresson a map of their own making,marking each stage of the voyagewith small nags.

The headmaster of one Irishschool is even arranging for a film-strip to be made of a typical voyageof one of the ships. This will bedistributed to schools for use duringgeography lessons. Many Irishschools have already seen theexcellent aims which an Irishshipping organization has made ofits growth and activities. Nearlyall exhibit in their libraries orreading rooms, books, magazines orcollections of photographs and post-cards which are souvenirs of a call"their"ship made in Sweden, Fin-

land, Canada, the United States orCuba.

The Irish Ship Adoption Societyhas close contacts with its Britishcounterpart, and from France it hasreceived posters and pictorial andinformative material sent to Irelandby two shipping companies.

In Norway, schools have receivedcollections of many strange objectsbrought back from voyages by theirfriends. These objects includeturtles from Africa, native spears andmusical instruments from Madagas-car, and shells and dried plantscoming from many latitudes.

The interest and activities stimu-lated in the schools by the exchangeof letters is unending. Some chil-dren make models of ships, or offarms, factories and plants described

by their sailor correspondents. Girlsare given an incentive to improvetheir needlework, for they send giftsto the crews at Christmas.

But the ship adoption system isnot a one-sided affair. Throughletters from the children, officersand crews are kept in a special wayin close contact with life at home,the sort of news they receive givingthem the impression of being closerin touch with daily life in theircountry. Parcels, books and papersthey receive help to break themonotony of a long voyage. Someschools edit"newspapers"illustratedwith amusing sketches, which theysend to their sailor friends.

The success of the system isshown by the long list of schoolswaiting for a ship which they canadopt. War losses, the slowness ofbuilding today, and the normaldepreciation and loss in shipping allmake it impossible to provide asufficient number of ships.

But the Ship Adoption Societiesare finding other ways of main-taining the children's interest. Pub-lications such as Our MerchantShips, Skolen og Skuta (Schools andShips) and t'Kraaiennest (TheCrow's Nest) which are put outrespectively by the British, Nor-wegian and Dutch Societies, re-produce the letters of children andsailors, and keep the schoolsinformed about the activities of themovement. Booklets on great portsof the world are to be published bythe British Ship Adoption Societywhich has already produced a bookentitled Seajarers, Ships andCargoes.

The adoptions are also proving aneffective aid to international under-standing. When the Norwegianmerchant ship Vistajjord called atTakoradi on the Gold Goast, it wasvisited by a group of English chil-dren. The captain explained thathis ship had been adopted by thechildren of the Alvdal Stor School atOsterdalen, Norway, and suggestedthat the English boys and girlsshould write to them.

About a week later the children atOsterdalen received a letter fromTakoradi accompanied by a col-lection of drawings and embroi-deries. The English children wrote :

"Dear girls and boys,"It is a great pleasure to send you

a collection of some of our work.Our friend, Captain Kristiansen, hastold us about you and how you workin your school high up in themountains. I expect you have towear sweaters and furs to keepwarm, while we try to keep cool bywearing cotton clothes. Our schoolis held on a verandah of a long, lowwooden building. We have sixteenpupils, six of whom are in thenursery department. Our ages rangefrom five to fourteen. Serious workin the heat is difficult, but we do ourbest, as most of us are going hometo the United Kingdom in the nearfuture.

"will you write to us and tell usabout your school ? Perhaps one daywe shall have the pleasure ofmeeting you. On another page ofour book you will find the names andUnited Kingdom address of the girlsand boys who would like to start apen-friendship. We should, how-ever, be delighted to receive a letterfrom you, here in Takoradi. Maywe wish you, your parents andteachers every happiness !'

The spirit which inspires the ShipAdoption Societies and useful pur-pose served by the movement arewell summed up in the words of oneof the organizers of the Irish ShipAdoption Society :

"While we wish to remain inde-pendent, we do not want to isolateourselves from the peoples of theworld with whom we wish to co-operate in the building of a happierand more prosperous world. Theinterest which hundreds of boys andgirls in some of our leading second-ary schools have for three yearsbeen showing in the ship adoptionscheme is also a small contributionof the Irish people towards thebuilding here of a greater under-standing of other peoples and theirproblems."

There is no reason why everycountry should not have its ShipAdoption Society. Educational au-thorities and ship-owners through-out the world can co-operate inthis truly modern venture to promoteeducation in the widest sense of theword.

COURIER DECEMBER 1952. Page 7

ON the quayside of Reykjavik, capital ofmodern Iceland, stands a Viking carved ingranite, stern-featured beneath his winged

helmet. With his back to the sea, he leans onthe shaft of his steering-oar, his stony gazefixed upon the rugged circle of black and purplevolcanoes dominating the bay. It is LeifurEriksson (Leif the Fortunate), who discoveredAmerica 500 years before Columbus andestablished a settlement in the snowy wastesof Labrador. Leif the Fortunate ranks not onlyas the first of history's great explorers but alsoas an early humorist, for, to attract colon-ists, he gave the pleasant name of"Vinne-land"-the country of wine-to Labrador. (Itwas a tradition begun by his father, Ericthe Red, who discovered and christened"Greenland".)

Everything about Iceland, incidentally, has asimilar stamp of fantasy-gay or tragic-and if there is any part of the world wherePuck, fleeing from conformity with its levellingeffect on scenery and customs which is a signof our times, may have found refuge, it mustsurely be here in Ultima Thule,'''the mostdistant land", where stood, according to theAncients, the gate of Hell.

Iceland is a country of paradoxes, of sharpgeographical and human contrast. Though itstill bears the misnomer it was given by a near-sighted ninth-century Norwegian, it is reallymuch more the island of flames than the islandof ice. Lying just below the Arctic circle, itsclimate is almost as temperate as that of Brit-tany, thanks to the Gulf Stream-a kindlysea-serpent, whose warm coils envelop it.Neither trees nor wheat will grow there, butconstant warm springs and geysers enabletropical fruits to be cultivated extensively underglass. Isolation in the cold, northern mists fora thousand years drove Iceland to offer gene-rous concessions in exchange for visits fromforeign ships ; today it is a vital link in the aircommunications of the whole northern hemi-sphere.

For most Europeans, there is still a spice ofadventure in the very name of Iceland, but thisis due more to the survival of legend than toactual facts. Reykjavik can now be reached aseasily'and quickly as many of the Westerncapitals-eight hours by air from London orAmsterdam, or four or five days by sea fromCopenhagen. The last port of call before thepolar wastes, Reykjavik is a city of 50, 000 peo-ple, a somewhat ill-assorted union between asmall Jutland community-neat little woodenhouses brightly painted in salmon pink, canary

yellow and green-and a typical American"mushroom"town)-square, reinforced concretewarehouses, a university and national theatreon strong, simple lines, and a crop of apartment-houses and bungalows with large windows,lining miles of streets which have no pavements.

What attracted me to the shores of Thule,however, was not this spectacle of a modernmetropolis within a stone's throw of the Pole,nor even the marvels of northern nature withits wild, awesome contrasts-the unendingglaciers and volcanoes in eruption, the lava fieldslike storm-tossed seas, the intermingling of thesun's blood-red and ochre colours by day, or thetwinkling lights of the Aurora Borealis by night.I was primarily fascinated, after a long stay inScandinavia, by the idea of retracing, as it were,the source of Nordic civilization in a land wherethe Viking world, with scarcely any alien inter-mixture, came to newer.

The population, incidentally, includes someCelts (Irish and Scots) but, to the detriment ofthe picturesque, not a single Eskimo.

The Vikings were not only bold seamen andfierce pirates ; they also gave the Westernworld the first example of a democratic par-liament, the Althing, which was established in930 AD by the oligarchy of the godords, theirclan chieftains.

Although it is relatively close to us in termsof history, the civilization of the wild Norsemenis so bound up with legend that its origins seemto be lost in the mists of time. But this is nottrue of Iceland, where the past is still regardedas a living continuity and never ceases to playits full part in daily life.

One day, with a chance acquaintance, I wentfor a drive in the"countryside"-a barren chaosof lava with, here and there, a small field ofpoor grass, a flock of sheep, a few wild ponies,and every ten miles or so a farm. I looked invain for the many hamlets whose names wereon my map. My friend soon explained thereason. The names were not those of villagesor farms ; they preserved the memory of achurch which had disappeared 500 years before,of a Viking village which had crumbled intodust, of an historical (or legendary) event. Ofthese buildings and events my companionspoke, pointing out some invisible spot on theinhospitable horizon with as much interest andknowledge as though he were describing somerecent episode. Iceland is not a"museum"ofancient Scandinavian life. The Viking heritageis here a very part of the people's daily exist-ence.

(Continued on age 10.)

Mn

1 1

1. r :

WHALEMEAT IS A FAVOURITE DISH Icelad's only whling station is situated inthe Fiord of Hvalfjodur, to the north of Rey-kjavik, where during the season at least one whale is processed each day. Whale steaks, apopular item on the family menu, are eaten with potatoes cooked in sugar and a sweetened tapiocasauce. Fish, too, is an important item of diet, as well as being the country's main export.

THE STONE IGLOO HOME OF AN ARTIST Near o Reykjavik is found this curious stnedwellmg-home of the sculptor SogurJonOlafsson, who finds his models among the local people and works in the open air. Iceland canboast a galaxy of artistic talent out of all proportion to its population of 120, 000 and area ofsome 40, 000 square miles. In few other lands is there a more widespread love of good literature.

The statue of a Viking-one of many in Iceland-dominating this"Swan Iwith present-day life in the island. Nameplaces on maps still mark the sittoday there is simply bare ground. Despite their everyday struggle to gailfish (below), from a more bountiful sea, the people of Iceland cherish tI

GRASS THE BACKBON"E OF FARMING Icelanders have made grass, which growswell is the thin soil, the backbone of their

farming. They raise cattle and small, hardy sheep and horses. In Spring the sheep are markedand put to graze on the hillsides where they are left until the farmers go out to collect them in theAutumn. This photo shows the"Rettir"or rounding up of the small and long-wooled flocks.

THE ISLAND OF ICE AND OF FIRE Most of central Iceland is a wind-sweptdesert of sand and lava, ridged by mountainsand strewn with glaciers and snowfields that never melt. The valleys of the fiords and the narrowcoastal plains in the west and south are almost the only places where man can live. An eighth ofall Iceland is buried under snow and ice and more than half is mountainous. But winters are mild.

this"Swan Lake" (above) is a reminder that the past remains bound upI mark the site of former villages or the scene of long-past deeds whereruggle to gain a livelihood from a poor soil or, like these women saltingnd cherish the Viking heritage in language, story-telling and customs.

EVERY ROOM HAS ITS OWN ROOF The traditional Icelandic farm is built partlybelow ground level with a separate roof foreach room. The row of roofs seen on the left of this photo all belong to one farmhouse andrepresent a link with old Viking architecture. Typical also is the form of the Lutheran churchoften found in Iceland's countryside. Newer houses are made of imcorted timber or concrete.

"STORI GEYSIR", THE GREAT GEYSER More than a hundred volcanoes, some stillactive, make Iceland one of the most volcanicregions of the world. The volcanic rocks heat countless hot springs and geysers, the largest ofwhich is the famous Geysir (from geysa, Icelandic word meaning"to rush forth furiously"), fromwhich the world's geysers take their name. The warm spring waters are piped to heat houses.

Page 10. DECEMBER. 1952

A BOOK-LOVtNG PEOPLE) N A BLEAK LAND

(Continued from page 7.)

When, one bright summer morningin 1944, Iceland re-established th6Republic in the very spot where ithad first been born-the majesticamphitheatre of Thingvellir hol-lowed out in the rock and lava besidea mighty lake-the members of par-liament quite naturally and unself-consciously donned the leather capeand breeches of the godords. Thelanguage they used, Izlenska, theroot-language of the Scandinavianpeoples-with its archaic system ofwriting and its tonal resemblances(o the Romance languages-was verynearly the same as that spoken bytheir ancestors.

The Icelandic vocabulary is stillextraordinarily rich. It comprisesno fewer than 200, 000 words and isfar purer than any other Europeanlanguage, as it has preserved 57 percent of the original Indo-Europeanroots. It has fewer than 3, 000 bor-rowed words. Icelandic has alsopreserved the old declensions andconjugations, with all their casesand tenses. One hundred andtwenty-five out of its 130 suffixesdate from the Aryan period. Thisextraordinary, complicated"Man-darin"is spoken by 140, 000 people.

The laws of the new State wereto include, almost unchanged, con-siderable portions of the Jonsbok, the; >ld customary law which was codifiedin 1281. The past is everywhere alive,even in the most common dailypractices, in the survival of customswhich, today, sometimes strike uswith surprise. The Icelanders, forinstance, have no patronymics, nosurnames handed on from father toson. They still observe the Vikingcustom, which was common in me-diaeval Europe, of using only theChristian name. Children add thesuffix son in the case of boys anddottir in the case of girls. Marriedwomen do not take their husband'sname-a custom which reflects therespect shown to women in primitiveGermanic society.

Whatever the disadvantages ofthis system, not one Icelander would

agree to give it up. This attitude issomething more than a childish,parochial chauvinism. It is theproud self-assertion of a small butdetermined nation which has, forten centuries, withstood the combin-ed assaults of malignant nature andmen-volcanic eruptions (about 100to date), earthquakes, periods ofdeadly cold, epidemics, famines, theravages of English or Barbary pi-rates and the despotism of ambitiouskings already thinking of Iceland'sstrategic position. Despite so manyheavy blows, whose effects are shownin the fluctuations of the country's

still knows little of our sagas, one ofthe truest treasures of the humanmind."The man who said this tome was expressing, with somebitterness, the unanimous opinion ofthe Icelandic people. Possessing astrong desire to escape from theirage-long isolation and having anactive interest in the culture of theworld, the people of Iceland find ithard to understand what they regardas a neglect of their intellectualheritage by other peoples.

Despite the work of Xavier Mar-mier, Craigie, Poestion and others,

OVER A THOUSAND YEARS OF HISTORY

8th century.-Discovery of Iceland by Irish monks.870.-Ingolfur Arnason, a Norwegian emigrant, lands on the site of the future city

of Reykjavik.870-930.-Colonization by Viking feudal lords in voluntary exile owing to their

dissatisfaction with the policy of King Harald Haarfager, who built up the crownlands in Norway.

930.-Foundation of the Althing, the first Parliament in the world, and of a highlydecentralized oligarchical Republic.

982.-Discovery of Greenland by the Icelandic Viking. Eric the Red (Erikur Raudi).1000.-Eric's son, Leifur Eriksson, discovers America nearly five centuries before

Columbus.I 000.-Iceland converted to Christianity.1262.-send of the Viking Republic. Internal strife among the godords, or local

chieftains, leads to the island's submission to Norway.) 3th century.-Gotden age of the : agas, the hallmarks of Icelandic literature.) 382.-A change of dynasty brings Iceland under the Danish crown.1402.-Plague kills two out of every three people on the island.1550.-The Reformation in Iceland ; the population joins the Lutheran Church.1602.-denmark imposes a very severe"commercial monopoly"on Iceland.1783-1790.-Volcanic eruptions and famines, resulting in the death of 10, 000

peoples.1904.-Home Rule for Iceland.1918.-Ireland recognized as an independent monarchy within the Danish Union.1944.-Proclamation of the Second Icelandic Republic.

population (estimated at 80, 000 inthe eleventh century, and decliningto a mere 50, 000 at the time of the1801 census), the people of Icelandhave never lost faith in their future ;and this justifies their proud, non-aggressive patriotism.

"In the past few decades, holiday-makers have been discovering thebeauty of our scenery, sportsmenhave made acquaintance with ourtrout streams, and military leadershave begun to appreciate our stra-tegic importance, but the world

very little is known abroad about theancient Icelandic literature-thedrama of the Eddas and the poetryof the Skalds, with their complicatedand mannered metres, strange col-lected works like the Landnamabok(Book of Settlements), and thelslandingabok (Book of Icelanders),the versatile works of the church-man Thorgilsson (1067-1148), whichare a mixture of epic, genealogy andcadastral survey, and above all thehalf-historical, half-legendary cyclesof the sagas.

I have had the opportunity to read

some English translations of thesesagas, and I am inclined to sharethe opinion of the Icelanders, whohold them worthy of comparisonwith the epic masterpieces of theWest, the poems of Homer, theNibelungenlied or the Kalevala.Composed between the lith and the13th century, and mostly anonymous,they embody with restrained andsober lyricism the Weltanschau-ung, the"outlook on the world"of the Vikings, a kind of lay philo-sophy based on the strict and sternobservation of human nature in thelight of ideas held prior to the in-troduction of Christianity into thecountry. One cannot help beingstruck by the realistic intensity ofthese tales, imbued with the pan-theistic mythology of Asatru, thecult of Othin and the belief inValholl (the Germanic Odin andWalhalla). Dissension, bloody strifeand vengeance are the principalthemes, while a fate as implacableas Sophocles'hangs over the godsand men and inanimate things. Thethirteenth century, the golden ageof the sagas, saw the composition ofgreat numbers of masterpieces-theTale of Egill Skallagrimsson, theLaxdaelasaga, the Hrafnhelsagaand above all the harsh Njallsaga,the only Icelandic work which iscomparatively well-known outsideScandinavia, since it has beentranslated into many foreign lan-guages.

The sagas, which the school-children of Reykjavik can readeasily in the original because thelanguage has changed so little, arenot only the cultural wealth ofIceland, but are also the nation's"public records,"its genealogicaltree. The influence of the sagas- which are found, richly bound. inevery home, even in the isolatedfarms of the hinterland-can onlybe compared to that of the Bibleamongst the Puritans of colonialAmerica. Public discussions andnewspaper editorials are full ofreferences to them. I can remembera stormy argument between half-a-dozen rough fishermen in the fore-castle of the trawler which I took

THE WORLD'S

MOST NORTHERN

CAPITAL CITY

More than one-third of Ice-land's people live in Reyk-javik (from reykur,"smoke"hence"smoking harbour"),the chief port and capital,which looks like a smallJutland community in anAmerican"mushroom"city. Amid one-storey homesare buildings which, illus-trate the importance of cul-ture in the lives of thepeople : the NationalLibrary and the NationalTheatre (photo on left),the University and othereducational institutions.Iceland reads more booksthan any other nation inproportion to population.

ICELAND HAS

A NAME THAT

IS MISLEADING.

Natural hot springs tappednear Reykjavik provide wateralmost at boiling point for3, 000 homes and warm538, 000 square feet of glass-houses, the rate of flowbeing about 88 gallons asecond. In these glass-houses are grown bananas,pineapples and other tropi-cal fruit. ! n some placeswater is piped through thesoil to warm it for growinggreen crops, and is alsoused in open-air swimmingpools. In fact, the nameIceland is rather mislead-ing, for this country ismuch more the land offlames than the land of ice.

UNEI

DECEMBER 1952. Page

on my return journey. It was notabout women or liquor smuggling,but was in fact a literary discussionon some obscure point in a no lessobscure saga, in which my seamen-commentators appeared to displayremarkable erudition.

Icelandic culture has by no meansbecome petrified in fruitless con-templation of the past. This isshown by the tremendous amount ofeducational work being done, inwhich the most up-to-date teachingmethods are prominent. As hegoes about the country, the travelleris struck by the large number oflarge modern buildings standing bythemselves far away from the town.With their petrol pumps, theirswimming pools fed by warm mineralsprings, their pleasant guest-rooms,and sometimes even their ownsmall aerodromes. they are comfort-able stopping-places for travellers.Except during the two summermonths, however, they are not hotelsbut simply country schools. Thepupils come by jeep, or riding ponies,over miles and miles of mountainsor lava. The total enrolment in theschools and universities of Icelandis 28, 000, or 20 per cent of the popu-lation ; last year, the State allotted28, 300, 000 kromer (over f560, 000) toeducation, out of a total budget of256, 000, 000 kromer. There are 20, 000children in the elementary schoolsalone.

Iceland is a nation where illiteracyhas been banished, and whosepeople are in fact among the besteducated in the world (one is soonconvinced of this after talking tothe"man in the street", who oftenspeaks several languages). Thepeople have also a remarkable res-pect for the printed word, as isshown by the enormous number ofbookshops in the country, all, so Iwas told, doing a very thrivingbusiness. I was always surprised,

when passing through a small townwith a few thousand inhabitants,such as Akureyri or Vestmannaeyjar,to see bookshops whose luxuryoffered a sharp contrast with theprimitive austerity of other shops.

During the six long months ofArctic night, when their work isconsiderably slowed down, the Ice-landers devour hundreds of books,mainly translations of world classicsand popular scientific works. Pub-lication for so small a market is nota very good commercial proposition,and as a result copyright laws havesometimes been stretched. But wecan hardly criticize the Icelandersfor this, nor discourage their eagercuriosity, especially as an acuteshortage of foreign currency hascaused large restrictions in foreignbook imports. Friends of mine inIceland told me, in this connexion,how sorry they were that Icelandwas not yet a member of Unesco, asthe Book Coupon Scheme wouldmake it possible to remedy a short-age whose effects are particularyfelt in university circles. On a moregeneral basis, the inclusion of thecountry in a great internationalorganization would meet one of thedeepest wishes of the Icelanders,who still feel the hereditary dreadof cultural isolation.

Without dealing exhaustively withintellectual developments in Iceland- with its wide variety of news-

papers, its national theatre whereworks by Shakespeare, Pirandelloand Bernard Shaw are presented inthe language of the Vikings, itssymphony orchestra and so forth-I should like to mention the mostsurprising feature of this smallcountry's intellectual life, namely itsgreat wealth of contemporary artistsand writers worthy of internationalfame. If the word had not lostmuch of its force, this might well be

described as a miracle ; but it is amiracle brought about by intelligentaction, by wise State patronage,which enables men who cannotcount on a large enough audiencewithin the boundaries of their owncountry to maintain a decentstandard of living while practisingtheir art. Among these men areHalldor Jiljan Laxness, the powerfulnovelist, considered by Scandinavianas comparable with the world'sgreat writers ; Gunnar Gunnarsson,the novelist and essayist, some ofwhose works written in Danish haveearned him an honoured place ;the painter Johannes Kjarval, aVan Gogh of the Arctic ; the por-trait-painter Jon Stefansson, abrilliant pupil of Matisse ; the

sculptor Sogurjon Olafsson, andothers. This galaxy of talent givesthe smallest and least favoured ofthe Nordic nations a prestige out ofall proportion to its poverty and itstiny population.

The picture Iceland affords us isnot merely that of a progressivepeople clinging doggedly to life inthe most inhospitable of geo-graphical surroundings. It is that ofthe triumph of the Spirit whereMatter is most difficult to master,that of Arctic solitude overcome bya bond of union which links thedweller in Farthest Thule to allmankind, in the love of the truesttreasures of humanity. It is anoutstanding example of spiritualvitality.

Photos : H. Malmberg. R. Jonsson, T. Josepsson and Icefandic Tourist Off<ce.

? UER

Page 12. DECEMBER 1952 UNESCO.

Photo Z. Mihanoff.

by Dr. Gerald WENDT

IT is light that makes plants grow but itits darkness that makes them blossom. Byday the leaves absorb the energy of the

sun and build the body of the plant from mater-ials that are taken from the soil and the air.Water and carbon dioxide gas are chemicallycombined to make the materials that comprisethe stem, the leaves and the roots. Withoutsunlight there would be no plants, therefore nofood for animals-and no animals. Therewould be no life on earth.

But plant life cannot go on unless there areseeds, which usually come from flowers orblossoms. And the development of flowers isdependent on periods of darkness, accordingto recent botanical'research. Without theright amount of darkness even healthy plantsdo not bloom and without seeds most food plantswould soon die out. So the alternation of lightand darkness is needed for the continuance oflife on earth.

The role of darkness is so important that itcontrols the geographical distribution of manytypes of plants over the earth. Some need ashort night, some a long one. In the tropics thenight does not vary much in length at varioustimes of the year ; in summer, as in the wintermonths, both day and night are about twelvehours long. But in the higher latitudes, towardsthe poles, both north and south, the summernights are short and the day long. Only thoseplants can survive there which need only ashort night for their flower production.

Sugar cane, for instance, needs a twelve-hour night and will never come to flower awayfrom the tropics because in the temperate zonesthe summer nights are too short. The cockle-burr, on the other hand, needs only a nine-hournight and will throve as far north as 50"off lati-tude, where the nine-hour night comes in Augustso that blooms may come and seeds may formbefore the coming of frost. Still farther north(or south) of the equator the nine-hour nightcomes too late in the season so that seeds do notripen in time and the plant dies out. Plantsthat grow wild in the far north or south need

only a short night to stimulate their flowerings.The discovery of the important role of dark-

ness in plant reproduction is a story of modernbotanical research, told by Professor A. W. Nay-lor of Yale University in a recent issue of theScientific A merican. The most surprising dis-Fovery was the simple fact that it is the lengthof the dark period that counts in flower forma-tion. A chrysanthemum flowers only when thedays are short and the nights long. Darkeningit by day does not affect its blooming but if Itis put into artificial light for even a short timeduring the night it does not bloom. The dark-ness is then too short. Florists are learning tobring their plants to flower whenever they wantthem by controlling the length of the darkperiod. But flower-lovers who bring blossom-ing plants home from holiday trips to the northor south often find that they grow well butnever bloom. A change in latitude of only 150miles (250 kilometers) makes a small differencein the length of the night but it is sometimesenough to make flowering impossible.

But this was only the beginning of theresearch. There was still the question of howthe length of darkness can have so profound aneffect on the life of the plant. Darkness itselfis only the absence of light. What goes on inthe dark that makes the flowers bud and grow ?Growth is a chemical process. Does darkness'then produce a special chemical in the plantwhich in turn produces flowers ? This bizarreguess proved to be correct. What this chemicalis is not yet known, but that it exists is nowquite sure.

The proof of its existence came from manylaboratories, in the Netherlands, in the U. S. A.and in the U. S. S. R. Nearly twenty years ago,Professor Knott of Cornell University (U. S. A.),got a clue when he experimented with spinachplants, \which bloom in the summer on along day and a short night. For part of the dayhe covered the little stem where the flowerswould sprout, thus putting them in'darknessand changed, in effect, the length of day andnight. But the flowers budded and grew as

usual. Then he gave the leaves a shorter periodof darkness. In this case the plants refused toflower. The action of darkness is therefore onthe leaves and not on the flower bud.

This was proved by other research workerswho found that when all the leaves were takenfrom the plant, no flowers formed but if evenone leaf remained and had the proper alterna-tion of day and night the flowers came. Pro-fessors Hamner and Bonner of the Universitv ofChicago (U. S. A.) worked with the cockle-burr.They found that even one-eighth of a leaf keptfor the necessary nine hours in darkness stimu-lated flower formation, no matter how muchlight or dark fell on the rest of the plant. Thiswas taken as proof that the proper period ofdarkness on one leaf or less produces a chemi-cal that travels through the plant and startsflower formation.

Other investigators went even further andgrafted a number of plants together. Evensix plants grafted together in a row all flower-ed together when a single leaf was given thenine hours of darkness.

Even more surprising is that the flower-pro-ducing chemical seems to be the same in allplants because a leaf from an entirely differentplant can be grafted to another plant and willstill produce the same effect of stimulating theformation of blossoms.

There is much interest among botanists todiscover what this chemical is. If it could be pre-pared in pure form and plants could be treatedwith it then any plant could be brought toflowering at any time. This would make itpossible to grow flowering plants far from theirnatural home. It would make it possible forflorists to offer blossoms of any climate or areaby the simple device of providing the chemicalthat nature can make only by the proper alter-nation of light and darkness. Even moreimportant from the point of view of agricultureis the fact that this would permit the plantbreeder to get blossoms at the same time ontwo different varieties which usually bloom atdifferent times. He would thus be able to crossor hybridize them, and obtain new and valuable.varieties which are at present impossible.

Although the fact that periods of darknessproduce such a stimulating chemical is new, itis well known that many chemicals have adirect effect in stimulating or inhibiting rootgrowth, leaf growth, even flower growth. Theyare sometimes known as plant hormones, butare more correctly called auxins. Already, someplants can be sprayed to prevent them from'lowering and others can be sprayed with differ-ent chemicals to increase the number and sizeof the flowers produced. In a few commercialoperations these methods have proved profit-able. In the pineapple fields of Hawaii, forinstance, the flowers naturally develop through-out the summer so that only part of the field isripe for picking at any one time. But if a fieldof pineapples is sprayed with a chemical callednaphthalene-acetic acid, then in six to eightweeks the entire field blossoms at once. Conse-quently, the entire field of pineapples ripens atonce and can be harvested by machinery. Thishas enormously reduced the cost of harvestingand therefore the cost of pineapples.

In Hawaii also. experiments are now underway to increase the flowering of the litchi-nuttrees. This delicious fruit has not become com-mercial because in Hawaii only about four per-cent of the trees come to bloom. But whenthe orchards are sprayed with naphthalene-acetic acid nearly 00 percent of the trees blos-som and bear fruit. This discovery may createa new industry for Hawaii and for other areasof the earth.

In other plants it is desirable to preventflowering. In the case of lettuce and celery, forinstance, the leaves are edible and importantand the growers wish to prevent the formationof blossoms and seed. In this case, chemicalscan be used to delay the formation of flowers.On the other hand, growers of celery-seed canspray with a different chemical and therebypromote seed formation.

Interference with the natural growth of plantsfor the benefit of man is thus not uncommon in

special cases, but the largest and most import-ant development will come when botanistslearn the chemical nature of the substance thatis produced by all plants and which is neces-sary to begin the formation of buds, followedby blossoms and seeds. At present, plantsdepend on the night to form this unknown che-mical, but once it is identified, and manufac-tured darkness may no longer be neededbecause that chemical could then be injectedinto the stem of the plant. It is as if animalsand men were freed of the necessity of sleeping.The major prospect perhaps is that in that casethe far northern and southern regions of theworld might become productive because thelong days and even the midnight sun would notinterfere with the production of valuable foodcrops.

DARKNESS,

NOT L I G H T. I

MAKES

FLOWERS

BLOOM

COURIER DECEMBER 1952. Page 13

LIBERIA HAS APPOINTED THE FIRST

U. N. TRAVELLING TEACHER

I never thought I would come across ayoung white girl walking all alonealong a jungle path in Liberia. It

surprised me all the more in this coun-try-the only independent Negro statein Africa-where only Negroes canbecome naturalized citizens, and whereuntil seven years ago, only a handful offoreigners even lived in the capital,Monrovia.

It was not until 1945 that a forward-looking president opened the frontiers ofLiberia to whites. Even today the whitepopulation is made up of only a fewhundred foreigners, most of them em-ployees on an American rubber planta-tion, businessmen, officials working on acontract basis, or diplomats. There arealso a number of missionaries.

I suppose you would call the youngAmerican girl I found walking in thejungle a missionary too. But she isprobably the only one of her kind in theworld. Her"mission"is the UnitedNations, and the words that she spreadsfrom village to village are those of inter-national co-operation. Her name isMiss Dora Lee Allen and she is theworld's first"Travelling Teacher forthe United Nations".

The strangest thing about this un-

by André BLANGHET

usual"missionary"is that she is notofficially connected with the United Na-tions at all. The idea originally camefrom the President of Liberia, Mr. Wil-liam S. Tubman who conceived the tra-velling teacher scheme as a gesture ofgratitude towards international organi-zations such as Unesco, the World HealthOrganization, the International LabourOrganization and the Food and Agricul-ture Organization, whose technicalassistance experts are helping to mo-dernize the country.

Miss Allen thus is an official of theLiberian Government, and all facilitiesand transport for her work are providedby the authorities. Every day she goesoff to tell the schoolchildren in the dif-ferent primary schools about the UnitedNations, the things it stands for and thework it is doing.

Primary schools in Liberia are farfrom rich. Few of them, even in Mon-rovia, have enough desks or tables.Almost always the children have to sitcrammed together on tiny benches. Andsince none of the schools is providedwith electricity, Miss Allen is unable, forthe moment at least, to illustrate her les-

sons with films which the U. N. Informa-tion Centre could provide free of charge.

There are many things in the coun-tryside of Liberia which remind one ofthe American South. Between 1821 and1860, about 10, 000 American Negroeslanded on the West Coast of Africa andset up the first independent NegroRepublic on the African continent. Theybrought with them an architectural stylewhich was far removed from the tradi-tional mud hut one usually associateswith Africa. They constructed theirhomes in the Southern Colonial style-tall wooden houses with corrugated ironroofs and a verandah built on all sides.

The old Baptist church in Johnson-ville, with its bell tower housed in aseparate wooden structure, also makesone think of the South. For want ofother accommodation, this rusty ironchurch, with its dilapidated floor-boardsand-more important-its benches, isused as a school for 150 pupils.

Soon after Miss Allen arrived, theschool was brightened up by a smallmulti-coloured tree with 60 branches andleaves, symbolizing the United Nations,which was placed next to the artificialflowers on the altar. From the car thathad brought her from Monrovia, througha geometrically laid-out plantation of

rubber, trees, there came a series of post-ers, pictures, diagrams and other panelswhich make up Miss Allen's travellingteaching equipment.

To the boys and girls in this school,who have never seen a train or a pavedroad, but who are all eager for learning,Miss Allen has been bringing a new kindof picture of the outside world with herexhibits and her lessons.

Wherever she arrives, classes are inter-rupted so that everyone can welcomeher. The teachers- most of whom (Con tin u e dlack even simple on next page.)

Liberia has been undergoing large-scale technological and social changes inrecent years. These have created increasing demands for skilled workers andan alert, literate population, which Unesco technical assistance missions arehelping to develop. Above, Liberians study leaflet on what is being achieved.

The University of Monrovia is now developing its faculty of science. With Unescoaid, classes have been equipped with microscopes and other laboratory equip-ment and a team of science teachers has been sent to Liberia. Here, a NewZealand biology teacher, Mr A. J. D. Barker, instructs a class at the University.

Education games are encouraged by the LiberianGovernment as a"painless"way of learning. Thisis a letter card game. Liberians are told"Povertyand disease cannot be fought without literacy. It isa patriotic duty of every citizen to spread education."

Unesco technical aid experts from seven countriesmeet weekly at the Ministry of Education in Monroviawith government and university officials. Thesemeetiflgs are considered so important that Liberia'sVice-President (back to camera) attends regularly.

Liberia has undertaken a fundamental educationexperiment in the region of Dimeh, 20 miles fromthe capital. Above, Unesco technical assistancescientist, Mr W. S. Rankin, registers people fora routine health visit at a rustic jungle dispensary.

Page 14. DECEMBER 1952 UNESCO

SHE TEACHES IN

15-SCHOOL) mE ! EE ! N

(Continued from maps for theirprevious page.) geography classes- look on with

pleasure as she sets the bright panelswith the U. N. symbol against thewall (or against a tree, when the lessonis held out-of-doors). To see if thechildren have learned the previouslesson, the travelling teacher asks thema few questions, such as"What is themeaning of the word'international' ?"Then she goes on to talk about theUnited Nations and why and how it wasset up. Slowly and simply she outlinesher theme.

"Now, let's take a few notes,"shesays, and rows of heads bend over twiceas many knees which must serve tem-porarily as desks.,

The lesson over, there will be sevendays to think over what Miss Allen hasbeen explaining-and to do some"home-work". Before going on to the nextvillage, Miss Allen leaves a set of ques-tions for the children to answer in writ-ing, or gives a subject for an essay oninternational co-operation. On hernext visit, she corrects their"home-work". Miss Allen's lessons require agood deal of work on the part of herpupils. They are not mere"pep talks",to be listened to half-heartedly. Theresults she has achieved thus far provethat the U. N. is becoming an understoodreality in this tiny country.

Every week, Miss Allen brings herpanels to the older children in 15 dif-

Liberia's war against ignorance : Todramatize the opening of the campaignagainst illiteracy an aeroplane drops) eaf) ets proclaiming a out-and-out waron"enemy number one to progress."

ferent schools. Her largest classes arein Monrovia itself, in an extremely over-crowded school. An hour after leavingthe capital, she may be giving a lesson inan open-air class under a mango tree, ina village on the edge of the Liberianforest.,

To reach the village, she has had todrive through a maze of forest tracks,almost indistinguishable one from an-other. These tracks often give out somedistance from the village. Followed byher chauffeur, who, carrying her postersand display board, looks rather like asandwich-men she then sets off on foot.As she passes, people wave a friendlygreeting or invite her into their homes toshare their simple meal.,

Sometimes the villages are even moreisolated, so like other missionaries sheadopts a local form of transport, in thiscase the jinalzcme, an uncomfortable sortof hammock slung on the shoulders oftwo or four bearers.

What Miss Allen is trying to do maynot seem very far-reaching comparedwith similar efforts in other countries.But it should not be forgotten that Libe-ria is a small and still a very poornation. Yet in this country which isstruggling to transform its economy andraise its standard of living, the aware-ness of the role of the United Nations isgreat, What, for example, could be moresymbolic of its belief in the world com-munity and its ideals than its choice ofhaving its children taught about theUnited Nations-by a foreigner.

UNICEF

SENDS

YOU..

THE REINDEER : Even in a tiny Finnish village some 70 miles north of the Arctic Circle,needy children are not forgotten by UNICEF. Supplies are sent to them by raindeer and sled.

THE spirit of Christmas and the New Year, whichis a time of colour and gaiety, and above all, a**-time of joy for children, has been captured

delightfully in a series of five Greeting Cards for 1952produced by the United Nations International Children'sEmergency Fund. On the theme.'Round the Worldwith UNICEF"the cards depict some of the favouriteanimals of children in different parts of the world-the camel, the elephant, the reindeer, the donkey andthe water buffalo-bearing cargoes of food andmedicine to the needy.

These cards serve as a reminder of the work UNICEFhas been carrying out among many millions of theworld's children and of the need for continuedcontributions to its fund. Each box of five cards soldwill help UNICEF to provide enough BCG vaccine toimmunize 12 children against TB ; or enough DDTpowder to protect 10 children against malaria ; orenough skim milk to give eight children a glass of milkevery day for a week.

UNICEF helps countries to help themselves, thenations receiving its help"'matching"the value of theOrganization's aid locally, thereby doubling and oftentrebling the numbers of children reached. Whenpresent programmes are completed, one out of every15 children in the world will have received some formof UNICEF aid.

In addition, this year's official United NationsGreeting Card,-an interpretation of the U. N. build-ing in its New York setting-designed and donatedby the famous French artist, Raoul Dufy, is being soldfor the benefit of UNICEF.

Assorted boxes of ten of the five UNICEF cards, ora box of ten U. N. cards with or without the Season'sGreetings in the five official U. N. languages can beobtained at the following addresses :

THE CAMEL : In the desert areas of Jordan,Gaza and Lebanon, a caravan of cameis ladenwith barrels of powdered milk marked UNICEF,wends its way slowly over the hot sands.They are destined for mothers and childrenamong the Middle East refugees. Othersupplies go to 30, 000 children and mothers inGaza who are non-refugees, but whose familieshave lost their lands and their livelihood.

THE DONKEY : Across the thorny scruband high sierras, a small boy guides a sturdydonkey. Laden with dried milk and othersupplies, donkeys are bringing an extra mealfor 360, 000 Latin American children. Amongthe projects assisted by UNICEF in 21 LatinAmerican countries and territories, Mother andChild Health Centres and child feeding pro-grammes have very largely predominated.

THE WATER-BUFFALO : In South-EastAsia, where 1, 000 mother and child welfarecentres have been equipped by UNICEF, thereare many areas where transporting suppliesis a difficult problem. During the rainy seasoneven jeeps cannot penetrate to the remotevillages and journeys have to be made by aconvoy of buffalo carts. Supplies are also load-ed into sampans which go down the canals.

' : OUR ; ER DECEMBER 1952. Page I 5

FOR THOSE WHO LIVE BY THE PEN

THROUGHOUT the centuries the history of writ-ers as a class has been one of continuousmaterial difficulties. This may well have

been due to the tradition that the written wordwas sacred and therefore not for sale ; to themass of the people the writer was a kind of priestand as such was forbidden to exploit his priest-hood for his own gain.

The normal work of the.'scribe"-the manwho could write-was to copy the sacred scrip-tures and it was through such copyists that thePersian Zendavesta, the Hindu Ramayana andMahabharata, the Torah and Talmud, the Bibleand Gospels and the Mohammedan Koran werehanded down to us. Moreover, as well as beingsacred, writing was thought to have definitemagical powers. To make a curse more effectiveand surer to break the thread of the victim'sdestiny, it was scratched with a pointed im-plement-a stylus-on the waxed tablets onwhich Romans wrote before parchment or papy-rus came in. For the written word remains.Even today when we speak of things we had feltwere bound to happen all along, we say theywere"written".

Writing was the privilege and responsibility ofa small caste and from the times of classicalGreece these men regarded themselves as the spi-ritual guides of their people. Again, because thewritten word is"imperishable", the law has been"written"ever since the tablets of stone of the10 Commandments on Sinai and the TwelveTables of early Roman law were produced andpromulgated to leave no excuse for ignorance ofthe law. This promulgation was done byformal public reading of the text. From thetime the spread of printing made newspaperspossible, new laws have beenpublished in the daily press orofficial gazettes.

With the crushing weight ofsuch traditions pressing down onit, the writers'trade has everbeen thankless, hard and withmore than its share of perils andeven disaster : it is worthremembering that both calamityand the calamus (1), or reedpen, which for centuries was thetypical tool of the writer, areconnected in philology and alsoin mythology. Fame-if hewon it-was the greatest rewarda writer could hope for : what hegot rather more commonly wasprison or exile and the gallows orthe stake if he fell into hetero-doxy or heresy. But in the storyof man's fight for freedom, it isthe writers, nevertheless, whohold the place of honour as theawakeners, in every age, of thespirit of resistance to tyranny.The Frenah Revolution, forexample, was the work of theEncyclopaedists.

Books themselves have alwaysbeen eagerly sought and, bothbefore and after the invention ofprinting, works by certain philo-sophers, mathematicians, astro-nomers and historians, in printor manuscript, have sometimesfetched fabulous sums. However,until the 19th century, the makerof the books-the writer-wasnot muc. h better placed than amediaeval serf bound to the landwho farmed his lord's acres.dwelt there at his lord's pleasureto keep other nobles out, andwho had to drop everything tofollow his master to the wars, atthe peril of his life, but, in theserf's case, on foot and un-armoured.

Save in the East and in theIslamic sphere, Eastern andWestern, where there was gene-rous patronage of writers, suchpatronage as existed was confin-ed to the artists who adorned thepalaces of the rich and therewas. not a copper to spare for the long and toil-some work of the writers whose loving carecreated the intellectual heritage of mankindand built the steps for civilization to climbhigher.

Don Quixote achieved worldwide fame soquickly that in its author's lifetime it had beentranslated into the tongues of all the civilizedpeoples of his day. Yet Cervantes lived and diedin poverty and had to serve at various times asa soldier and a tax-collector to keep body and soultogether. Another professional soldier, and anexile from Lisbon, was Camoens, the greatest Por-tuguese poet of all time, who sang his country'sglories in the Lusiads : he too died in theblackest poverty. Shakespeare did make somemoney during his life but it was as a producer andactor and not as the author of the immortalplays.

For five and twenty centuries authorship wasso exclusively a labour of love that it could onlybe indulged in by those who by nature were notafraid of sacrifices or by the privileged who wrote

byjfoMde BEN/TO

in their leisure time, like Sir Francis Bacon.For one Erasmus or Voltaire, favoured by a sover-eign and with some sort of pension from him,there is an unnumbered multitude of writers ofworks of science, literature and philosophy whopaid for the boldness of their thought with theirhides or lives. Let us not forget Galileo, Servet orPico de la Mirandola.

There was yet another hardship under whichthe professional writer laboured. Strictly speakinghe did not"make"actual books ; he only wrotethem and the printer did the manufacturing.The finished article was sold, not by the author,but by a bookseller and as he was risking hismoney in his business he could get exclusive salesor printing rights in the merchandise he handled.However while the actual book was"merchand-ise"to the seller and even the buyer, what wasin the book was never counted as the merchandiseor saleable property of the author. So freedomwas actually easier for the villein to win thanindependence for the author, since the earth andits fruits are tangible things and as such can beacquired as property, which every villein aimedto have and some actually achieved, so as tobecome a free peasant.

Before they could accept the notion that ideascould be property, lawyers had to break free ofthe rigid definitions of the Roman law which heldthat only material things like land or cattle orgoods could be owned ; even though writing themdown did in one sense give them a physical shape,ideas were not material things in the Romansense. So the process was a long one and for

(1) The calamus was a thin reed used by the people ofold for writing on papYl'Us or parchment. It was cut andshaped in till'same l1 : ay as the quill} len later on and wasused with vary thic/ ; ink. In the pictorial symbolism ofmythology, Calamity is shown as a mourning wotan veiledin blacl, and leaning on a calamus, symbol of the insecurityof human fortune.

thousands of years authors took'it for grantedthat writing-setting forth their ideas-mightbring them fame or honours or shame, but nevera livelihood. The result was to deprive mankindof the contributions of many who could not facethe sacrifices which authorship demanded-though undoubtedly the loss in quantity was offsetby the quality of those who obeyed the imperiousneed to give their vision of the truth withoutbalking at the complications which might follow.

The fact was that writers had to count on someother profession for a living-sometimes teach-ing, like the numerous writers from the univer-sities, and at other times a trade. For instanceSpinoza earned his bread as a spectacle-maker, soas to be able to produce the great philosophicalwork which is the origin of many of the humanrights now recognized by law. It was not untilthe daily press came into being, and with it theserial as a bait for readers, that there was anypossibility of getting a living by the pen. Thefirst man to dare to describe himself simply asan author and to make it his sole profession wasBalzac. His output was prodigious and he earneda good living ; indeed though he tried severaltimes to change to another profession, each timehe was driven back to writing by the failure ofhis latest industrial or financial scheme. It washe who first had the idea of convening a meeting

of the other serial writers and men of letters ofParis to found the first Authors'Society to protectthe interests of those who had to live by theirpens. However, as often happens, the awakeningof the corporate spirit of authors was a cumula-tive process and not the result of explicit recog-nition of their right to enjoy the fruit of theirwork.

In 1709, under Queen Anne, an Act was promul-gated in England"for the encouragement oflearning, by vesting copies of printed books inthe authors or purchasers of such copies, duringtimes therein mentioned". Ten of the 13 AmericanStates which issued laws on copyright between1783 and 1786 took the view that it was a naturalright and one of them went so far as to speakof there being"no property more peculiarly aman's own than that which is produced by theJabour of his mind". However in all these laws-as later in the Federal Constitution of the UnitedStates-the concessions were treated merely asa means of assisting the progress of science andthe useful arts and the unfortunate authors hadto continue the fight, with the profit from theirworks in most cases going to the publishers andbooksellers. In France, Beaumarchais concernedhimself with the protection of the rights of play-wrights and as a result of his efforts the first lawson performance and publication rights were pro-mulgated in 1791 and 1793 respectively.

As far as copyright and its accompanying finan-cial benefits were concerned, the second half ofthe 19th century was a real spring-time. In everycountry there was a spate of domestic legislationon copyright, while international dealings inbooks and the question of their translation intoother languages raised new problems. The first

attempt to tackle the latter wasin the Berne International Con-vention of 1886, later amendedat Berlin in 1920, at Rome in 1928,and at Brussels in 1948. In theAmericas a second internationalsystem took shape under theterms of the Montevideo Treatyof 1889 subsequently revised atthe Pan American Conferences inMexico, Rio de Janeiro, BuenosAires and Havana and now re-classed as the Washington Inter-American Convention on therights of the author in literary,scientific and artistic works.This dates from June 1946.

However, the Berne Conventiondoes not cover all the non-Ame-rican, nor the Washington Con-vention all the American, States,while the need to protect dif-ferent interests in the two areashas led to clashes of principlebetween the two conventions oncertain points. When principlesare in convict, the victory of oneimplies the utter defeat of theother and hence the whole ques-tion of securing effective world-wide protection of the rights ofauthors of works of the mind hadreached an impasse from whichit was hard to see the way out.

In 1947 at the Second GeneralConference of Unesco in Mexico,it was decided that the draftingof a Universal Convention toproffer a solution to the maindifficulties arising over interna-tional copyright was desirable.After five years'work, collectionof materials, meetings of expertsand struggles with the obstacleswhich inevitably arose, the re-presentatives of 36 nations fromevery continent last Septemberformally signed the first Univer-sal Copyright Convention. Thegoverning principle of the newConvention is that the same pro-tection shall be given by eachsignatory country to foreign worksas to those by its own nationals ;it also enormously simplifies theformalities required for the en-

forcement of copyright and includes wise andequitable provisions on translation.

This new world-wide Convention embodiesclauses specifying that it shall not in any wayaffect the provisions of the Berne Convention orabrogate multi-lateral and bilateral conventionswhich may be in force between two or more Ame-rican Republics, or two or more contractingStates ; that no reservations shall be permitted- a most important point, since more than oneconvention has foundered on accepting reser-vations about its implementation-and thatUnesco itself, which prepared the way for theConvention, shall be the body acting as Secre-tariat of the Intergovernmental Commission forthe supervision of its proper application and forthe reception of instruments of ratification anddenunciation.

Annexed to the text of the Universal Conven-tion are three additional protocols : the first onthe application of the Convention to the worksof stateless persons and refugees ; the second onits application tithe publications of certaininternational organizations ; and the third on themeans of determining the effective date of instru-ments of ratification, acceptance or accession.

When the text was signed, in English, Spanishand French in Geneva, one of the delegates said :"'Justice has won a fresh victory".

----C. 0./. Photo

there are few schoolboys who have never dreamed of living the liteof a master. mariner. How, during their geography lessons, manychildren must have wished that they too could set off on a voyageto places they read about in their textbooks and see it all for them-selves instead of having to memorise the names of cities and longlists of national products. How different too it would be if Columbus,or Balboa, or Cook could visit the classroom to tell his story. Some-

Few sights cap-ture the ima-gination of aboy or girl morethan that of aship setting outon an oceanvoyage. And

A SEA WIND

BLOWS THROUGH

THE CLASSROOM

thing approaching this ideal is possible today for thousands ofchildren in schools associated with Ship Adoption Societies whichhave been formed in five European countries. Thanks to theseSocieties the schoolchildren are in constant touch with scores ofships on the oceans and in ports and harbours. They follow thefortunes and progress of the ships through the eyes of the captainsand crews with whom they exchange visits and letters. In this way,geography-above all a human science-makes an important contri-bution to international understanding. Thanks to the accounts ofvoyages and visits they receive from"their"captains and crews,the schoolchildren get really"live"lessons for, as an old Dutchproverb puts it,"He who travels a great deal has a great deal totell."The interest and enthusiasm aroused in schools gives ageneral impetus to a child's desire for learning. For an account ofthis link between ships and schools see Page 3. (M. S. A. photo.)