....

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Page 2. APRIL 1952

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THE U. S. CITIZEN

AND THE

UNITED NATIONS

by

Luther H. Evans

Librarian of'Congress ; Member, Executive Board of Unesco ;

Chairman, U. S. National Commission for Unesco

HUNTER COLLEGE, New York City wasa recent focal point for Americaninterest in the United Nations as

2, 500 delegates to a national conferencetook over its 16-storey modern buildingon Park Avenue during the final days of

January. The meeting was called by theU. S. National Commission for Unesco-the third such gathering since the Com-mission was formed nearly six years agoto advise the U. S. Government on Unescoaffairs. From every one of the 48 Statescame people responding to the Commis-sion's appeal. Delegates included expertsfrom the fields of science and education,

prominent writers and artists, professionalsfrom radio, stage and screen, leaders from

religious, labour, youth, government andother fields. Some participated as repre-sentatives of organized groups, others asindividuals. But-all came motivated byaims spelled out in the broad conference

plan, to consider together opportunities,obligations and resources of responsiblecitizens for the solution of international

problems through participation in worldaffairs.

Education about the United Nations isthe Commission's priority programme foraction in the U. S., and on this effort theconference has already had a tremendous-

ly stimulating effect.For four-and-a-half days, the Conference

delegates filled classrooms and audito-riums, swarmed through halls, listened tocapable and stimulating speakers, saw,heard, and took part in radio, televisionand film showings. In small worksessions they came to grips with a longlist of basic questions on"The Citizenand the United Nations."Participatingwith them in many of these meetingswere observers and students from over15 countries and a score of UN and

Specialized Agency officials. Highlight-ing the general conviction that an under-standing of international problems mustbegin at the local level of U. S. towns andcities, and in the schools, one delegate,who spoke from the floor at the closingsession on January 31, urged his colleaguesto"rouse the apathetic, inform the (nor·ant and combat the opposition."

Popular ideals

In order to accomplish this, the confer-ence stressed that mass support of these

objectives can best be obtained by inter-preting them in terms of popular ideals,interests and aspirations. The co. opera-tion of the press, motion pictures, radioand other mass media was urged in help-

ing to further this task, and represent-atives of the industries concerned assuredthe delegates of their understanding anddesire to support the principles of theconference.

The need for expanding the presentinternational exchange of persons pro-

gramme, to bring foreign leaders, workersand student groups to the United States,and to send their American counterpartsabroad, was also stressed.

General sessions were devoted to U. S.

participation in the United Nations andthe problems of constructing peace. A

keynote was sounded in the address bythe Director-General of Unesco, M. Tor-res Bodet, who warned that"Behindevery evmt that aggravates the presentpol {jcal crisis there always lies the old

story of hatred and hunger, of povertyand ignorance and the eternal problemof selfishness and want of understanding."

The Assistant Secretary of State forPublic Affairs, Howland H. Sargeant, em-phasized a similar theme when he toldthe conference that"We Americans can.

not'go it alone.'We need the other freepeoples, even as they need us. Freedomas we know it is being subjected to anassault which has had no parallel inmodern history. And we who believe infreedom must meet that assault together."

Delegates were asked to.. specialize"by selecting one of thirteen afternoon sec-tion meetings. Simultaneous panels 6derv.ed to focus first on the world problemfaced by the UN or one of its Specials-

zed Agencicô ; second, the contributionswhich the United Nations have already

made, and third, the tasks ahead. Parti-cular attention was given to the effortsAmerican citizens must expend if pro-

gress is to be assured.In a mid-conference review, George N.

Shuster, the humane and intellectually-gifted president of Hunter College, gavea brilliant summary of these deliberations.

Following this it was my task to remindthe delegates of the opportunities thatwere theirs during the work sessions.

Meeting with one's colleagues in smallwork groups was answering a need oftenvoiced at previous conferences when eager

delegates had said,"We are interested inwhat the experts have to say, but whatwe really want is more time to talk thingsover with others who have the same pro-blems that we have."In subsequent

meetings difficulties that seemed uniquewere found to be just commonplace. Thediscouragement born of loneliness vanish'ed and the courage of a common causetook its place.

Ideas contributed by mid-conferenceresource panels also enabled the delegatesto bring fresh grist to further meetings oftheir working sessions. A great deal ofcomment was caused by a meeting devot-ed to the Merging World Outlooks atwhich Ralph Turner of Yale University

spoke. Professor Turner is chairman ofthe editorial committee of Unesco's Inter-tional Commission for the Scientific andCultural History of Mankind. His observa-tions on the cultural unity of man gaverise to many lively discussions.

Delegates asked if it really would be pos-sible to write a single impartial history pre-

senting a balanced point of view on all con-troversial subjects. Most agreed that the

exchange of ideas which would resultfrom the process would inevitably illu-

minate problems exposed to impartial

presentation. The conference membersalso welcomed Unesco's plan for present-ing conflicting theories and airing ques-tions in an historical periodical pendingthe completion of the single comprehensivestudy. Several leaders pointed out, how-ever, that among history and social scienceteachers in this country there was a grow-

ing tendency not to rely on any one text,but to acquaint the student with a num-ber of"authorities"and encourage himto form his own judgments.

Mutual misconceptions

The panel given to examining ForeignAttitudes on World Affairs pointed up theneed for a clearer understanding here ofmany peoples whose biased attitudesabout us are in some measure a reflec-tion of our own misconceptions of them.A discussion of Area Studies in U. S. col-leges and universities revealed the extentof preparation that would be necessary to

equip increasing numbers of young peoplefor the foreign service roles they would

undoubtedly play in all parts of the world."What do Americans know and think

about the U. S. participation in foreignaffairs ?" posed many [I problem to bemulled over in conference discussions andthen taken home. For example, when an

opinion was advanced favouring teachingabout the United Nations through emotion-al appeal, there were some who expres-sed concern that we might be defeatingour purposes by too emotional an empha-sis. Facts interestingly and convincingly

presented carry with them their own emo-tional appeal. The enlightenment andconviction which ensues from them should

generate its own power of developing atti-tudes.

It was especially heartening to learn that

teaching about the UN in the schools isno longer considered unusual, but takenfor granted as natural and proper. These

very strides, however, have given rise tocriticism and misunderstanding. For under-

lying all the discussions was awarenessthat the principles of international co-

operation and support of the United Na-tions are subject to opposition from some

quarters. Many of the prepared papersand oral presentations took account of thisfact and emphasized the need to meet such

opposition through public education andcontinued explanation of the objectives ofUN and Unesco and their supporters.

Many of the delegates also expressedconcern over current controversies involv-

ing freedom of discussion, and the pro-blem of securing the broadest possible

support in the U. S. for the principles laiddown in the American Bill of Rights. Someobservers might read into these remarksa danger that freedom is on the wane, butthose familiar with the American scene are

hailing them as present day evidence thatthe"eternal vigilance"long hailed as"the price of liberty"continues to be

healthily exercised. The final day whenthe conference findings were reportedshowed delegates agreed that the best wayto combat confusion and misinformation is

through more and better education, and afresh presentation of the facts. They were

prepared to go back home backing theirrecommendations with renewed vigour.

(Other reports on U. S. NationalCommission-See page 12 to 15.)

UNESC'.

COURIER APRIL 1952. Page 3

HEALTHY SURROUNDINGS

MAKE HEALTHY PEOPLE

Three human

beings out of

four suffero.

from disease

by

Dr Srock Chisholm

row EALTHY Surroundings Makeri Healthy People"-thetheme suggested for the

observance of World Health Day in1952-points to a goal shared byall nations, and it shows where someof the problems lie which must besolved if efforts to improve healththroughout the world are to succeed.

Despite the magnificent progressmade by medical science, three outof every four men, women andchildren in the world still sufferfrom diseases spread by unsafe watersupplies, unsanitary excreta dis-posal, uncontrolled insects androdents, and inadequate protectionof milk and other foods. The res-ponsibility for this tragic wastageof human life and energy rests witcheach of us, individually, in ourthree-fold capacity as members ofthe family and of the local com-munity and as citizens of a shrunk-en world.

Each of us needs to realize thatsanitation is, after all, a way of life.Whether we live in a"developed"or an"underdeveloped"country, itis our duty both to ourselves and toour neighbours to practice certainelementary principles of hygienewhich can be applied with little, ifany, expense by individuals and byfamilies. Keeping a clean home, aclean shop, a clean factory and a

April 7 has been set aside as World Health Day, On this occasion wepublish below a special message from Dr. Brock Chisholm, Director-General of the World Health Organization and a statement person-

ally written by the Director-General of Unesco for the Courier.

clean neighbourhood, we are meetingone of the first requirements for ourown health and for a healthy com-munity.

But we must go beyond this ; wemust also support fully the establish-ment and development of local andnational programmes in communitysanitation. They deserve our sup-port because they aim at providingservices designed to protect usagainst the many dangers that maythreaten health and life if conditionsin our physical environment areunsatisfactory.

Finally, as citizens of a worldwhere all men have become neigh-bours, we must share with one an-other the things we learn about pro-moting health and preventingdisease through the techniques avail-able to a modern science of environ-mental sanitation. Such an ex-change of knowledge among allnations is as justified on humani-tarian grounds as it is essentialfor reasons of self-interest.

The World Health Organizationhas, from its beginning, given a highpriority to international measuresfor raising standards of environ-mental sanitation. Along with itsother activities, WHO will continueto support and encourage local, na-tional and international efforts di-rected towards helping people toachieve a reasonable control of thephysical features of their environ-ment.

I earnestly hope the observanceof World Health Day on this April7 will serve to make clear to men,women and children everywhere thevalue of healthy surroundings andtheir importance for the health ofall peoples.

WORLD Health Day 1952 takesH5 i Is motto : Healthy sur-roundings make healthy peo-

ple.Education, science and culture are

also part of the environment in whichpeople live. That is why Unescoviews this celebration with satisfac-tion. Each day, the efforts of theWorld Health Organization and Unes-co are combined in carrying outeducational campaigns, and this isno fitful or transitory collaboration.

The rules of health and the possi-bilities of observing them dependupon the progress of scientific re-search. Tropical medicine and clima-tology, rural economy, the science ofnutrition and dietetics, biology andpharmaceutical chemistry, and a hostof other theoretical and appliedsciences are necessary for a normalexistence. How can a man be healthyif he has neither food nor shelter !Even the most highiy-devetopedcountries must have regular recourseto science and technology. Heatthforms part of a global problem whosesolution demands the enlistment ofall our resources, and particularly ofour intelligence. That is why Unescohelps scientific organizations in allfields-cultural, physical and social- to develop and to carry out theirwork and to serve the higher interestsof mankind. Today it is particularlyengaged in promoting scientificresearch for the rehabilitation andexploitation of the arid zones, whichhave graduatty extended untit theycover more than a quarter of the landsurface of the globe.

Amongst populations living byforce of circumstance outside therange of technical progress, educationin health and hygiene is closely link-ed with instruction in reading andwriting, and with the domestic artsand crafts. The training centres forspecialists in fundamental education,

A world-wide

problem which

all mankind can

help to solveby

J. Torres Bodet

which we are trying to set up all overthe world, give hygiene a very promi-nent place in their curriculum. In theFar East, a team of doctors, teachersand artists, using the theme of"A healthy village,"have developedthe most modern techniques such asposters, animated cartoons and films,and have adapted them to the countrywhere they have been operating, so asto make the rules of individual andcollective hygiene known and adopt-ed. In Latin America, Africa and SouthAsia, the fundamental educationexperiments in which we are takingpart would be inconceivable withouta simultaneous raising of the level ofeconomic and social life, and an im-provement in sanitary conditions.

There is nothing visionary aboutwork of this kind. Health and educa-tion cannot be kept in watertightcompartments. We are dealing withhuman beings and the environment inwhich they live. That is our one andonly preoccupation.

Looked at in that light ; WorldHealth Day. is therefore a call forsolidarity.'\Vith populations increas-ing and the means of communica-tion sfeadily speeding up, humancommunities are less segregated thanever before. Good and evil can nolonger be localized. That is both athreat and a promise. Whicheverwav we take it, our duty is clear andinescapable : we must work together,by all means in our power, to create,in the full'. 3sense of the term thehealthy surroundings that makehealthy people.

Page 4. APRIL 1952 UNESCO COl

From the Four Corners...

* Turkey is setting up three seismo-logical stations which, in additionto giving detailed information ondisturbances likely to affect Turkey,will also fit into a world networkof earthquake recording stations.Two experts are assisting, underUnesco's Technical Assistance Pro-gramme : Dr. Gaston Grenet, headof the State Meteorological andGlobal Physics Institute in Algeria(Turkey and Algeria are largelysimilar From a seismological pointof view and Dr. F. J. Roesli,lecturer in geology at the FederalInstitute of Technology in Zurich.

, * The first International Con-

ference of Artists will open inVenice next September to"studythe practical conditions requiredto ensure the freedom of theartist."Every field of creative artwill be represented at the meetingsorganized by Unesco in conjunctionwith the City and Film Festival ofVenice. Problems facing the artistin the world today will be discussedby Arthur Honegger (music) ; TahaHussein Pacha (literature) ; MarcConnelly (theatre) ; AlessandroBlasetti (cinema) ; Georges Rouaultand Jacques Villon (painting) ;Henry Moore (sculpture) ; and Lu-cio Costa (architecture). TheItalian poet, Giuseppe Ungaretti,will discuss the problem in general.

* An album on the stained glasswindows of Middle Age Europe anda volume on philosophical thoughtin the past five years, are to beprepared by the InternationalCouncil of Philosophy and Human-istic Studies as part of a broadprogramme of research recentlyapproved by the second generalassembly of the Council. Otherstudies by this body, created underUnesco's auspices in 1949, include :preparation of a Sanscrit dictionary ;a survey of Turkish historical andphilological studies ; works ontraditions of the Moslem world, andon South American indigenouslanguages. A quarterly review onthe humanistic sciences, entitledDiogenes, will soon appear inEnglish, French, Spanish and pos-sibly other languages.

* Four French schools have takenadvantage of the opening of theUnesco Gift Coupon Programme inFrance to help crippled children inPoland. School boys and girlshave bought gift stamps for theSwiebodzin Home for CrippledChildren which will buy occupa-tional therapy equipment such asrug-weaving shuttles and a treadle-operated saw for woodworking. Itis interesting that part of themoney comes from a girls'school atCaen, which was itself heavilydamaged during the war.

* A school at Agnandero inGreece, rebuilt through the help of100, 000 Danish schoolchildren, hasnow been opened. The unusualexample of international educationco-operation was begun in 1950when the relief organization Mel-lemfolkeligt Samvirke undertook torebuild the school in co-operationwith Unesco and the DanishNational Commission for Unesco.

One-half the total cost of 250, 000kroner was granted from Danishrelief appropriations and the restwas raised through a campaign inDanish schools conducted underthe slogan :"Danish children buildschool for Greek children."Morethan 100, 000 schoolchildren partici-pated in the campaign, which serv-ed not only the purpose of raisingmoney for the project but also ofstimulating interest in Unesco andinternational co-operation.

* Nicaragua is now a member ofUnesco. Following the signing bythe Nicaraguan Government of theConstitution of Unesco and thesimultaneous deposit of theinstrument of acceptance of theConstitution, this country has be-come the sixty-fifth Member Stateof the Organization.

* Unesco has just issued a secondimpression of The Care of Paint-ings, a 164-page illustrated mono-graph first published last year.(See"New Life for Old Paintings,"in the Courier for last February.)This bi-lingual (English-French)publication which describes moderntechniques for reviving the splen-dour of ancient masterpieces. costs82. 50, 15s 6d, or 750 French francs.

* Educational television pro-grammes for United Kingdomschools will be started on an ex-perimental basis on May 5. Theywill be telecast daily for pupils insix secondary schools in northLondon. A joint statement by theBritish Broadcasting Company andthe School Broadcasting Council

explained that the purpose of theexperiment is to try a variety ofprogramme techniques and to testtheir effectiveness for presentingeducational material to children inschool rooms. It is understoodthat if the results are satisfactory,there may be a further experimentin about a year involving a sub-stantial number of schools through-out the United Kingdom.

* Increasing progress is beingmade in putting to work the heal-ing effects of entertainment forhospital inmates. For example,several hospitals in the UnitedStates of America are using micro-film to project books on the ceilingso that patients can read moreeasily. And in France, the SocialSecurity Administration has justbuilt two experimental theatres onthe Riviera for bedridden patients.

* Nearly one million adults areattending courses given in the tenthousand new schools built inBrazil since the national anti-illiteracy campaign started in 1947.Educational authorities report thatnew classes will have to be openedduring this year to give satisfactionto all adults asking to be taughthow to read and write.

* The heroism of the Danish-bornAmerican Captain Kurt Carlsen,the master of the"Flying Enter-prise,"has so captured the admira-tion of Danish children that it hascaused a great increase in thenumber of schools applying for achance to participate in the na-tion's"ship-adoption"project. Thisis a system by which schools"adopt"ships plying foreign waters,thereby giving children a directpersonal interest in the travels ofspecific vessels and lending greaterrealism to the study of geography.A similar system in Great Britainhas given four hundred thousandBritish schoolchildren a keen per-sonal interest in more than onethousand of their country's mer-chant vessels and in the countriesthey visit.

* A record figure for books produc-ed in Braille in Great Britain wasreached during the year 1950-51,according to a report from theLondon headquarters of the Na-tional Institute for the Blind. Dur-ing the year 43, 711 volumes, 28, 068pamphlets, 370, 500 newspapers and138, 654 magazines were produced.including such works as the OxfordBook of English Verse and Gray'sAnatomy.

* Some 350 recordings of Africanand semi-African music are listedin a catalogue just issued by theAfrican Music Transcription Libraryof Johannesburg. The records,mainly of vocal music-praisesongs, love songs, drinking songs,etc.-were made in various partsof the Continent by"African MusicResearch,"under the direction ofHugh Tracey, founder and directorof the African Music Society.Records of music by African com-posers, set to Portuguese and Latinwords, are included, among thembeing parts of a Mass,"MissaKatanga,"composed by JosephKiwele.

* Compulsory education has beenordered for Viet-Nam children be-tween the ages of six and fourteenyears. Henceforth, they mustattend school for at least threeyears. At the same time. an in-tensive literacy drive is beingprepared for the country's adults-sixty per cent of whom are unableto read or write.

* The world's highest laboratoryfor the study of atmospherics andastronomy is being planned inIndia. It is to be situated in theBadrinath-Manna Pass in the Cen-tral Himalayan Mountains at aheight of some seventeen thousandfeet. A party of Indian scientists,under the direction of the Councilof Scientific and Industrial Re-search, will leave in May to surveythe area, where an astronomicaldome, laboratories, power facilitiesand living quarters will have to bebuilt.

* Youthful Dutch singers andmusicians have invited others fromBelgium, Germany, France andEngland to take part in an inter-national music week for youth, tobe held at Olaertsduyn, on theisland of Voorne, near Rotterdamfrom April 14 to 20. The DutchPeople's High Schools have pre-viously organized such gatheringsat which the young amateurs formchoirs and orchestras, but this isthe first time one has beenorganized on an international basis.

· · ' · ·

The range of waves known as the electro-magnetic spectrum is like a longpiano keyboard. The string struck by each white key vibrates at half the rate of

the string eight notes higher, so that for each octave frequencydoubles and wavelength is halved. About 50 octaves represent the electro-magnetic spectrum.

SCIENCE has this in common with art, musicand poetry-any true and significant advancerequires creative imagination of a high order.

To be sure, the imagination of the scientifictheorist must be tempered by the picture of theuniverse as available to the eyes of man, for notall worlds are scientifically possible. But withoutimagination and inventive genius science, likeany other aesthetic enterprise, withers andbecomes sterile.

There is perhap. s no better example of thetriumph of scientific imagination than ourmodern conception of the nature of matter andof energy. For a long time it had been knownthat ordinary gross matter consists of individualparticles, or atoms (see"Atoms in Action"in lastFebruary's issue of the Courier). More recently,the Quantum Theory brought the suggestionthat light and other forms of radiant energyexhibit particle-like attributes, despite the clas-sical idea of light as a wave motion ("What isthe Quantum Theory ?"in the Courier forNovember, 1950).

The concept of light behaving like a volley ofbullets was spectacularly shown by the experi-ments of the American physicist Arthur Comptonin 1923. In his researches, he allowed X-raysto strike a block of carbon, and the rays scatteredfrom the carbon were compared with the directradiation. Compton found that the X-rays,which had rebounded from carbon, had slightly

longer wavelength than before-a fact unpre-dieted and unexplained by the otherwise well-founded wave theory of radiation.

And here is the point where creative imagina-tion enters the scene-a type of co-operativeand consecutive creativity which is probablymore characteristic of the field of science thanof any other human endeavour. Trying Einstein'sidea of"light-bullets"of quanta, Compton (andat about the same time Debye in Germany) hadthe idea of treating the scattering process as asituation transpiring on a billiard table ratherthan on a pond. Considering the incomingX-ray to be a particle rather than a wave, andcomputing what would happen to it when itstruck and rebounded from an electron in a car-bon atom, they found that the quantum wouldlose just enough energy in the collision processto account for its observed increase in wave-length. At the same time, experimenters wereable actually to observe the recoil of the electronthat was struck by the X-ray bullet, completinga convincing picture of the reality of"particlesof radiation.'

Physical science was accordingly in the uncom-fortable position of having to consider light assometimes behaving like waves, sometimes likeparticles. In its ordinary traffic with grossmatter-in passing obstacles and filteringthrough apertures, in rebounding from mirrors

and penetrating transparent materials-lightwould be correctly and adequately described asa wave motion ; but in its more delicate mani-festations, such as the Compton effect and thephoto-electric effect, only the particle conceptappeared to be adequate. Perversely, the fact isthat the plot was further complicated by theappearance of a similar dualism in the case ofmatter !

The French physicist Louis de Broglie grappledwith the idea presented by the double nature ofradiant energy ; and while he could see no imme-diate resolution of the difficulty, he was led tothink of the possibility that the other great entityin the universe-matter-might be beset bythe same dilemma. Accordingly, he made the boldsuggestion that matter might possess undulatorycharacteristics in addition to its accepted andevident particle-like nature. Both matter andradiation are carriers of energy, and"it wouldseem,"he said,"that the basic idea of the quan-tum theory is the impossibility of imagining anisolated quantity of energy without associatingwith it a certain frequency."Material particlesought, therefore, to be accompanied by waves ofsome kind, and these waves should be detectableexperimentally. Within a year of Compton's dis-covery, de Broglie had sketched a rather completeand far-reaching analogy between light waves

(Continued on next page.)

COURIER APRIL 1952. Page 5

Page 6. APRIL 1952 UNESCO

WAVES IN SPACE

(Continued and"matter waves."from pre- The notion is revo-vious page) lutionar indeed forever since the dis-

covery of the electron and ofX-rays, physicists took great paintto distinguish carefully betweenwhat were identified essentially asparticles of matter and other see-mingly distinct things that wereverified to have the properties ofwaves. Now they were being pre-sented with the need for admittingthat matter, as well as radiation,has both attributes.

Proof of the existence of matterwaves was not long in coming.Experimenters found that electronsrebound from crystals only in cer-tain definite directions, in muchthe same way as light waves do.Further, the observed lengths ofthe waves associated with electronscame out in perfect accord withthe values calculated from the for-mula developed by de Broglie.Other experimental proofs showedthat particles of matter bear theunmistakable stamp of waves.

But it is evident that theycannot be the same as light waves,for groups of"matter waves"maytravel with any speed-the speedof the particle with which they arelinked-while light waves travelwith a fixed speed in a givensubstance. This question andmany others were answeredthrough a significant extension ofde Broglie's ideas, carried outmainly by the Austrian theoristErwin Schrodinger and others likeBorn and Heisenberg in Germanyand Bohr in Denmark. The re-sulting body of theory, called wavemechanics, has a highly mathema-tical framework but it provides uswith a powerful tool for solvingproblems involving matter andradiation which the earlier deve-lopments in quantum theory wereunable to attack at all. The wavesare interpreted as something thatguides particles in their courses.

Science at present is reconciledto accepting the apparent dualnature of both matter and radia-tion, and to dealing with radiationthat sometimes behaves like par-ticles and with bits of matter that,on occasion, behave like waves.The new theories provide us witha formalism that correctly repre-sents the details of atomic pheno-mena. They demand in returnonly that we give up the somewhatnaive hope of being able to visual-ize what goes on in the atomicworld in terms of our ordinarylarge-scale experience.--.-

If you are interested in reading furtherabout the Wave Theory of Matter. writeto the Division for the Popularization ofScience, Unesco, 19, Avenue Kleber, Pa-ris 16e, France, for a free bibliographyon this subject.

LEONARDO DA VINCI

the universal genius

15 April 1452 - 2 may 1519

by Jose de Benito

"HEBE is a miraculous story, all ofwhich is not only true, but can beproved,"Paul Valéry once wrote ofthe life of Leonardo da Vinci.

"Were it fictitious, it would form a chapter inthe mythology of the human mind and Leonardowould be one of the heroes or demi-gods in thehistory of the intellect. Yet all the proofs ofhis stupendous life are there for those whodemand them and his great achievements maybe seen bv all who have eyes to see."Thisexplains why, in the words of his faithful Melzi,at his death"all grieved at the loss of such aman, whose like nature will never repeat."

In the year 1452, "Ser Antonio"noted in his

diary : "A grandson was born to me-the sonof Ser Piero, myson-on April 15,a Saturday, at threeo'clock in the morn-ing."Ser Antonio,a landowner livingin the Florentinevillage of Vinci, wasa man of fewoccupations. In adeclaration made in1457, he stated thathe lived in hishouse and did no-thing. Presumablyhe was 3sufficiently

fancies which neverleft him, from thelanguage spoken bythe stains made onold walls by mouldand peeling stucco,and from the mes-sage of the bells asthey pealed frombey fry to belfry,that he derived histheory that"how-ever ugly and evenabsurd a thing mayseem, yet it mayenable the mind to

FEW of Leonardo do Vinci's original paintings havecome down to us today. In fact fewer than 20 areknown to cxist in the world. These are centred in

the large cities of Europe. Leonardo's drawings - thoughfar more numerous-are only in a limited number ofcollections (Windsor Castle in England has the widestselection).To help commemorate the 500th anniversaryof the birth of Leonardo on April 15, 1452, Unesco hasprepared a series of 45 travelling exhibitions each contain-my 150 facsimile reproductions of the great master'sdrawings. The exhibitions are being sent to the membercountries of Unesco for circulation in art galleries,museums, workers'and youth centres, universities andother educational institutions in city and country areas.The drawings published here are from these exhibitions.

occupied tending his vines and his land andwatching hie five-year-old grandson runningabout the house and fields. Little Leonardoobserved with rapture the falcons in flight,the painstaking industry of the ants, andthe clouds overhead. He used every scrap ofpaper that came his way to render the gracefullines of the cypresses, the gnarled shapes of theolive and fig-trees, the houses in the surround-ing countryside and the outlines of the animalsthat grazed on the hills.

The discoveries that Leonardo made in thosefirst five years of true liberty, in close com-munion with nature, looking, assimilating andunderstanding, left a profound mark upon hismind. His earliest recollections were suffusedwith light, with fantasy and with a prescienceof his future destiny. Leonardo himself tellsus of it in his Notebooks and in his Treatise onFainting.

One day, as he lay in his bed watching thewind driving the clouds helter-skelter over thetop of Mount Albano, a falcon-the lesser eagleof those valleys-alighted beside him, and aftera moment's contemplation, brushed Leonardo'sparted lips with its tail and throat-feathers, sothat-as though anointed by an eagle-hisdestiny was marked by the cares of the birdwhich lords it over the skies of Leonardo's nativeTuscany.

Another time, he found a grotto and, tornbetween fear of the darkness and his curiosityto discover its twilit mysteries, he crept in, andperhaps even then glimpsed the harmony withwhich he was later to endow his"Vir-gin of the Rocks." And it was from his childish

fashion inventions of every sort."From thisidea, too he derived his use of lines, half imagi-nary, half real, to depict battles, landscapes orfigures in motion, or to catch in the vibration oftongues of bronze the sound of words andphrases.

The song of the streams, of the birds and ofthe wind in the olive-trees and vineyards aroundVinci led him to the study of music. His urgeto learn the why and the wherefore of thingswas transformed into a love of drawing andmechanics. His thirst for precision led him tomathematics-to calculus and geometry. His

passion for knowledge and reading drove him tolearn Latin as the only vehicle whereby he couldread the volumes piled thigh in the library of the

parish priest at Vinci-his first teacher in thehumanities. And his repeated contemplation ofthe stars in the Tuscansky roused him to study (Continued on page. 8.)

It was neither " La Gioconda " nor"The Last Slipper"which broughtLeonardo the greatest fame in theItaly of his day, but"The Battle ofAnghiari,"for which he made thesetwo studies of the heads of fightingwarriors. Leonardo undertook thisfresco, of which practically nothinghas been preserved, to decorate thenew council hall in the Palace ofIhe Signory in Florence. He con-ceived it as one of the"gloriousworks by. which future generationsshaH know me"as indeed its sizeindicated : 160 feet long by 32 feethigh. In fact the only part actuallydone was the central group whichmeasured 23 feet by 10 feet. Themaster then decided to use heat inorder to make secure the coloursand specially prepared ground on\which they had been painted. Whenheat was applied, however, thecolours in the upper part. ran orscaled from the tall and ruined thepainting so that Leonard had toabandon his task. The unfinishedand decayed painting was coveredover with new frescoes by Va sarisome 50 years later. Toe originalcartoon which served as a mode)(0 the students of his generationmysteriously disappeared. Todaythe only existing memorials of thegreat work are a number of originalpen studies (the originals of the-reproduced here) several copies hycontemporaries of Leonardo and co-pies of copies, including one by Ru-bens, now in the Louvre (Paris).

The Battle of

An ghiari

A lost work of art

: C COURIER APRIL 1952. Page 7

Leonardo hated to destroy any piece of paper on which he haddrawn with pen or crayon. His skelches, thus preserved,reveal a mastery of form and movement, as well as hisuniversal genius. His personality flowed over and invaded

every field of human knowledge of his time, marking anadvance in every direction. Drawing in upper left corneris one of the early studies of the "Last Supper. " In the lowerleft corner. Leonardo da Vinci depiets bis conception of war.

A few years later, by an extraordinary stroke of luckwas discovered by Cardinal Fesch in a shoemaker's slThe aged man with deep-set eyes was one of the few

ST. JEROME. Vatican Gallery. The story of the discovery of this unfinished painting on wood is amazing.In 1820, Cardinal Fesch, Napoleon's uncle, spied a small cabinet amidst the bric-a-brac of a Rome curio shop.The door held the St. Jerome panel from which a rectangular part containing the head had been cut out.

Leonardo was the first artist to rt :. : ugIìIZ" lil"pIa)been able to do before, he also found the way to \movement, rhythm of line and quality of texture

(Continued from page 6.)..astronomy. He sawwith. hi, s eyes and his

will was strong, but ignorance interposed itselflike the bars of a cage between his thirst forlearning and universal-or as he termed it,"solar"-freedom of knowledge. Leonardothereupon devoted all his energies to overcomingthe obstacle presented by those iron bars, inorder that, like the falcon that had anointed him,he might fly free through space.

With that varied but incomplete stock ofknowledge, Leonardo left his village of Vinciand came to the city of Florence, in those yearsof the Qllalll'occnlo (1400-1500) the very heart ofthe Renaissance. It was a great adventure toarrive at the Tuscan capital where in the periodfollowing the splendours of Dante and BoccaccioWere gathered together the masterpieces of Giottoin the church of Santa Croce, of Masaccio in thechurch of Santa Maria del Carmine, and ofMantegna and Piero della Francesca. Thepatronage, first of Cosimo, and then of Lorenzodi Medici, peopled the city of the rich silk andwool merchants with the most illustrious namesin the arts, the culture and the science of the age.

The burghers of Florence had understood that,if they were to reap the fruits of their wealth,they must enjoy freedom. Without it theirpossessions might, from one day to the next,pass into the hands of the tyrant of the hour ; forthen as today, the one path to liberty lay throughculture. That is why thev called in Greekmasters to teach them, and why, not contentwith that, they sent their young men ofoutstanding promise and industry to study the\vorks of antiquity in Greece. This policy paida rich dividend, and the Academy of Plato,founded by Cosimo di Medici, was inspired bythe learning of men (like Pao ! o L'cceHo and

A perfect balance between the

Marsilio Ficino)'whom Lorenzo the Magnificentcollected around him.

For a youngster of sixteen, with Leonardo'sspiritual and mental make-up, Florence was theordeal of fire. Donatello had just died, andVerrocchio, Ghiberti, Ghirlandaio, Alberti,Perugino, Botticelli, Andrea del Sarto-all ofthem magicians in the use of brush and chisel,in gold and silver work, metal-casting andbuilding-were not legendary figures, butbeings of flesh and blood talking together anddiscussing solutions to the problems theyencountered daily in their work.

Scarcely had Leonardo arrived in Florence,when his father, the notary Ser Piero, thinkingto have his illegitimate son taught a trade, tooksome of the boy's drawings to show toVerrocchio. Verrocchio at once perceived theyoung draughtsman's extraordinary gifts andtook him into his studio without further ado.Thus Ser Piero was-fortunately-able toforget his"youthful escapade,"and in the geniuswho created the"Colleone"and the"David,"Leonardo found a father, friend and guide, sothat in four years he passed from the status ofapprentice to that of master painter (1468-14i2).

His companions in the studio were SandroBotticelli, Lorenzo di Credi and Pietro Perugino.Verrocchio, Leonardo and Credi first collaboratedpublicly on the"Baptism of Christ."\Vhen thepublic came to examine the picture, they realizedthat another great artist was now making hiscontribution to the greater glory of Florence.

Team-work was the rule in the"workshops"ofthe Renaissance painters. The master wouldplan, direct, paint in parts, compose, add thefinishing touches and sign the work."TheAnnunciation,"preserved in the Uffizi Gallery,is another collective product of Verrochio'sstudio. The Angel in it is by Leonardo, and formany years it was claimed that here the disciplehad excelled his master, though today that claimis no longer upheld.

It seems that Leonardo continued to work withVerrocchio until towards 1480, when the mastermoved to Venice to start on the"Colleone"monument for the Republic ; and not longafterwards, BotticeIli and Perugino also leftFlorence on an invitation from Pope Sixtus IVto work in the Vatican chapel. In the twelveyears between 14di8 and 1480, Leonardo possessedby his thirst for knowledge, not only worked athis drawing, painting, sculpture and metal-casting, but besides that, he visited the houses ofLeon Battista Alberti and Paolo Uccello, truemasters of æsthetics ; he read books on geo-metry, hydraulics, mathematics and optics ; heseized every opportunity to make the acquain-tance of Yisiting masters, and counted amonghis friends the physicist Toscanelli, the astro-nomer Marmocchi, the cartographer AmerigoVespucci and the mathematician BenedettoAritmetico. He attended the Academy debates,composed music and wrote words for songs,made musical instruments, and untiringly tooknotes and made sketches of everything he sa\v,He loved nature in all its forms and longed to

e of luck, the missing rectangle with St. Jerome's headaker's shop, where it was being used as part of a chair.the few themes that obsessed Leonardo in his works.

the play of light and shade. As no draughtsman hadvay to unite subtlty of expressive definition with vitalxture as exemplified in the delicate draperies above.

capacity to see and to understand

plumb its secrets."Great love,"he said,"springs from profound knowledge of the objectloved."His first-hand study of nature enabledhim to pursue this enormous diversity of inter-ests'without thereby weakening his own per-sonality. He filled notebook upon notebook :"I tell painters that in art, no one should copythe manner of another, else will he produce buta nephew to nature, and not a son."

At the age of thirty, gifted'with everythingneeded to fulfil his universal mission, andengaged at the time on the"Adoration of theMagi"-a picture which, although unfinished,represents a revolution in æsthetic, perspective,conception and composition-Leonardo betookhimself to Milan, bearing a silver lyre shapedlike a horse's head, which Lorenzo the Magni-ficent was sending as a gift to Ludovico Sforza.Conscious of his skill and firmlv assured of hisideas, he sent to the Regent of Milan the famousletter in'which he explained all that he could dofor the Dukedom-build canals, manufacturenew arms, perform feats of engineering andarchitecture-concluding with the statementthat, in painting and sculpture, he could do"anytask as well as another man."

During this second period, at Milan, Leonardogave forth the fruits of his maturity."Mortalbeauty passes, but beauty in a work of art doesnoL"Thus he produced"The virgin of theRocks,"confirming his theory of chiaroscuro :the"Last Supper,"in which he achieved incred-ible light effects, realizing his own ambition :

The drawings of Leonardo are among the greatest treasures ever given to the world by the human spirit.This study of the angel for"The Virgin of the Rocks"forms part of the Turin Library collection. The com-pleted painting is the Louvre, Paris ; a fine, slightly differing version is now in the National Gallery, London

thinner. l'nlik.'Plato, he dit not merelyreproduce the doctrine uf Socrates. The hands,eyes and intellect whicti co-operated to produceimperishable well'k were his own. Over Goethe,the romantic ! who said :"I love those who wantthe impossible,"Leonardo, executant and realist,had the advantage when he said :"I do not wantthe impossible."Yet at the same time heenlarged the scope of human endeavour to anunbelievable extent. All three developed theirown theory of colour. All three-as Gælheexpressed it in naming one of his works-werepoetry and truth. The genius of all three wasuniversal. But of the three, Leonardo alonedisplayed that unique phenomenon-a perfectbalance between capacity to see and capacity tounderstand. We do not know whether his eyeswere his intellect, or whether his intellect lay inhis eyes, but we do know'that both gave to hishands the means to do what he did. He hasbeen called an"intellectual artisan,"but he wasmore-much more. If ever in human historythere was a prototype, on which future mencould be modelled in the mass, then Leonardowould be the prototype uf"Man the Intellectual."

A few days before he died at Amboise on. May 2, 1519, where his last patron, Francis I, hadprovided him with lodging, Leonardo knowingthat he was near his end, uttered three words :"I shall survive,"by which he meant hisinfluence would live on. An actin'illlnlOda1ìtyenjuyed only by a precursor-bul in n his casefully conscious. The forerunner of Baton,Newton, Watt and of so many later men ofscience had discharged his debt to humanity,and in dying poured out his education, scienceand culture from the full cup of his life andwork. to enrich a world, like himself seeking.'avidly after truth.

"May it please God, the Illuminator of all things,so to enlighten me that I treat light'worthily."Soon after finishing the"Last Supper" (1499),he started on his travels through Italy : Venice,Florence again, Pavia, Rome and back to Milan.By now the perfection of his work was familiarto all.

Leonardo was pouring out sketches and studiesfor his"Saint John,"the"Virgin and SaintAnne,""Leda,""Elizabeth d'Este"and the"Gioconda,"in all of which the painter'wasseeking not only to create a work of art, but alsoto apply his doctrine of universalism. Behveentimes he was writing the Treatise on Paining,the Treatise on Painting and Music, the Treatiseon Water, the Treatise on the Flight of Birds : theCodice Atlantico and the Anatomical Notebooks.Leonardo's personality flowed over, invadingevery field of the human knowledge of his time.marking an advance in every direction. Twohundred years were to elapse before anatomyachieved the precision of his drawing of thehuman body, and four hundred before a flyingmachine, with wings constructed on the lines ofone of Leonardo's sketches, rose from the earth,supporting itself on air, and covered over ahundred yards in miraculous flight.

How shall woe explain the Leonardo phono-menon ? In the historv of Western civilization.Plato, Leonardo and Goethe perhaps representthe three highest peaks ever sealed by the mindof man. Leonardo had the adnmtagE'oYer thefirst that he was more a man of action than a

Page 10. APRIL 1952

Some of Leonardo's

aphorisms-

* You can have neither a greater nor a less dominionthan over yourself.

* Experience, the interpreter between formative natureand the human race, teaches how that nature acts amongmortals ; and being constrained by necessity cannot actotherwise than as reason, which is its helm, requiresher to act.* In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of whathas passed and the first of that which comes : so withtime present.

* Shun those studies in which the work that results dieswith the worker.* Nothing can be either loved or hated unless it is firstknown.* You do ill if you praise but worse if you censurewhat you do not rightly understand.

* Iron rust from disuse ; stagnant water loses its purityand, in cold, water becomes frozen ; even so does inactionsap the vigour of the mind.

* Where the descent is easier, there the ascent is moredifficult.* Every part is disposed to unite with the whole, sothat it may thereby escape from its own incompleteness.* A drop is that which does not detach itself from therest of the water unless the power of its weight is morethan its adhesion to the water with which it is joined.* The earth is moved from its position by the weightof a tiny bird resting upon it. The surface of the sphereof water is moved by a tiny drop of water falling upon it.* Two weaknesses leaning together create a strength.Therefore the half of the world leaning against the otherhalf becomes firm.* A thing that moves acquires as much space as it loses.* Science is the captain, practice the soldiers."* Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not hismtellect but rather memory.

* The idea or the faculty of imagination is both rudderand bridle to the senses.

* This benign nature so provides that over all the worldyou find something to imitate.* A good painter has two objects to represent : man,and the intention of his soul. The first is easy, thesecond difficult.* Call not that riches which may be lost ; virtue is ourtrue wealth and the true reward of its possessor. Itcannot be lost ; it will not abandon us unless life itselffirst leaves us. As for property and material wealth,these you should hold in fear ; full often they leave theirpossessor in ignominy, mocked at for having lost pos-session of them.

* Of streams of water equal in length, breadth anddeclivity, the swiftest will be the one of greatest depth.* The goldfinch will carry spurge to its little onesimprisoned in a cage : death rather than loss of liberty.* Feathers shalt raise men towards heaven even as theydo birds-that is, by letters written with their quills.

* The age as it flies glides secretly and deceives oneand another ; nothing is more fleeting than the years,but he who sows virtue reaps honour.* While I thought that I was learning how to live, Ihave been learning how to die.

- and three of his fables

The cedar, arrogant by reason of its beauty, despisingthe plants which were round about it, caused them allto be removed from its presence, and then the wind, notmeeting with any obstacle, tore it up by the roots andthrew it on to the ground.

Once upon a time the razor, emerging from the handlewhich served it as a sheath, and placing itself in the sun,saw the sun reflected on its surface, at which thing it tookgreat pride, and turning it over in its thoughts it beganto say to itself :"Am I to go back any more to that shopfrom which I have just now come away ? No, surely ! Itcannot be the pleasure of the gods that such radiantbeauty should stoop to such vile uses ! What madnesswould that be which should induce me to scrape thelathered chins of rustic peasants and to do such menialservice ? Is this body made for such actions as these ?Certainly not ! I will go and hide myself in some retiredspot, and there pass my life in tranquil ease."

And so having hidden itself away for some months,returning one day to the light and coming out of itssheath it perceived that it had acquired the appearanceof a rusty saw, and that its surface no longer reflectedthe sun's radiance. In vain with useless repentance itbemoaned its irreparable hurt, saying to itself :"Ah, howmuch better it would have been to have let the barberuse that lost edge of mine that had so rare a keenness !Where is now the glittering surface ? In truth the foulinsidious rust has consumed it away."

The same thing happens with minds which in lieu ofexercise give themselves up to sloth ; for these like therazor lose their keen edge, and the rust of ignorancedestroys their form.

The flint on being struck by the steel marvelled greatlyand said in a stern voice :"What arrogance prompts youto annoy me ? Trouble me not, for you have chosen meby mistake. I have never done harm to anyone."Towhich the steel made answer :"If you will be patient youwill see what a marvellous result will issae forth fromyou."

At these words the flint was pacified and patientlyendured its martyrdom, and it saw itself give birth tothe marvellous element of fire which by its potencybecame a factor in innumerable things.

This is said for those who are dismayed at the outsetof their studies, and then set out to gain the masteryover themselves and in patience to apply themselvescontinuously to those studies, from which one sees resultthings marvellous to relate.

On tyre ceilings of the great Sala dell'Asse in Milan, Leonardo painted a series of striking deco-rations of abstract puzzle-patterns intermingling with designs of living boughs and leavens.

Two studies which show Leonardo's prodigious skit) in delineating the movements of horsesand their rides. Thl'nohility of horsl's and their hl'aut y of outline d ('eply imp",'ssed him.

UNESCO'E

APRIL 1952. Page I I

Authorities today consider that most of Leonardo's grotesques were just people, as Vasari, one of his earlier biographers, has declared. Above, somethe product of his (at times fantastic) imagination and not studies of real striking example's of his distortions of certain aspects or the human face.

Leonardo the architect left numerous plans for huildings and other works,like this sketch of a church, square in plan, with a central done and belltowers. He studied profoundly the works of Alberti and Bramante.

He even planned an aeroplane - over 400 years before the world took flyingfor granted. Leonardo, who was left-handed, wrote from right to left. Hiswords can be deciphered by placing them upside down against a mirror.

Page 12. APRIL 1952 UNESCaOUR'E !

NEW Yorkers recently flocked to an exhibitionshowing that the American Way of Life is acombination of many (mostly non-American) ways.

The exhibition was unusual in a number of aspects. Ttwas not housed in one building. Instead, the exhibitswere shown in a hundred shop-windows in leading storesin and around Fifth Avenue. To organize theexhibitions, 32 of the city's museums had got togetherin their biggest joint enterprise ever.

The exhibition, which was called"World on View,"was held in honour of the National Conference of theUnited States National Commission for Unesco."Worldon View"chose as its theme one of Unesco's maintasks-helping the man in the street to visualize theinterdependence of all men and all nations.

Americans were reminded that they are surrounded byeveryday objects which have their origin in many partsof the world. They were shown, for instance, that when"Mr. Average American"awakes to begin a"typicalAmerican day,"he is muffled to the ears in materials ofOriental origin. Whether his pyjamas and bedclothes aremade from cotton, linen, wool or silk, they all cameoriginally from Asia.

It might be imagined that nothing could be more Ame-rican than the American breakfast ; but, the exibitionshows that nearly every item on the breakfast menuoriginated far away on the other side of the Atlantic orPacific. Bread was first eaten in the Near East, the useof butter began as a cosmetic in the same region, andcoffee was an Abyssinian plant discovered by the Arabs.Dishes had their origin in China, and the table fork wasfirst used during the Middle Ages in Mediterraneancountries.

Not all the exibits, however, were a5 light-hearted asthis ; but, whether matter-of. fact, grave or humorous, theyall were aimed at interesting the passers-by in the waypeople work, play, dress, eat and think, not only intheir own country, but in others too.

There was an exhibit on"Speed and World Space,"

Thirty-two New York museums joined in arrangingFifth Avenue"World on View"exhibits showinginterdependance of nations. Left : theme poster

AT least half the men and women who came to theThird National Conference of the U. S. NationalCommission for Unesco were connected with

education in one form or another. Over 100 collegesand universities sent officially accredited delegates.A score of university presidents and representativesfrom the country's leading educational associationswere there. Even more heartening was the number ofclassroom teachers, principals, and specialists invarious fields from art to zoology, who had come toHunter College from all parts of the United States.

University professors and school administrators tooka prominent part in the leadership of the sections,panels and work groups into which the conference wasdivided. Also meeting with the professional educatorswere several hundred students whose comments andobservations carried equal weight in defining problemsand offering suggestions. Students too joined withadult leaders to formulate many findings related tothe educational phases of the conference.

Group after group took hold of the need for acomplete programme of education that would translateinformation about the United Nations and betterknowledge of other peoples into the familiar facts ofeveryday living. Experts in elementary education, aswell as those from the secondary schools and at thecollege level, were agreed that teaching about theUN and the Specialized Agencies be regarded as animportant part of all regular school activities. Whenit came to a discussion of science clubs, student assem-blies, college newspapers and other extracurricularactivities, the same thinking prevailed-do not separatean interest in foreign affairs from any field thatattracts the regular attention of students, talk aboutthe UN whenever its work fits logically with the sub-ject matter under discussion, introduce special projectsfor international understanding whenever they can berelated to other learning experiences. In brief, theconference was bent on making the United Nations apart and parcel of every class and student interestfrom nursery school to graduate seminar.

The importance of realizing why our internationalorganizations have come into existence was broughtout at a joint meeting of educational groups. At thissession over 1. 000 educators heard that the UnitedStates is faced with a whole re-orientation of ourschools toward the world in which we are now living.The United Nations and Unesco are a bridge to thatworld, and educating for world understanding in thebroad sense, rather than merely teaching about UN

AMERICAN EDUCATION AND THE

UN) TED NAT) ONS

by Dr E. arl J. McGrath,

U. S. Commissioner of Education

and Unesco, is part of the challenge for school people.Several educators suggested that possibly the main

difficulty faced by adults in their work with interna-tional agencies may be that their own schooling inthese matters started so late-an observation whichhighlights the task of bringing the work of the inter-national organizations close to the people of UNmember nations, often designated the peculiar respon-sibility of Unesco.

During an earlier panel report on"The FightAgainst Igncrance,"Unesco had been referred to asthe educational arm of the United Nations. Itsprogramme of fundamental education was describedas reaching out to lift the uneducated people in variousparts of the world. There was a clear recognition thatthe elimination of illiteracy throughout the world wasessential if peoples generally were to understand thework of the UN and to dedicate themselves to thepermanent establishment of peace.

Those attending this panel were also reminded notto lose sight of the secondary purpose of fundamentaleducation, which is to improve the community itself.Constantly alluded to and illustrated throughout theconference were stories of how this is being done.

The problems of the underdeveloped areas, wherehunger, sickness and early death are the common lot,were mentioned in several section meetings. Otherworld problems of interest to school people are :-

(1) The continual need to expand and hold gainsmade by free and compulsory schooling-eventuallyguaranteeing to all children and young people theright to an education expressly set forth in the Uni-versal Declaration of Human Rights.

(2) Education for adults, including a discussion ofhow interest and methods usually vary to meet vastlydifferent situations and needs.

(3) Improvement of textbooks and teaching mate-rials. A brief report on Unesco sponsored seminarswas included in one of the working papers.

Such were the ideas and the information which theprofessors and the school teachers, the administratorsand other specialists, had fresh in their minds whenthey met in the work sessions of their choice. Theyalso brought to these informal group discussions awealth of practical experience, innumerable questions,and some doubts.

How to help parents, teachers and children gain afeeling of responsibility toward other people, wasidentified as a main task for those engaged in pre-school and elementary education.

In a Pennsylvania school the sixth graders had cutthe problem down to size by asking,"What are thegreatest needs of children in the world today ?"Each child represented a UN member nation to givethe presentation. A Minneapolis classroom posed aseries of questions about the United Nations, organizedinto teams, read as much as possible on each subject,and, after holding group discussions, worked out asimple dramatic programme to be presented to theschool and the Parent-Teacher Association. Butespecially needed are music and drama, and bookmaterials pictorially interesting, based on experienceand suited to the child's reading capacity.

When the question of materials and teachingmethods came up in work groups devoted to theSecondary Schools, leaders thought that major respon-sibility for their development rests with the teachingprofession itself. One group expressed firm beliefthat, although UN information has a place throughthe entire curriculum, all students before their educa-tion terminates should have an opportunity for a

SCqOURIERAPRIL 1952. Page 13

which presented the expanding horizons in a shrinkingworld. Another,"The Book,"covered the history ofreading matter from the Babylonian clay tablets of 4, 000years ago to the present day.

"Mankind speaks through the Arts"was a synopsisof sculpture from Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Africaand the America, Furniture, clothing, jewellery, cera-mics, silverware, textiles, glassware and many other every-day objects were all dealt with from a universal point ofview.

The aim of the exhibition-in the words of Mr. Renéd'Harnencourt, who headed the specially-formed NewYork Museums Committee for the National Conference-was to show how museums"may be used to increase anunderstanding by the public of its own heritage, andshow each citizen his place in the world as a whole."The exhibits were designed to interest passers-by inexploring further the immense world resources at theirown doorstep.

.'A knowledge of the world and its people has neverbeen so important to every individual as it is now."declared Mr. d'Harnencourt."Every political and eco.nomic event, no matter where it may take place, eventuallyaffects the lives of every one of us. To know the worldand its people has become a necessity for all."

Mr. d'Harnencourt, who is Director of New York'Museum of Modern Art, said that the exhibition could"strengthen our consciousness of the interdependence ofthe world, and create a desire for international co-operation without which the efforts of UN and Unescocannot be successful."

At the same time as the National CommissionsConference discussed how the citizen can play a greaterpart in solving world problems, thousands saw theseexhibits which, although largely a spectacle of the live-of others in the past and the present, succeeded in bring-ing home to many an onlooker his function in the field-of human activity.

designed by Leo Lionni ; Centre :"Speed andWorld Space" ; Right : air view of New York, whereUnesco National Commission conference was staged.

systematic study of the United Nations, and suggestedthe world history course as the logical place for it.

Definite plans for extending school programmes ininternational relations were mapped out by a secondgroup. One specific recommendation advanced wasgreater use of foreign students and exchange pro-fessors, and of other speakers available from consulates,diplomatic missions and the United Nations.

Finding out that basically people are more alike thanthey are different, that differences do exist, and thatsomehow ways must be found to live together in peacein the face of these differences, was believed to be thecrux of the matter.

It was the sense of another work session thai 0-day students should be led to an understanding of howforeign policies have often reflected national interests,but how in recent times they have taken accountincreasingly of humanitarian concerns for other people.

An effective demonstration of many of these teachingprinciples was given by the schools of the greater NewYork City area during the Unesco gathering. Twojunior conferences were arranged by the local boardof education-one for ninth grade students, one forthe tenth to the twelfth grades. Junior confer-ence activities culminated in a Youth Forum sponsor-ed by the New York Times and televised from theHunter College Auditorium.

At the college level, not only knowledge but insightinto other ways of life is required for evaluating inter-national issues. The value of developing a capacityfor mature judgment, rather than formulating thejudgments and attitudes of students, was stressed.

The working session given over to the exchange ofpersons was concerned with the administrative pro-blems as well as the value of the interchanges. Over200 people attended, many of them officials of collegesand universities charged with the responsibilities oforienting foreign students in the United States.

American colleges and universities have long realiz-ed responsibilities for extending their services beyondthe physical bounds of their institutions. It is logicalthat a conference on"The Citizen and the UnitedNations"should include a work session which urgedcloser co-operation between the universities and thevarious community agencies and organizations interest-ed in motivating more serious adult study of the UNand international problems.

GROWING ISOLATION IN SCIENCE

tS CALLED ALARM) NG

by Dr Bart J. Bok,

Harvard University

AMERICAN scientists and engineers who parti-cipated in the Third National Unesco Conferenceat Hunter College see in such meetings a tre-

mendous potential in bridging the gulfs and prejudicesbetween scientific disciplines which have seriouslyretarded the advance of knowledge.

Working on all levels of the conference, scientistsreceived new insight of the work of fellow Americansin the field of international affairs and set their ownsights on specific ways in which pure and appliedscience can contribute to the construction of a stablepeace. Because the results of scientific study are ofimmediate, potential value to all nations, it wasstressed that the objectives of Unesco cannot beachieved without encouraging and promoting bothbasic and applied science.

Calling attention to the fact that the world'sreserves of essential metals would be exhaustedwithin 25 years, if the per capita use of metals inthe rest of the world equalled that in the U. S., theworking group called for the formation of a researchgroup to consider the minerai resources problem ona world basis as an essential element in the UnitedNations programme of raising world living standards.

Interwoven into the discussions was the recognitionthat free exchange of information and facilitation oftravel are both essential to scientific progress andhuman welfare and that nationalism in science leadsto international misunderstanding and impedes thepromotion of world peace. The delegates were very

outspoken against unnecessary and undesirablerestrictions on exchange of information and travel ofscientists which now exist in certain countries, includ-ing our own. They viewed with alarm the increasingscientific isolation of the U. S.

The U. S. National Commission was urged to giveadded impetus to the scientific and technologicalprogramme of Unesco and it was urged that there beno reduction in funds now allotted to technicalassistance and the field science co-operation offices,grants in aid, international research laboratories anddocumentation and scientific abstracting.

Recognizing that a better balance should beachieved by Unesco in its support of basic and appliedsciences, the delegates recommended that assistanceto medical and engineering sciences be brought up tothe level of support for the more basic sciences andthat attention be given to the promotion of inter-national co-operation in the agricultural sciences, ifpossible in co-operation with FAO. The convictionwas expressed that the services of the engineeringprofession have not adequately been utilized by Unescoand a survey of proposals regarding closer co-operationbetween Unesco and the world-wide engineeringprofession, prepared by the work group of theEngineers'Joint Council, was transmitted to theNational Commission. Included were suggestionsregarding the development of engineering educationin foreign countries and the s2lection of qualifiedstudents for education in the engineering sciences inthe U. S.

Page 14. APRIL 1952

HOW EUROPEANS FEEL ABOUT AMERICANS

MORE and m. >re these days, one hears people talkingabout how important it is if we are to have peacefor the peoples of the world to understand one

another. And there is increasing recognition that thepublic opinion survey can play a major role-if only anindirect one-in bringing about such understanding.

Before we can go about straightening up whatever mis-understandings exist in the minds of people, we musthave some notion of what the conceptions are that peoplehave of one another. One way of discovering whatimages one people has of another, is to ask questions ofa cross-section of the population and analyze theiranswers.

In 1948, the Social Sciences Division of Unesco, as partof the International Tensions Project, sponsored a publicopinion poll in nine countries-six of them European.People in each of these countries were shown a list of12 adjectives and asked to indicate which of thoseattributes they thought applied to their fellow-country-men, then to the Russians and then to the Americans.

There are many interesting things to be seen in theresults of this study. You might want to compare theimage these peoples have of themselves with the onethey have of Americans. Or you might look at thestereotype of the Russians and compare that with thestereotype of the Americans. Or you might want tocompare the Frenchman's image of his fellow French-man with the Britisher's view of Englishmen. And soon.

One way of getting some idea of the differences whichthe Europeans feel exist between themselves and Ameri-cans is to look for the adjectives they use more frequentlyto describe themselves than to describe Americans. Andtheft, on the other hand, to look for those adjectives theyapply more often to Americans than to themselves.

'Progressive, pratical, generous'

LOOKING at the data from this point of view, we lind-- that as compared with Americans, Europeans muchmore often think of themselves as : brave, intelligent,peaceloving. As compared with Europeans they seeAmericans as : progressive, practical, generous.

It is fairly easy to understand our reputation in Europeas practical and progressive people. Our economicdevelopment and our technical proficiency speak for uson that score. And considering the role the U. S. hasplayed in the post-war economy of Europe, it is notsurprising that we are thought of as generous. There isnothing uncomplimentary in any of these attributesthemselves.

But the fact that Europeans pay scanty tribute to ourcourage and our intelligence is not so easy to swallow.

In terms of international understanding in this criticalperiod, however, perhaps the most important thing toconsider is that while Europeans think of themselves aspredominantly peace-loving people, they do not think ofAmericans in this way. We think of ourselves primarilyas a peace-loving nation. The Europeans evidently havesome doubts and possibly even some fears about this.While we aren't considered as un-peace-loving as theRussians, a peace-loving nature is not thought to be oneof our prime assets as people. It seems, therefore, thatthere's a job for us Americans to do if we are to winthe confidence of the West Europeans as regards ourinterest in peace.

Recently, we had occasion to interview Poles who hadcrossed into the Western Zone of Germany. Amongother things, we asked these people to give us theirimpressions of the kind of people Americans are, andhow they compare with the people of their own country.Again, one is struck by the contrast between the self-image and the image of the American.

'Materiatistic, setf-centred, nervous*

A 26-year-old chemical engineer stressed the psycho-logical difference between the Poles and the

Americans. He said :"The Americans are fond of a fast, nervous, eventful

life. They need strong stimuli, films with ghosts and alot of murders. They are after sensation, they adore filmstars, they set no great store by sentimental life. TheAmericans are guided in all their doings by reason andcalculation whereas the Poles are led by sentiment in alltheir thoughts and deeds."

And a 29-year-old woman who taught high school andholds a master of arts degree in Polish literature, talkedabout the self-centredness of the American :

"Americans are characterized by unceremonious be-haviour, by nonchalance which gives the impressionof'a lack of orderliness, but after all, they must be prettysmart people. However, the Americans are rather snper-ficial and consider their America the navel of the world.What goes on in the outside world is of no interest tothem. The greatest point of interest to an American ishis personal prosperity. In America, materialism reignsin every field."

This view of the American as materialistic, self-centred,nervous and unsentimental, is not inconsistent with theview of the Americans as primarily"practical,""pro.gressive,"and"generow ;," which was revealed by theUnesco stereotype study. It is just another piece ofevidence which points to the fact that the European mayfind qualities which he admires in the American, butnevertheless feels that there is some intangible quality- lack of sensitivity to spiritual values, if you like-that

distinguishes the American from the European and

by elms C. WilsonPresident, International Public

Opinions Research, Inc.

makes for a barrier to understanding and genuinesympathy between the countries.

Now let's turn to the subject of American foreignpolicy. During the last few months of 1950, the Inter-national Public Opinion Research, Inc. conducted publicopinion surveys in several West European countries.We interviewed cross-sections of the populations in GreatBritain, France, Western Germany, Italy and Sweden.We asked these people a lot of questions : about problemsin their own countries, about their feelings concerningthe possibilities of war, about their views on Russia andabout their views on the United States. (I should saythat the actual interviewing was done, of course, bynatives of each of the countries concerned.)

We found then-and this study was begun just aboutthe time hostilities broke out in Korea-that the popu-lations of these countries were generally more sympatheticto the United States than they were to Russia (withthe exception, of course, of the small groups ofCommunists in each country). But this sympathy wasrather obviously a qualified one : West Europeans did notregard American policies with complete trust.

In addition, we found that there were difference be-tween countries in this respect. At the time these surveyswere conducted, the evidence seemed to point to theconclusion that the British, West German and Swedishpopulation were definitely more pro-U. S. in theirsympathies than the French and Italians. In these lasttwo countries, large proportions of the population haddoubts and suspicions about the intentions of the UnitedStates.

It is not that large numbers of West Europeansactually fear or actively dislike the United States. Farfrom it. When people in Great Britain, France, Germany,Italy and Sweden were asked what countries they fearedor what countries they like least, fewer than 10 per centanywhere named the United States.

On the other hand, the United States does notnecessarily occur to Western Europeans when they areasked to name a country toward which they feelparticularly friendly or sympathetic. The British aremore often friendly toward the U. S. than are membersof the other nations. Even in Britain, however, onlyabout four out of 10 named the United States as thecountry they feel most friendly toward. The Frenchmentioned the Low Countries and Switzerland more oftenthan the U. S. ; and the Swedes named Great Britain asoften as the United States.

The question of what makes for suspicion about theintentions of the U. S. in the mind of the Western

U. S. ARTISTS PREPARE

FOR WORLD

ART CONGRESS

FOR many of the theatre and music repre-sentatives attending the Third U. S. NationalConference, the experience was not a new

one. But for the painter, sculptor, graphic ar-tist and architect, it was their first opportunityto learn at first-hand about Unesco.

Unesco's announcement that it would sponsorthe first international conference devoted to thearts had attracted the interest of a large numberof American artists. Special meetings on thearts were keyed into plans for American parti-cipatlon in this international arts congress. Over200 artists, representing music, theatre, litera-ture, the graphic and the plastic arts from allsections of the United States came to learnmore about Unesco as a specialized agency ofthe UN system, having responsibility for pre-serving and advancing cultural interchange asa factor in building a world community.

Two special meetings of interest to the visualarts world were held. The first devoted to thevisual arts, was led by a panel composed largelyof art educators. They presented a pessimisticview of Unesco's achievements in terms of thebroad imaginative programme which the Orga-nization had originally developed in its formativeyears. Two days later, a second panel discussionon the"'Arts in the World Community"consi-dered Unesco's work from the point of view ofmusic, theatre, painting, architecture and lite-rature. In this meeting, as in that on the visualarts, emphasis was placed on the importance ofthe artist's contribution to the world's cultureheritage. Recognition of this contribution, thedelegates believed, must come at two levels : thenational and international. They recognizedthat the American artist receives civic supportfrom many sources such as through his nationalorganizations, the maintenance of museumsthrough private means, and community sponsor-ship of sy, mphony orchestras. What the artistwants, however, is some evidence that his con-tribution is important enough to warrant popu-lar support. At the national level, they desiregovernmental interest which will assure theartist of an even greater opportunity to exercisehis craft ; at the international level, a greateropportunity for the exchange of ideas, resources,and materials with the practising artists in otherparts of the world, thereby achieving a. moreactive interchange of cultural products, an in-terchange intrinsic to the establishment andmaintenance of a world community.

European is a tough one to answer. But we get someclues from responses to questions we asked that bearon specific policies and possibilities.

In Italy, for example, we found a residue of resentmentagainst America which dates back to World War II.Fifty-six per cent of the Italians, or instance, made nosecret of the fact that they thought Allied bombardmentsduring the last war had been nothing more than uselessbrutality, rather than military necessity.

We asked people directly whether they thought the U. S.was doing everything it could do to prevent anotherworld war. As can be seen from the chart, largemajorities of the British, Swedes and Germans had nodoubt about the honesty of U. S. efforts to prevent war,even though they may have some quarrel with U. S.methods of prevention.

CHART)

U. S. EFFORTS TO PREVENT WAR

It is important to note that a fairly sizeable portionof the Swedish population (26 per cent) was reluctant togive the U. S. full credit for its war-prevention activities.But it was only the Italians who were really doubtfulabout our intentions. Few of them felt that weAmericans were really doing everything in our powerto avert a major war.

There were, therefore, groups of British, Frenchmen,Germans, Italians and Swedes who in 1950 had doubtsabout U. S. integrity, politically and morally. But themajority in most cases took a more sympathetic view ofAmerican foreign policy.

The idea of international co-operation meets withfairly widespread approval from the British, Italians andSwedes. In the 1950 survey, we found that about one-half the population in each of these countries endorsedthe idea of a federation of West European nations. Thisfigure was somewhat lower in France, but sentiment infavour of such an organization had increased betweenWinter 1949 and the Spring of 1950.

As for the United Nations, as you can see from thischart, just about the time the United Nations wascatapulted into the headlines as a result of developmentsin Korea, the UN was a familiar name to manyEuropeans.

CHART If

CONFIDENCE IN THE UN

Almost all the Swedes had heard of the UN ; and theBritish public was also quite well informed. On theother hand, one Frenchmen in three had nevereven heard of the UN. And, I might add, the Italianswere similarly ignorant : About 40 per cent of theItalian public had not heard of the UN or did notknow that Italy was not a member. (Italy does notappear on the chart because Italians were not askedabout the UN's ability to prevent war).

People who had heard about the UN were askedwhether they thought the UN might be successful inpreserving peace. Only the Swedes had any greatconfidence in the ability of the United Nations to averta war. The British were as a whole more optimistic thanpessimistic, but less so than the Swedes. And theFrench were even less hopeful than the British.

In France and Sweden it was possible to compareanswers to this question before and after the outbreak ofhostilities in Korea since the field work was going onjust about that time. Perhaps understandably, itappeared then that the war in Korea damped the hopethat the UN would be successful in keeping peace.

So far, the optimism of the Swedes has been justified.Undoubtedly, feelings about the UN's ability to handledelicate international situations will have undergoneseveral shifts as tensions eased and then tightened inKorea during the months which have elapsed since thissurvey was taken. But the figures do seem to show thatthe Europeans were at least more often willing to givethe UN the benefit of the doubt than to feel that itschances of success were doomed from the start.

(This l/OfIl'l'is a slIrmllary of an address givell l>efore theSoliol/ol ('ollf,'rPlw,'of the U. S. Natiol/al ('ommissiOIl atHlIlltf"t'olleye, Npw t-urk.)

: OURIER APRIL 1952. Page 15

THE CHILDREN HELD THEIR OWN CONFERENCES

While the Third National Conference of the United States National Commission for Unescowas being held in New York, high school students also got down to studying the programmeand aims of Unesco at two junior conferences organized by the New York Board of Education.As a Unesco activity, the work of the National Conference itself came under discussion atthese junior meetings. Photos above show students in New York and other U. S. schoolsdebating such questions as the use of mass communications in Unesco's work and how thereduction of racial as well as religious tensions can help to promote peace throughoutthe world.

THE boys and girls of a junior high school in Washington D. C. couldn'tunderstand it at a ! !. Everywhere they found the same six lettersstaring them in the face. They were written on mirrors, chalked

on gym lockers, stuck on the library walls and in the corridors. Largelettered posters proclaimed them from classroom notice boards. Redarrows pointed to them in the washrooms.

Groups of the students stood before the letters asking each other"What'sit all about ?""What does U-N-E-S-C-O mean ?" Even when they askedthe teachers for an explanation, they drew a blank, for the latter just shooktheir heads and pretended to be equally puzzled.

But not all the boys and girls of the Alice Deal Junior High Schoolwere mystified. Some 40 or so students out of the total of well over athousand in the school went around trying bard not to look smug whenthey heard the others asking"What's U-N-E-S-C-O ?" For these studentshad been hard at work before the others arrived, putting up the letters,signs and arrows where everyone would see them.

What may at first have seemed like a joke to the majority of the boysand girls was in fact the first action in an educational scheme which thissingle group had been secretly preparing for weeks past-a projectwhich originated in a suggestion by the United States National Commissionfor Unesco that students might like to help them solve two problems.

For some time past, the Commission had been receiving the same twoqueries from teachers and school officials :"What can we do to helpUnesco ?" ;"How can we bring Unesco into classroom activities ?"Convinced that the best answers were to be found in the schools them-selves, the Commission asked the principal of the Alice Deal Junior HighSchool and a member of her teaching staff to try to find out first if, nndthen how Unesco could become a"living reality"to boys and girls in theseventh, eighth and ninth grades.

From this idea that the boys and girls themselves might be best fittedto work out a solution there grew a project which, conceived and carriedout by a class of 37 boys and girls, brought Unesco and its objectives intoclear focus in the minds of everyone in the school, and produced a blue-print for an educational campaign suitable for other schools to adapt 10their particular needs and resources.

This is how these boys and girls set about it. First of all, it was assumedthat the students as a whole knew nothing about Unesco. Miss BertieBackus, the school's principal and Mr. Leo M. Allman, a teacher ofEnglish and Social Studies, therefore decided that the best approach wasthrough a small class of 11-to 14-year-old students.

The pupils began with a working committee of five youngsters whogave up part of their holidays to attend meetings of the United StatesNational Commission for Unesco in Washington. This group returnedwith a fund of information for the rest of the class when school began.For more than a week during their English period the pupils discussedUnesco and its aims, and supplemented these studies by"homework"from materials gathered by another team. The teacher explained thatthey were not being asked to solve problems concerning Unesco whichhad stumped the experts, but that what the National Commission wantedwas a young people's angle. What were young people thinking aboutUnesco ? What did they know of its programme ? In this way the classbecame a workshop, with Unesco and the informational project forming aregular part of the curriculum.

Then came the question"How are we to go about it ?""Write apoem,"suggested one girl..'Paint a picture,"said the artist of thesection."Write a pamphlet,"said another. From then on the classsplit into groups, each having a special job to do. One committeeworked out the draft of a pamphlet ; a second, composed for the mostpart of students with art talent, prepared three different sets of postersand a novel scheme for using them ; an Assembly Committee had a playto introduce Unesco to the school ; a second assembly to conclude theproject was also planned ; a Committee on Music wrote a song with ori-ginal words and melody.

Already at this point the interest and stimulation which the class hadobtained from the project had proved its worth in the opinion of theteacher. Now, however, the class was ready to put its plan into action.

First it began to arouse the curiosity of the rest of the school. Withoutany"xplanation the letters"U. ;'I/. E-S-C. O" appeared in every conceivableplace, in the building and in every size, shape and colour.

Then, these signs disappeared and a second series of posters asked thequestion"What is Unesco ?" followed by placards asking in he franklyfacetious humour of the teenager.'Is it a heavenly constellation... ?""Abrand of cigarettes... ?""A new dance step... ?"

The next move was an assembly where, in a class-written script, the boysand girls enacted the experiences of their own quest-how they them-selves.'discovered"Unesco, how they decided to"pass the word along."

In the final scene the class talked directly to the audience :"What is Unesco ?"We did'nt find out until we started to write our pamphlet. Now we

can see that everyone has to know about it to make it succeed."At the end of our play we will announce an essay contest. The title

will be'What can I do to help Unesco ?'"Our class will send speakers to your room to tell you about Unesco

and answer your questions."For those who entered the essay contest, the class which organized the

information campaign offered the following services : It persuaded theEnglish teachers to make the essay a class project for each English class ;it set up a library of materials on Unesco which it obtained from theUnited States National Commission ; it compiled a pamphlet which gavethe background and the general goals of Unesco ; and finally, it set upa Lecture Bureau and announced to the school that speakers would heavailable to talk on Unesco and to answer questions in any of the classes.An assembly at which the winners of the contest were announced andprizes awarded brought the project to an end.

The students believe their plan can be used by other schools and thatit can be adapted to many other situations..'It is the best thing we did,"they said,"because any school which carried out this plan or anotherlike it will accomplish what we set out to do."

Their teacher had this to say :"For the children we feel that this wasa wonderful educational experience. If we have anything to offer it isthe activity itself rather than any of its products. There is now not achild at Alice Deal who does not know what Unesco stands for. Andtheir understanding of the necessity for greater tolerance and the easingof racial and religious tensions as shown in the essays and pamphletsthey wrote is very gratifying."

Just how well such ideas went home to these children is perhaps bestillustrated by the words of a young girl, one of the contest prize winners.In her essay, she wrote :"Stop before you say anything which might hurtsomeone of a different race, colour or creed. Learn to be tolerant ofpeople. Did you ever stop think how queer your ways may seem tosomeone else ?"

LOCKER

THE SIX LETTERS

ON THE GYM

" Some I came to create a truly

divine painting "

LEONARDO DA VINCI