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Show 4 f i . International Education i j f By Frederic J. Haskln. i WASHINGTON'. D. C. Deo. '-'!. Tn-deisianding Tn-deisianding between the three grt-at powers pow-ers will make war impossible." said Cecil Rhodes in the will establishing his famous scholarship vsiem. He accordingly pro-, pro-, videj the means for students from the United StaU s. Germany and Colonial Britain to come together at Oxford, so that they might absorb the traditions of England, and curry them back to their ow u people. The Rhodes scholarship bequest, big as it seemed, wa-i too small a project to prevent war, but tho idea that thoivugn understanding among nations will promote pro-mote peace is still clung to by hopeful scholars. Now that travel on the. high seas is comparatively safe again, universities have resumed t he pastime of "swapping professors." That is, an American nnl-vcrsitv nnl-vcrsitv will send a professor of English literature to Denmark, and in return, perhaps, will have a Danish expert on chemistry to visit it for a year or more. Due to the boycott on things enemy alien, the exchange of German and Austrian Aus-trian teachers with America is suspended indefinitely. Some students are also sent by scholarships scholar-ships to the universities of different countries, coun-tries, but this is not done systematically. Educators all over the world seem willing will-ing and eager to have their colleges exchange ex-change students with other countries; yet, lor sonic reason, probably the scholarly aversion to haste, the project hangs fire. To put the exchange of students and professors on an organized basis, an Institute In-stitute of International Education with headquarters in New York has been created cre-ated by the Carnegie endowment on national na-tional conciliation. The director of the institute is abroad making contracts with European universities, but the actual work of exchange is already started. One of the first professors taken charge of by the institute is Professor Newton of the Dniversitv of London, who is touring the United Slates to lecture on history. 1 Education is to make war impossible; 1 yet, paradoxically, war has promoted international in-ternational education. British, French, i Italians and Americans have been drawn ! together in closer bonds of feeling than ever before. The desire to know more I about their allies is expressed widely in each of these countries. Lectures on America given by a famous American professor in France aroused an unexpected unex-pected amount of enthusiasm; while America's interest in French traditions I was stirred by the admission of our eol- j dicrs to French universities. ! This interest was so great during the ! war that American educators sent an ' invitation to Great Britain, France, and Italy to organize educational missions to the United States. England responded by 1 sending a highly distinguished mission to this country in October, 1918. A little later France followed her example, Italy so far has not accepted the invitation, though various Italian scholars have expressed ex-pressed themselves in favor of stronger cooperation between Italian and American universities. The British mission was said to be the Tvirtttt f1itinciiioliAfl o-rnn r nf RritJsh 1111 i - verslty men ever to leave England. It came 'eager to plan an exchange of stu-i stu-i dents with America, as it regarded this i of prime Importance to both countries. It stayed two months, visiting universities universi-ties and planning details of an exchange system. Before they left, the British scholars declared themselves amazed at the high quality of the American universities, univer-sities, especially at the state universities, which have no parallel in England. The French mission was not so greatly concerned with an exchange system as with the Idea of Interpreting French achievements to the United" States. It spent a large part of ts time making speeches to American students, mostly with conspicuous success. Until now the only formal and regular schemes to send students to foreign universities uni-versities have been the Rhode scholarship scholar-ship bequest and the Boxer indemnity scholarships. The Rhodes scholarships were founded in 1902 by the will of Cecil Rhodes, British empfre builder and Idealist. Ideal-ist. Rhodes had always valued a college education as an immeasurable advantage in life. His health was such that he could stay in England only for short periods, pe-riods, but he was so determined to grad-j grad-j uate from Oxford that he went back and forth between England and South Africa and studied at intervals for eight years to obtain a degree. When he was granted grant-ed an honorary degree by Oxford years later he regarded the occasion as one of the highest points in his career. ! His bequest allows the United States to j send two students at a time from each state to spend three years at Oxford. Canada, British Africa. Australia and the West Indies also have their quotas, while before the war Germany was given fifteen. fif-teen. Oxford is noted for a high standard of classical training. Universities of the United States excel in technical lines; the German universities, before the war, attracted student i from all over the world because of their reputation for intensive in-tensive research, while the University of Vienna was best known for its medical school. Such reputations for excellence along special lines have for years attracted at-tracted students from other countries 16 certain universities. but tne iaea oacK or the international exchange of students is not so much to I catalogue these" best universities and the best professors and to send students to j them. It is rather to place students and j professors in foreign universities so that ' they may broaden their outlook and come I to understand other peoples. Tho war, w h ten had so para 1 yzi n g an t effect on the European universities, brought large numbers of foreign stu- j dents to the United States. Until then, European students desiring to attend English-speaking schools went to England. The war practically closed European schools to outsiders, and neutrals desiring higher education sought out the United States. South America and the orient send even larger, numbers of students to th's country. Of the orientals, the most interesting are the Boxor indemnity students, mentioned men-tioned before. AVhen congress remitted $13,000,000 of the Boxer rebellion indemnity, indem-nity, paid by the Chinese government, the Chinese decided to spend the money in scholarships In American schools and colleges. One hundred students were to be sent every year for five years, and then fifty students every year for twenty-nine years. The students were to spend from five to nine years in this country. This agreement was a complete surrender surren-der on Chi na's part of her preiudice against western culture. In the middle of the nineteenth century, China had sent 100 students to the United States as an experiment. After a time, word came to the pig-tailed Chinese dignitaries in Pe-kin Pe-kin that their proteges were becoming Americanized in dress and manners. All students were immediately recalled and for years they bore the displeasure of t their government and were not allowed j to hold any office of importance in their f cou nt ry. I Toward the end of the nineteenth ecu- I tury, Chinese were again gradually given h permission to study in America. Nuw China sees the good points of western i education, and lias even modified her own '? imnbound classical curricula, to follow some of the western ideas. . That China, so long regarded as a b synonym fur mossgrown convention. E should find something good in w est erii I education and incorporate its advantages 1 into her school system, Illustrates how S an exchange of students benefits a coun- i try. ' |