Mass Education and International Understanding

Abstract

THE discussion on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation which took place at the British Association meeting at Dundee attracted a very small audience; no doubt this was due in part to the fact that the meeting clashed with other important and topical discussions; but a more important reason is the general lack of knowledge of the activities of the Organisation. Sir John Maud, it is true, headed members of the British co-operating body, and expounded most ably the aims of the Organisation; he believes it should attempt to instruct the peoples of the world on the realities of the situation, so that they can understand, better the causes of peace and war and thus make the politicians' task of direction easier. He sees its task as primarily that of helping people to learn that they need one another, and to deepen their sense of social responsibility, thus pursuing much the line of thought in more general terms that Mr. Henry Stimson follows in his article in Foreign Affairs on “The Challenge to Americans”. Prof. F. J. M. Stratton dealt with the relations of the Organisation with the international scientific unions, and other speakers in the discussion indicated the wide range of fascinating subjects with which it is already concerned. Its major activities have since been reviewed in a progress report by Dr. W. H. C. Laves, the deputy director, in the United Nations Weekly Bulletin. Already some 72 million dollars' worth of material has been collected by voluntary agencies, chiefly in the United States, under the Temporary International Council for Educational Reconstruction, and fifty sets of laboratory equipment have been collected for consignment to forty-one selected laboratories in five countries. Technical needs in the fields of the Press, radio and films have been surveyed in some eight or ten war-devastated countries. It is expected that a conference at Nanking will encourage a pilot project on fundamental education, for which the Organisation will provide an adviser; and consultant-advisers for pilot projects in the same field are also to be provided for the Governments of Haiti and Nyasaland. The Organisation is also vitally concerned with mobilizing social scientists throughout the world for an inquiry into the tensions affecting international understanding, and a preliminary outline on this study has been distributed to nearly five hundred workers in this field in twenty-nine countries. Preparations are under way for a conference on the social sciences in 1948.