Intellectual Cooperation Research Articles

The future of teaching the past: computer-assisted instruction in history

In its 1928 report to the Council of the League of Nations, the International Educational Cinematographic Institute announced that it had begun to study the potential educational applications of television. Although it was only four months since the Institute, which had been founded by the League's International Committee on Intellectual Cooperation, had opened its doors in Rome, its directors and staff had already begun deliberating several issues. Apparently most exciting to them was the educational use of television. The Institute had been created to encourage the production, distribution, and exchange among the various countries of educational films concerning instruction, art, agriculture, commerce, health, and social education. The Institute's report argued that television would make possible the distribution and exchange of such films in unprecedented ways. The international transmission of educational information over the airways would, by circumventing national taxes and tariffs on educational materials and bringing these materials into individual homes, foster international understanding. A television delivery system would make realizable the aims of the Institute, the International Committee, and even the League itself. 1 Fifty-six years later, even as we commend the Institute for its early recognition of television's potential, we must

Unesco: An Introduction to Its Education Program

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco), founded in fall 1946, was the postwar offspring of hope and faith in a better world. Its mandate was to contribute to peace and security by advancing the mutual knowledge and understandings of peoples; by encouraging education and the spread of culture; and by protecting, increasing, and sharing in every appropriate way the world's cultural and scientific heritage. It worked toward this goal firm in the belief that wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.' Thirty-six years have passed since Unesco began its work. Since then, membership has grown from 26 to 157 nations, the frontiers of knowledge have been extended into hitherto unknown areas, and the fortunes of war and peace have often hung in fragile balance. For these and other reasons, Unesco programs in education, science, culture, and communications have become wide reaching, very diversified, and at times controversial. While the seriousness of certain areas of controversy and the potential long-term damage they could cause the organization should not be ignored, it would be useful to step back from them for a brief moment and take a look at the organization in the light of the possibilities it offers for intellectual cooperation and mutual assistance in the field of education. The Unesco program in education is a delicately orchestrated politicopedagogical response to a wide range of educational issues and problems. It is broadly based, general in character, and, from the viewpoint of an advanced industrialized nation, rather thin. This may be inevitable, given the fact that Unesco must respond to the stated needs and interests of 155 Member States. These needs and interests often relate to problems such as inequality of educational opportunity and illiteracy that defy simple solution on the national, regional, or even local levels. With more than 3 decades of experience in intellectual cooperation and field assistance and a political neutrality rooted firmly in its constitution, Unesco is in a position to provide governments, nongovernmental organizations, and interested scholars possibilities for intellectual contact and joint action that might otherwise not exist. Through the years, the U.S. government and many individual Americans have used the Unesco forum and, in fact, have played an active role in many of Unesco's education

Political and Social Change in Modern Egypt: Historical Studies from the Ottoman Conquest to the United Arab Republic, by P. M. Holt

This collection of twenty-four articles, based on papers prepared for a conference at School of Oriental and African Studies in University of London, makes as coherent and useful a volume of this kind as it has ever been this reader's good fortune to find. The authors are from West and Middle East. The participation of Egyptian scholars in such a conference and publication is welcome, more so as Egyptian international intellectual cooperation has declined so far in recent years that it has been virtually confined to sort of quasi-official and vacuous meetings often sponsored by UNESCO. Professor Holt, editor, has by his excellent introduction left almost nothing to be said in a brief review. As he points out, there are three groups of papers. The first deals with sources. The second includes only four papers but they range over much of Egyptian history from Ottoman conquest in 1517 to Napoleonic conquest in 1798. The third group, most numerous, is on nineteenth and twentieth centuries; some of these papers deal with broad periods while others focus on political or social processes within shorter time-spans. Professor Holt also rasies several interesting questions concerning various aspects of contributors' approach to Egyptian Uniformly they see modern Egypt beginning with Napoleonic conquest or a few years later when Muhammad Ali took power. He warns, however, that first event, ominous as it was, did not itself bring enduring changes, while second event was in a sense a throwback to an older pattern of rule. Such periodization, while perhaps helpful and inevitable, thus neglects the underlying continuity of Egyptian history. The editor warns also that so narrow a focus on Egypt may prevent us from seeing its history, at least until British occupation in 1882, in relation to Ottoman empire. He points out, further, that in discussion of papers question arose as to significance and validity of such concepts as military elite, feudalism, and political party. It is important to think carefully about last term especially, not only in one-party Egypt today but also in previous decades, which three papers deal with rather extensively. Professor Holt also asks whether Egyptian history has been so considerably determined by its individual political rulers as much of volume implies. Finally he makes us wonder whether emphasis on foreign control of Egypt is not misleading.

The Creation of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization

The history of the creation of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) encompasses essentially two international conferences: the Conference of Ministers of Education of the Allied Governments and the French National Committee (CAME) which took pJace in London from 1942 through 1945 and the Conference of the United Nations for the Establishment of an International Organization for Education and Culture, held November 1–16, 1945. The latter conference, called jointly by the governments of France and the United King dom, was partially a result of the former and was also held in London. At this two-week conference UNESCO's constitution was drafted and adopted. In this development a part was played by the founding process of the United Nations whose Charter, adopted at the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco in June 1945, foresaw the advancement of international cooperation in culture and education. The founding conference of UNESCO considered itself the executor of this mandate. This article will show how the idea of international cultural cooperation was developed during the Second World War at the meetings of CAME, how it was modified by the United States aid policy toward Europe, how it was influenced by French traditions of intellectual cooperation manifested within the framework of the League of Nations, and how it led finally to the creation of a new specialized agency of the United Nations.

A Study of Bias in British and American History Textbooks

The examination of historical works, and especially school textbooks on history, for evidence of national bias, is nothing new. Between the wars the focus was on British and German histories, which were an object of concern to the Committee on Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations. Since the Second World War the subject of national bias in historical works has been taken up by the Council of Europe and UNESCO. A recent study has been concerned with current British and American textbooks, which have been examined for evidences of bias against the United States and Britain respectively.

Changing concepts of intellectual co-operation

Changing concepts of intellectual co-operation

Niels Bohr. The causality problem in atomic physics. New theories in physics, Conference organized in collaboration with The International Union of Physics and The Polish Intellectual Co-operation Committee, Warsaw, May 30th-June 3rd 1938, International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, Paris1939, pp. 11–38. Discussion, pp. 38–45, by C. Białobrzeski, L. Brillouin, Jean-Louis Destouches, J. von Neumann, and the author. - Werner Heisenberg.

Niels Bohr. The causality problem in atomic physics. New theories in physics, Conference organized in collaboration with The International Union of Physics and The Polish Intellectual Co-operation Committee, Warsaw, May 30th-June 3rd 1938, International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, Paris1939, pp. 11–38. Discussion, pp. 38–45, by C. Białobrzeski, L. Brillouin, Jean-Louis Destouches, J. von Neumann, and the author. - Werner Heisenberg. Language and reality in modern physics. Physics and philosophy, The revolution in modern science, by Werner Heisenberg, Harper & Brothers, New York1958, pp. 167–186. - Evert Willem Beth. Die Stellung der Logik im Gebäude der heutigen Wissenschaft. Studium generate, vol. 8 (1955), pp. 425–431. - Volume 23 Issue 1

Niestlé v. International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation.

International Organizations — Officials — International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation — Liquidation of — Termination Indemnity — Timeliness of Complaint — Depreciation of Currency — Absence of Effect on Sums Payable in a Given Currency.

Hickel v. International Institute of Intellectual Co-Operation.

International Organizations — Officials of — Dismissal of — Obligation of Organization to Supply Reasons for Dismissal — Alleged Assistance to the Enemy — International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation.

Weiss v. International Institute of Intellectual Co-Operation.

International Organizations — Immunities of — Assets of Defunct International Organization.458International Organizations — Officials of — Continuity of Employment — Officials en disponibilité — Salary of — Monetary Value of — Judgment of the Tribunal — Enforceability — Exequatur — International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation.

Survey Research in Germany

Sample interview surveys were developed outside Germany during her seclusion from international intellectual cooperation. Only five years ago, German scholars showed little interest in empirical research and provided no training in the area. In this article, the author describes the areas in which survey research is now being used in Germany, the agencies using this method, and the kinds of materials which are urgently needed but yet to be collected. The author is Program Director of the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan.

Toward a Universal Copyright Convention

On June 1, 1928, the Rome Conference of the Berne Copyright Union adopted a proposal, expressing the wish that all interested governments work together toward a general convention, the object of which would be the world-wide unification of laws protecting the creations of the spirit. This voeu was the starting point of the work undertaken between the two world wars by the Bureau of the Berne Union, the Organization for Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations and the International Rome Institute for the Unification of Private Law. The endeavor was specially encouraged by the League of Nations, the Pan American Union, and the Governments of Brazil and France.

The Partisans of Peace

W X tHAT I have to say falls into four parts: first, the origins of the remarkable movement now called The Partisans of Peace; secondly, its skilled, in some ways brilliant, technique; thirdly, its place in Stalinist strategy; and lastly, some general comments. The press and radio output and comment on the movement-most of it by Communists-has been considerable, as can be proved by consulting the material on the subject in the Press Library at Chatham House. For the immediate history of the movement-the roots of which lie in Leninist teaching and in the anti-Fascist movements of the nineteen-thirties--I think one should refer to the Congress of Intellectuals for Peace which was held at Wroclaw (formerly Breslau) in Poland on 25 August I948. That promised to be a quite remarkable meeting; over five hundred artists, musicians, dramatists, scientists, writers, journalists, attended from some forty-four countries. Among the delegates were many who went under the impression that the discussions would be useful and constructive and would lead to genuine intellectual co-operation for peace; I still think that they might have been so. Unfortunately, the meeting started off with an introductory speech by the Soviet delegate, Fadeyev, in which he descended to what one can only call, by any standard of reasonable criticism, vulgar abuse. His speech developed quickly into a sustained attack on Western culture, Western ideas, and particularly on American civilization. In one of the classic phrases of the speech, Fadeyev said that American culture gave off the stench of decay. He then paraded the names of several wellknown writers, for example, T. S. Eliot, Sartre, Eugene O'Neill, Dos Passos, and said of these writers, 'If hyenas could type and jackals could use a fountain pen they would write such things' as were produced by these men. One can have all sorts of opinions about those writers, but this was not the way to open a congress of intellectuals who had been summoned from the ends of the earth for the very important purpose of discussing how intellectuals could co-operate for peace. At the end of the congress a liaison bureau was formed to continue its work on an international basis. At this point three things were really quite clear. One was that the peace campaign was strongly anti-American: that was almost its leading note. In so far as the peace campaign was directed against the only Power which Communists represent as aggressive, and a Power which has, or had, the monopoly of the atomic bomb, it was logical that any movement of this kind should be strongly anti-American-unless it aimed at overcoming rather than stimulating bitterness and fear. The next feature discernible at this point is that the movement was

The International Universities Conference

R EPRESENTATIVES of thirtyfour countries and thirteen international organizations met at Utrecht, the Netherlands, in the first general conference of universities since the war, and the second in the history of higher education. The Preparatory Conference of Representatives of Universities was convened by Unesco in collaboration with the Netherlands Government. The immediate initiative for calling the Conference grew out of a resolution approved by the Third General Conference of Unesco at Mexico City in November, I947, which instructed the Director General to call a meeting of representatives of universities during I948. But prompting this motion, and a much more significant incentive, was the growing desire on the part of the universities themselves to take up again the strands of international co-operation which had been knitted during the two decades between wars and which had culminated in the first conference of higher education held in Paris in I937. The International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation, of the League of Nations, had begun important studies, had initiated steps to standardize university statistics, and had published a number of significant reports. All such co-operative activities indicated how much should and could be done, provided some initial step was taken to get a constructive program under way and to create the necessary organization to administer it. Consequently, one of the major purposes of the Utrecht Conference was to procure the collective judgment of the universities of the world on the desirability of reviving international co-operation among the institutions of higher education. If the unco-ordinated expressions of its importance were found to be representative, then the Conference had the further responsibility of officially setting up the means of achieving world co-operation at the university level. The Conference, however, had two other purposes. One was to develop understanding of each other and of each other's problems, by living and working together for two weeks in the beautiful and inspiring environment of the University of Utrecht, in the shadow of der Dom-a Gothic tower of the twelfth century. Another purpose was to make pronouncements on fundamental issues that would uphold the hands of leaders of higher education in their own countries in guiding the development of higher education. Each of these goals was achieved to a

International Council of Scientific Unions

The first General Assembly of this Council since the war has concluded its meetings, which were held at the rooms of the Royal Society of London, under the Presidency of Dr H. R. Kruyt of Utrecht University. Over seventy representatives of the principal Scientific Academies, of a number of National Research Councils and of the various International Scientific Unions, were present. The countries officially represented were Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Great Britain, India, Italy, Netherlands, Netherlands East Indies, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, United States and Yugoslavia. In addition, as guests, a welcome was extended to Monsieur A . Establier and Madame Malterre of the International Organization of Intellectual Co-operation of the League of Nations, and to Dr Needham, head of the Scientific Division of the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

International Council of Scientific Unions

THE first General Assembly of the International Council of Scientific Unions since the War has just concluded its meetings, which were held at the rooms of the Royal Society, London, under the presidency of Dr. H. R. Kruydt of the University of Utrecht. More than seventy representatives of the Principal scientific academies of a number of national research council and of the various international scientific unions were present. The countries officially represented were Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Egypt, France, Great Britain, India, Italy, Netherlands, Netherlands East Indies, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, United States and Yugoslavia. In addition, as guests a welcome was extended to M. A. Establier and Mme. Malterre of the International Organisation of Intellectual Co-operation of the League of Nations, and to Dr. J. Needham, head of the Scientific Division of the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

Mexico’s Role in International Intellectual Cooperation. Proceedings of the Conference Held in Albuquerque, February 24–25, 1944

Mexico’s Role in International Intellectual Cooperation. Proceedings of the Conference Held in Albuquerque, February 24–25, 1944

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation

PROGRESS towards the formation of the United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation was reported at the third meeting of the Preparatory Commission held in London on January 18, under the presidency of Miss Ellen Wilkinson, British Minister of Education. The deputy executive secretary, Mr. Walter Kotschnig (seconded from the U. S. State Department), gave an account of the preliminary work done to date, and stated that several committees were being set up, among them one to deal with physical sciences and another with social sciences. Close relations have been established with the International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation of Paris, with the International Institute of Education of Geneva and with the recently formed Committee on the Distribution of Information set up by the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations.

PRESENTATION OF SCIENCE TO A GENERAL PUBLIC*

ALTHOUGH I am not a scientific man myself, it has fallen to my lot to be connected with certain aspects of the problem of the exposition of science. I have been engaged in examining the problem of how to organize better the presentation of the methods and results of science throughout the world or, in other words, the international dissemination of science. After three or four years of preparatory work, in 1938, the League of Nations, through the International Institute of Intellectual Co-operation in Paris, appointed a committee of scientific men, presided over by myself, to report on the matter. Before I say more about the committee and its work, it may be instructive to record, very briefly, the preliminary inquiries which led to its appointment.

Scientific and Industrial Research in India

ASMALL group of distinguished Indian scientists visited United States when World War II was in full swing. Their object was threefold: to cultivate fruitful contacts with scientific, industrial, and agricultural organizations in America; to visit leading universities in order to ascertain how nation's research laboratories are equipped, staffed, and run; and to see some of leading American industrial establishments. What was hoped for was intellectual cooperation on highest level. After all, science in its modern form reached India from West, and many of her ablest workers received their training in European and, more recently, American centers of learning. In ancient and medieval times India was ahead of Europe in certain branches of science, notably astronomy, mathematics, metallurgy, and medicine; but until recently she lagged lamentably behind Western countries in teaching of science and fostering of research. Notwith standing paucity of private endowments for research and meager provision made by Government of India for science teaching and re search as well as for specialist services, output of original work from several of Indian universities and other independent institutions compared not unfavorably with that in Occident. The organization and progress of modern scientific studies and re search in India falls into four overlapping stages. The foundation in 1784 of Asiatic Society of Bengal (A.S.B.), parent of all Asiatic societies extant, formed a landmark in history of arts and science in India. The objects of A.S.B, were to inquire into history, civil and natural, antiquities, arts, sciences, and literature of all Asia. Among its early patrons were Warren Hastings and Cornwallis. The A.S.B, has a long and brilliant record of achievement to its credit. On scientific side alone, its Asiatic Researches and Journal contain accounts of Archdeacon Pratt's research in geodesy; papers by Lambton, of Indian Survey Department, and findings of Voysey, father of Indian Geology, and Thomas Oldham, virtual founder of Geological Survey of India. Included in these records are results of researches by Falconer and Cautley on rich mammalian fauna of Siwalik Hills; by Hodgson on birds and mammals of Nepal, Sikkhim, and Tibet; and by Schwendler, one of founders of Calcutta Zoo. The studies of Roxburgh, the Linnaeus of Indian Botany, and of Dalton, pioneer in field of Indian ethnology, are also represented. The A.S.B, is parent and sponsor of many of nation's learned 625