JEAN VERGNES WAS A PARTICIPANT IN THE EXPERIMENT from its beginning. To my great surprise no group materialized for France for the summer of 1933 but he was quite ready to help had there been one. From The Third Experiment until the present, his zealous devotion in making his contribution to peace has kept him the strong wheelhorse, especially when hard work was to be done. Next to Leslie and me, his service to The Experiment has been longest. The letters which we exchanged (in most cases given only in part) tell of Jean's help in establishing The Experiment in France.
The first letter from Jean Vergnes was written in French and dated January 3, 1933.
Dear Sir and Friend,
I hope that your voyage in Europe this summer has come to a satisfactory end and that all your young people have returned to their homes happy that you have taken them on such a fine trip. I have been very much pleased to have received some friendly letters from them. We are wondering whether we shall be meeting you again next summer. For my part, I do not yet know if I will be free for the vacation since the economic situation for us is not getting any better. I have visited the Clubs of the Knights of Peace in France during the last few months, and they all have such financial difficulties that I do not know whether I will be able to continue to work exclusively with the Knights of Peace program or will be obliged to undertake some kind of work to earn my living.
The club house of the Chevaliers de la Paix about which we spoke this summer is an accomplished fact. I have had plenty of trouble in getting it started, for we have not had enough money. I have been working away without rest, and we now have a fine house near the Panthéon right in the middle of the Latin Quarter. I would be most appreciative if you could recommend it to your friends.
I take this opportunity to send to you and Mme. Watt our very best wishes.
J. Vergnes
24 rue Vauquelin
Paris 5 e817 Comstock Ave.
Syracuse, N.Y.
January 28, 1933M. J. Vergnes
24 rue Vauquelin
Paris 5, FranceDear M. Vergnes:
I was very much pleased to receive your letter written on the 3rd of January. I have been thinking a great deal lately about someone to act as my representative in Paris this summer. You may have heard that we will have a number of groups and, like last year, they will each be spending a short time in Paris, about three days. One group will arrive there on the 29th of June, another on the 6th of July, and two more around the beginning of September.
I am wondering whether you will be in Paris at this time and, if so, whether you would have sufficient time to act as host and guide to the groups, and arrange to have them meet other French young people who could also act as guides for seeing Paris and the neighborhood. I am wondering what the capacity of your foyer is and whether we could make use of it for the days we are in Paris. Our groups will consist of about fifteen persons each.
There are two objections, which I can see, to our cooperating. The first one is the fact that you speak so little English. It may be, by this time, you have improved your English or could do so. The second one is with reference to your organization, Madame Bach and I have been corresponding, and I have told her that much as we hated to break off relations with La Borcarderie, there were two very serious objections to our returning there again.
In the, first place, there seems to be no assurance that another year we would find there any more French and German boys than we found in the past year. In the second place, Captain Bach and I do not seem to be able to work together sufficiently well to make a success of such an undertaking as we attempted last summer. I mention these facts in order that you may understand what my relation with Captain Bach is.
It is with very great regret that we look forward to giving up our visits to La Borcarderie, because I do not expect we will be able to find any place which will equal it in spiritual atmosphere. However, the two important things which we lack there are an adequate number of Europeans and a spirit of cooperation on the part of the management. These are so important that the good things of La Borcarderie will have to be sacrificed, unless we can have some real assurance that in these two matters we would not have a repetition of last summer's events.
If, knowing these facts, you still feel able to consider becoming my Paris correspondent, it may be that the language difficulty could be overcome by securing an interpreter, because I feel that otherwise you are just the person we would like to have to help us with this work.
With very best wishes, I am
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Donald B. Watt
[Written in English] 24 rue Vauquelin
Paris V
(No date)Dear Mr. Watt:
I take great pleasure in acknowledging your letter of January 28th which I have read very carefully.
I should be delighted to become your Paris correspondent, but I really cannot be sure if I will be able to act as host and guide to your groups. However, I can easily make all arrangements beforehand, and so ensure that everything will run as smoothly as if I were present.
At La Borcarderie in July and August we hope to have the international congress and a youth camp; probably Mr. Bach will ask me to help him.
Actually, in our foyer we have not the room to put up fifteen people, since the financial help we expected was not forthcoming. We have not been able to reconstruct the pension quite as we hoped. I have made arrangements with a hotel nearby to accommodate as many as fifty people. Prices are from thirty-five francs a day.
Unfortunately, I am still unable to speak English and do not see any prospect of taking lessons before next winter, but since the opening of the foyer, we have always had two or three people in the house who speak it quite well. It will be perfectly easy to find an interpreter if necessary.
The objections that you have set forth are grave ones from the point of view of future collaboration at La Borcarderie. . . .
Choice of situation for the camp: I agree entirely about the atmosphere at Borcarderie. That is the only thing which organization and money cannot create. Would it not then be possible to take advantage of this atmosphere by adapting your method of organizing to the peculiar needs of the occasion?
Practical problems: Whatever decisions you make for the next holidays, I shall be only too glad to do anything I possibly can to help, not only because of my personal feelings towards you, but from the desire to live up to our ideal of the Knights of Peace.
Please give my very kindest regards to Mrs. Watt. With my sincere good wishes and hopes for future collaboration, I remain
Yours sincerely,
/s/ J. Vergnes
JEAN VERGNES, AS A MOUNTAIN GUIDE 817 Comstock Ave.
Syracuse, New York
March 15, 1933M. Vergnes
24 rue Vauquelin
Paris 5, FranceDear Mr. Vergnes:
I was very much pleased to receive your friendly letter a short time ago and glad to know that all of the Chevaliers de la Paix do not feel unfriendly toward their guests of last summer. I do not know whether you saw Captain Bach's report to his managing committee, but it made me feel badly since I realize that it was almost entirely my inability to get along with him which made him take the attitude which he did.
I have written to Captain Bach that the plans for all of our groups for next year have been made with other organizations in France and Germany. The only matters which have not been planned are the arrangements for our groups in Paris during the three or four days when they will stay there. There are a number of other organizations with whom I could work, but I much prefer that our contact with the C.P. should not be done away with entirely.
You asked me in the last paragraph of your letter whether it would not be possible to adapt our method of organizing so that our groups could again have the benefit of the delightful atmosphere of La Borcarderie. It was our plan in going to La Borcarderie to adapt ourselves as nearly as possible to the life which we found there. This we attempted to do but, from Captain Bach's report, were apparently unsuccessful. For example, he refers to our boys as being like "young horses let loose." In other words, there are certain limitations of adaptation which, after the experience of one year, we are forced to recognize. Captain Bach is interested in a deeply mystical type of religion. He seems to want to bring groups to La Borcarderie which would be primarily interested in quiet discussions of this subject. While there are no doubt many American young people of this type, I would not know how to find them. I hope I make my meaning clear, that it does not seem entirely possible to adapt the material which we have, namely our boys and girls, to the expectations of Captain Bach.
In closing, I wish to thank you for your offers of cooperation and, as I said before, I appreciate tremendously your friendly personal feeling toward me. This alone has made it possible for me to write again to Captain Bach.
Our new baby is now nearly three months old and is thriving beautifully. Mrs. Watt and the other children are also very well. She and Donnie send you their very kindest regards.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Donald B. Watt
[Written in English] 24 rue Vauquelin
Paris
April 19, 1933Dear Mr. Watt:
Many thanks for your kind and most interesting letter, But first of all let me congratulate you on the arrival of the new baby. Soon, that is within a few months' time, I, in turn, expect to have the pleasure of announcing to you a like event.
No, I know nothing of Mr. Bach's report, but I can imagine its portent. I am not going to discuss this point with you just now. All that I can say at present is that I deeply regret the lack of harmony between yourself and Mr. Bach and that I am most happy to keep up my pleasant relations with you.
Your plans are most interesting. I should like to give you an immediate and favorable answer to your request for a reception of your groups in Paris; but I cannot venture to make a definite proposal in this matter as I fear that I might not be able to keep my word. But in any case, you can surely count upon me to facilitate the carrying out of your plans and to render your stay in Paris as agreeable as possible.
Let me explain my inability to promise anything definite. You know that Mr. Bach had asked me to confine myself exclusively to the interests of the Chevaliers de la Paix in France. Now, it was quite evident to me when I took up my duties in Paris that as far as my country was concerned, the movement was unorganized and almost non-existent. In Paris I only found two or three willing workers, that is all. I worked hard in all parts of the country. In less than six months our receipts have doubled, and in Paris we are beginning to have an interesting little group. Our movement is going ahead; but unfortunately I do not know whether or not I can continue to look after the work, for my salary has not been paid for three months. If this state of affairs continues, I shall be obliged to look for employment which will not leave me free to take a very active part in the activities of the C.P.'s. But we can at least promise that your groups will be given better attention than last year. However, I shall not be able to do as much for you as I desire, as our students in the foyer will be having their vacations.
Madame Vergnes joins me in wishing both yourself and Mrs. Watt the best of health and success in your labours. We do not forget Donnie.
With kindest regards, I am
Yours sincerely,
/s/ Vergnes
The carbon copy of the following letter was on the back of my lemon-yellow correspondence paper which contained the advertisement of the Second Experiment.
817 Comstock Avenue
Syracuse, New York
May 22,1933M. Vergnes
24 rue Vauquelin
Paris V, FranceDear Mr. Vergnes:
Many thanks for your good letter of April 19. Things have not gone as well with our trips this year as we had hoped, but perhaps better than we have any right to expect in view of the depression here. At the present time, we have two groups going to Germany, a total of about twenty-five persons, but none definitely going to France, although one group of school boys may materialize.
I have received a letter from Captain Bach recently which seemed much more friendly than the previous ones, but in view of the fact that we have no French trips there seems to be no basis for cooperation. I am not sure that we would care to cooperate anyway, since he has set down in his report conditions under which our groups would be welcome at his place. He seems to be as oblivious as the French government itself of the fact that in an international agreement, it is not possible for one side to make all of the decisions.
I want you to know that I appreciate very much the trouble to which you have gone in looking up matters for me and telling me frankly what your own situation is. I shall look forward with great pleasure to seeing you and Mme. Vergnes about a month from this time. I sincerely trust that the important event to which you are looking forward will turn out most happily.
Sincerely yours,
/s/ Donald B. Watt
Between May 22 and October 3, 1933, there was no exchange of letters, and neither of the groups which went to Germany visited France, but I had a satisfactory talk with Vergnes in Paris in September.
24 rue Vauquelin
Paris V, France,
October 3, 1933Monsieur Donald B. Wait
Bei Anton Fendrich
Weiherhof Sir. 8
Frieburg-i-b-Zaehringen
AllemagneDear Mr. Watt:
I have received your letter of September 26, for which I give you hearty thanks. It gives helpful directions which I am able to hand on to my co-workers.
I am already hard at work to carry out next year's plans for your groups. I have some good news to announce:
1. In the first place, I have the leader who will be able to direct the permanent camp in the mountains. He is a young pastor who will come with his wife. They are good friends and will be able to be responsible for the camp's spirit as well as its equipment. It is going to be easy to find others who will give each of the groups a genuinely French character and a happy and gay atmosphere. If M. Angevin is the leader, we could not find anyone who loves the mountains more, and particularly in the region we have in mind, because he has made many trips there. He will be an excellent guide and enthusiastic for the mountains that we would be climbing. Madame Angevin during the war, before her marriage, was a trained nurse, which will be valuable for us because in this region we are far away from physicians.
2. This same pastor, who is minister at Bourg (Ain), is a Chevalier de la Paix and looks forward with great interest to the possibility of receiving in his city a group of fifteen young people to distribute among the families there. Without being able to guarantee it, he feels certain of being able to find the fifteen families needed.
3. I also had the chance to speak of our project to a young pastor, a friend of mine, while he was passing through Paris. He finds this project so practical for an attempt in international living for the young people that he is happy to help us. He agreed to receive a group if we ask him. His city is in the East of France, Nancy. I am telling you this to show that it will be easy to organize the visits of groups in French families.
Would you please tell me if you would find it agreeable to have my next letters accompanied by a translation in English?
I shall write you from time to time about what I am undertaking in order to prevent letters from becoming too long. Would you be good enough to give my best regards to Mme. Watt and believe me, dear Mr. Watt,
Your devoted
/s/ Vergnes
Weiherhof Sir. 6
Freiburg-i-B.
Allemagne
Oct. 29, 1933Dear Monsieur Vergnes:
I notice that your letter is dated October 3 and am sorry that you have had to wait so long for an answer. In the meantime, Mrs. Watt and I have been very busy. A few days ago we returned from a seventeen day tour of Germany and Austria made in a little motor-car during which time we visited the two people who have volunteered to be our representatives in Germany and Austria respectively. The former is Dr. Schunter, who has already had considerable experience with conducting similar exchange groups between Germany and England. He is a well-educated, liberal-minded and entertaining gentleman, who loves working with young people and who in turn is loved by them. He is a teacher in a Gymnasium (lycée) of French and English and has spent considerable time in both France and England.
The Austrian lady who will be our representative there is Frau .Dr. Sanchez, who is completely Austrian in spite of her Spanish name. She is also a professor in the middle schools, her subject being biology. They have both set to work to complete the details of next summer's German trips so that I have been able recently to send to America preliminary plans for the German groups similar to the French group plans which I sent to you. Dr. Sanchez lives in Vienna.
The news which will be of greatest interest to you, however, is the fact that we have just had replies from the people in America to whom we offered the leadership of two of the French groups. While neither has positively accepted the position, both have said that they were very much interested and saw no reason why they could not undertake the work. One of these is Miss Susan Irwin of St. Louis, Missouri, who is a teacher of French and has for two years been in charge of a camp for American girls in Brittany at a place called Kerdisheol. I feel that she will be able to inspire her group with the same love for France which I believe she has herself.
The second I hope will be led by a married couple with two children. The husband is a big strapping man who is a teacher of religion. Up to this time, he has always been in middle schools; this year he is teaching for the first time in a college. His wife knows French better than he, although I believe that he speaks some also. She was in France for several years after the war in reconstruction work and has a real love of the country. Their names are Mr. and Mrs. Buel Trowbridge.
I was much interested to hear how easy you find it to locate people who are willing to try the idea. One had the idea that such people are very rare in France, but you are showing us that this is not the case.
M. Angevin sounds like an ideal person to undertake the camp. If you feel that on account of him we should send a group to Bourg, I would be glad to accept your judgment. The factors to be considered in selecting a city for the group are: first, to find a person who can be relied upon to organize the French end of the arrangements. This will require quite a little work and little or no compensation is to be expected. Second, a city in which the standard of culture and living is such that our American parents could have no fear for the morals of their children. (You know that the Americans look upon France as a very immoral country, and the part of it which they see in Paris bears out this belief.) In other words, a city in which one can find enough families of the right type. Third, the city should be beautiful and interesting; and fourth, but very important, the surroundings of the city should be beautiful and provide places for excursions, particularly on bicycles.
Miss Irwin has asked in what city her group would stay, and I am answering that she should take her choice of Besançon, Chambéry, Grenoble, Valence, Lyon, or Bourg. If you have any suggestions to make in this connection, please let me know at once. As soon as each leader knows in what city his group will stay, I think it would be well to send the leader pictures of the city and to put him in direct touch with the French leader in that city. The sooner they begin to know one another the better.
There is one matter which will involve much work for you which I do not believe we spoke of before. You will remember that I am planning to have three groups of Americans in Germany next summer. Our general plan is to have all of these spend three days in Paris before leaving for America about the first of September. The ISHA or International Student Hospitality Association formerly made the arrangements for the stay of these groups in Paris, but now the 10% of the fee which formerly went to them for their work is going to you; therefore, I will have to ask you to make arrangements for these three groups to live and see the sights in Paris for three days.
This brings me to the interesting subject of the future. I am beginning to feel that our undertaking is going to develop into something not only very important but quite large. I believe, owing to the success of our groups this year, we will find it relatively easy to form the groups in America. Dr. Schunter tells me that he has been asked to arrange exchanges with France, and I know that they have been started between France and Austria, the, latter, however, under unsatisfactory management. I have the feeling now that if the four people representing France, Germany, Austria, and America learn to work together, we will be able to do over a period of years a piece of educational work which will have permanent value in leading to a feeling of confidence between these nations.
Mrs. Watt joins me in sending best wishes to Madame Vergnes and yourself.
Cordially yours,
/s/ Donald B. Watt
During. the thirty-three years spent in the files, the paper on which the foregoing letter was written turned brown and brittle, and one edge was shredded by mice.
24 rue Vauquelin
Paris, France
November 4, 1933Dear Mr. Watt:
I have received your very long letter of October 29, for which I thank you. I am going to endeavor to reply as clearly as possible.
First, I am happy that you have been able to make arrangements with our German and Austrian friends, and I hope, like you, that our collaboration will, in the future if not immediately, bear fruit in favor of international peace---and perhaps national, if our influence is great enough.
Concerning the American leaders of groups coming to France, I have read with much interest of the negotiations in which you have engaged. From what you tell me, I believe that they correspond magnificently to what we expect of them.
With regard to Bourg, I am completely convinced that we should have a group there, for we will have not only a leader to direct our young French and American friends, but also a conscience which will make it a real duty, as well as a joy, to work among these young people.
The opinion you express on the subject of the benefits to be gained from your American groups cannot in any way be questioned. Be assured that those whom we charge with these responsibilities will make it their duty to do things properly; however, we will be obliged to help them financially, and I will put at their disposal the funds about which we have agreed.
As to the "standard of culture" of the French families which will receive our young Americans, I can only tell you, in all frankness, that it will not be possible to determine all their behavior exactly. That would be a miracle of which we are not capable! However, we will do our best to see that the "standard of culture" will be as far as possible the same.
The morality of these families is one thing which we must consider seriously, very seriously. I can even now tell you that Paris and the provinces are not the same thing; you must not base your fears on Paris; one can have enough fears for the provinces without adding those of the capital. On this subject which, in my opinion, is of the greatest importance, I believe that it would be well to recommend particularly to your young people that they treat their families with consideration and courtesy. This will guarantee more than anything else that in return they will be received in the friendliest way.
As for the cities, it goes without saying that we do not pretend, in these little provincial cities, to find anything as interesting as in Paris. Cities like Chambéry, Bourg, Grenoble, Besançon, without having the beauties of our capital, do have a past which is interesting to discover, for people who are willing to look and to learn. "Behind an old stone, for some there is nothing; for others there is an exciting story." The young people must like things which are not always obvious but which are there nevertheless.
The surroundings of all the cities mentioned in your letters lend themselves particularly well to the excursions the youngsters will want to take on bicycles as well as on foot.
Except for Bourg, I have not done anything except as you and I have already agreed. Your letter reached me at exactly the right time so that I understand what is to be done in the greatest detail. By this same mail, I am asking M. Angevin to start preparing his city to receive a group. I am also asking him whether he is willing to go to Besançon and to Chambéry, which are not far from Bourg, in order to talk over the plans which you and I have agreed upon during your recent visit in Paris. If these plans do not result in a definite agreement in the three cities, I will go there myself.
A month from now, I will give you detailed reports of these three projects with all the information necessary to publicize them in America: historical notes, tourist notes, pictures, and all supporting information.
Concerning the Paris visit of the three groups going to Germany, I am in complete accord with your proposition giving us the ten per cent which you gave last year to the ISHA for making arrangements for the groups.
Please be assured of my kindest regards. My wife joins me in sending best wishes to Mme. Watt.
/s/ Vergnes
Weiherhof Str. 6
Freiburg-i-B.
Allemagne
Nov. 11, 1933Dear Monsieur Vergnes:
Many thanks for your letter of November 4th, which I found very interesting. As far as the questions of "standard of culture" and morality are concerned, experience alone will teach us how these questions are to be handled. If both sides approach The Experiment in the spirit of tolerance and good will, we will succeed. If we do not, no matter how cleverly our undertaking may be managed, it is sure to fail. I know that both of us realize this and will be able to impress it upon those who will be taking part in The Experiment.
As I think I said to you before, we will be glad to accept your judgment concerning the towns to be used. I agree with you that the one single most important factor in the selection of a town would be the presence of a competent and enthusiastic leader. For this reason I think it will be necessary to wait before making a final selection to see what sort of cooperation we are able to secure from Besançon and Chambéry. If M. Angevin secures the sort of person he feels will be able to do the work satisfactorily in both places, then all can be considered settled. I know from experience that if these undertakings are not run well, they will do much more harm than they will do good.
Your remarks about the arrangements for the groups which will visit Paris in the fall indicate that you did not understand what I meant and that you apparently do not know on what basis people are working for our undertaking. The German representative, Dr. Schunter, and the Austrian representative, Frau Dr. Sanchez, are both working without any compensation. I always spend much more than I receive from the undertaking. The American leaders are all working at a compensation much smaller than they could receive for doing almost any other work.
When you suggested your plan for compensation, even though the amount was much greater than anyone else receives, I was perfectly in agreement because I knew that you did not have a paying position and could not afford to do the work under any other circumstances. However, I do look upon your income from that French group as your salary. You are receiving more than ten per cent of the total costs of the French group, including the time that they are in Germany. I think you will see, therefore, that it would be only fair that you make the arrangements for the groups visiting Germany on their short stay in France without expecting any compensation for it. I hope I make myself clear, namely that you should receive your compensation from the French groups but that your work would include helping with all of our groups. If this arrangement is not satisfactory to you, I would be glad to discuss with you any other arrangements.
With very best wishes,
Cordially yours,
/s/ Donald B. Watt
Besançon
December 4, 1933Dear Mr. Watt:
I have received your long letter dated November 11 in good time, and I do appreciate the very clear manner in which you attack questions. I am in complete accord with your way of picturing affairs. You certainly do not beat around the bush in your frankness, and I shall be equally frank in my thoughts.
My first reaction after reading your letter was to write you that I would not be able to continue to work for your group in the frame of mind in which you seem to be. I was wounded by your letter and failed to understand. Later I read your letter again where you tell me "it is necessary to approach the experience in a spirit of tolerance." Yes, you are right, it is necessary from the beginning that we, the leaders, treat one another with a tolerant spirit and with understanding. I am trying to understand you, and Miss Harris has helped me in re-establishing the facts in their correct values.
I would not have you, dear Mr. Watt, think for an instant that I am working for your young people only for the profit that I am able to get out of it. In order to undertake the work of the Chevaliers de la Paix, I resigned from a position which paid very well, so I am not looking for profit, but I do not have any private fortune, and it is essential that I have money enough to live. I have a wife and a baby, and the work of the Chevaliers de la Paix is unable to provide any compensation. No, I work for the cause of peace, and if I did not, I would earn much more in commerce or industry. When I decided to help you in your fine undertaking, it was for the ideal of peace that you are pursuing, and also for the friendship and the regard that I have for you, but not for money. I hope that you can believe me sufficiently loyal to neglect nothing that would improve the experiences of your groups in France.
As for the arrival in September of those groups that you have told me about, I had understood that you offered me ten per cent, but I did not count on receiving this myself, but rather the Americans would be received by the group of Chevaliers de la Paix of Paris. I would have only a little work in directing it, which my friends and I would be very happy to do. So it was a question of my being confused in my mind, in understanding what you said. I would also like to add that in the measure that I will be able to help you, I will do everything without charge if that is possible for me.
Believe me, dear Mr. Watt, and Madame Watt as well, my cordial and devoted sentiments,
/s/ Vergnes
P.S. You must understand that my somewhat brutal frankness is in the same interest of a good outcome of our experience in international living.
In my letter of October 29th, 1933, I told M. Vergnes that he would receive ten per cent of the German costs in France. He acknowledged this promise in his letter of November 4th. In my November 11th letter, I said he would not receive it. I had forgotten my promise.
Weiherhof, 6
Freiburg-i-B.
Dec. 6th, 1933Dear Monsieur Vergnes:
I was shocked to hear how nearly our joint undertaking met with early death. I congratulate you on having finally decided to overlook any injured feelings and on having written me frankly as you did. It is a very clear lesson to both of us that a large amount of goodwill and confidence in the friendliness of the other is absolutely necessary if we are going to be able to overcome successfully the barrier of a language imperfectly understood and of social customs which are quite different. I have no doubt that misunderstandings will arise again between us, and I for my part promise that no matter what happens, I will always have confidence that whatever you do or say is done in the friendliest spirit possible, and I hope and feel sure that you will take the same attitude toward me. Furthermore, I will do as you have done and tell you frankly just how I feel about the matter so that every rough spot will be made smooth and it will not be necessary to suffer over the same difficulties more than once.
The letter which I wrote you had nothing in it calculated to make you feel unhappy. I feel pretty sure that the chief difficulty arose from the fact that you did not understand it as it was intended. The subject with which we were dealing, money, is of course the one over which it is easiest to have misunderstandings. I went into detail as fully as possible so that you would be able to judge for yourself that what I was proposing was fair. I spoke frankly about the arrangement whereby you were to take your expenses out of your income because I was afraid that it might lead to dissatisfaction in the future, and I was anxious to remove all such sources of dissatisfaction. If at any time you are not satisfied with the arrangement or compensation or anything else, I hope you will discuss it frankly with me.
With regard to the expenses of the trip which you have just taken and any other advance expenses, if you will let me know what these are, I will send you the amount as soon as I can. It might be better for you to estimate what your expenses will be between now and next June, and I will send you amounts from time to time so that it will not be necessary for you to use your personal funds.
Continued on board
S.S. Europa
December 8
I was very much pleased that you decided to visit the various cities because I think things will go very much better when you personally meet the people with whom you are working.
We are delighted to have our family reunited again. The baby is in perfect health and even while traveling is happy all day long and a joy to us. Your baby being the first, of course, is much more exciting and important than a third could be. I trust that he and his mother, and father too, are in the best of health and are going to enjoy a very merry Christmas.
With all best wishes from the Watt Family,
/s/ Donald B. Watt
THE THEME WAS: "IT CAN'T BE DONE."
It was September 15, 1932. Leslie and I had come to Paris to see Jean Vergnes and although he had already agreed to represent us in France, I made an appointment with the Director (an American) of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 173 Boulevard Ste. Germaine, which had an important office in Paris, to consult him about The Experiment.
Of the series of incidents which follow, the first took place in an authentic, beautifully preserved room of the period of Louis XVI. As the curtain rises, a consciously Frenchified gentleman, in clothes so formal that he just missed wearing a morning coat, was seated at a period desk in a chair with a deep satin cushion.
I explained my mission. During the past summer, I said, I had conducted an international camp in Switzerland, the purpose of which was to introduce American, Swiss, French and German boys to one another in such a way that friendships would be made. I said I thought the Carnegie Endowment would be interested in my ambition to produce an instrument designed to bring about understanding and possibly peace in the next generation.
The Director nodded amiably, if a little condescendingly. No doubt my approach was not the scholarly one to which he was accustomed.
I explained that the first year's efforts had not been altogether successful. The boys had been well selected; they had enjoyed the month. But my ambition to have an American boy who was studying French spend most of his time with a French boy who was studying English had not materialized. Their knowledge of the languages was insufficient to make natural communication easy. National cliques formed which prevented the sort of international contact I had hoped for.
In order to eliminate these cliques in the future, my plan was to put American boys with a better speaking knowledge of German or French each in a separate European home where he would live for a month. He would not pay cash, but would repay the family for its hospitality by inviting one of its members to take an informal trip in the country concerned for a period of three weeks. Contact which lasted for seven weeks should be more helpful in producing friendly feelings. The Director replied:
There are two reasons why you cannot carry out your plan. In the first place, the French do not take strangers into their homes. They do not even entertain their French friends there, usually taking them to a café or restaurant. In the second place, French families who have enough money to go on a holiday---and there are not many---would go as a family group. Boys, and especially girls, would never be allowed to travel with a group of strangers.
The authority of accurate knowledge was most disturbing to me. My plan was impossible, it seemed. There would be no opportunity to carry it through. Thanking the Director, I bowed myself out.
However, I decided not to be discouraged. I asked Jean Vergnes to find someone in a small town who would recruit fifteen homes for a mixed group of American young people the following year. (In reality, this happened only after two years.) Jean Vergnes replied that the Director was quite right about the customs of the French people, but he thought that possibly some families might be found who would accept us.
The Protestant Pastor M. Angevin welcomed twenty-two of us in homes in the town of Bourg-en-Bresse during July and August, 1934. This first summer in France, thanks to the fact that the young people were well qualified and prepared to adjust to life in France, was a pleasant experience for the families.
During the following years, the number of French families which accepted Americans increased rapidly, and by the year 1938 there were seventy-seven of them. Many sent their sons and daughters on the cycle-camping trip when we slept most informally in tents or, if it was raining, in barns. The Director of the Carnegie Endowment had not been wrong, but French families were found who had broken with tradition when asked by their Pastor to do so. Through the Pastor, I inquired of the families why they had been willing to open their homes to strangers. A large number made it clear that they still felt a debt of gratitude to the Americans for their help in the First World War. Within a few years, more than two hundred French families were enjoying their Experiments in International Living.
The curtain rises on another scene. It is in one of those finer residences of the city of Boston. The Advisory Council is meeting. It consists of three ladies, all from the Boston area, a famous Harvard Professor, Sidney Fay and myself. It is November, and the Council is making plans for the programs of the following summer. There are now groups going to Germany, France, and England and I proposed that we include Italy. One of the ladies regretted to say that it would be impossible to put American girls into Italian families since Italian men simply could not be trusted. The lady knew this to be a fact because she had a good friend who for many years had conducted a pension for American girls in Florence.
No groups were sent to Italy the following year, but later it was decided to change the location of the Council to another city, and the new Council voted for Italy. Soon there were many Experimenters enjoying exuberant Italian home life, carefully watched over by Italian parents, both fathers and mothers.
The next scene is in Asti, Italy, in the office of The Italian Experiment. Donald Watt speaks:
Renza, I have visited the charming towns to which you have sent the four American groups. They have everything: antiquity, beauty, culture, music, wonderful families. But we have never sent a group south of Firenze. isn't it possible to send a group farther south?
Dr. Renza Rosso, director of The Italian Experiment, is a university graduate and a devoted instructor of Italian country children. She answered:
It is impossible to send young Americans to southern Italy. The people there are not to be trusted. What with their poverty, their culture is at too low a level to make them suitable hosts for Experimenters.
It is two years later. What happened in the interim I shall never know, but when I was visiting Rome in the summer of 1958, I received an invitation from Dr. Vittorio Franchi to visit him and his family in the ancient town of Ascoli Piceno in what is recognized as Southern Italy and where a group from the United States had been received the year before.
It is true that when I arrived in the town, the doctor was not there. He had decided to take a cruise, but his charming family met me at the bus, and I spent several relaxed days in the atmosphere of very pleasant family life. I gathered that the Italian families had loved their American children, but no more than the American children had taken to them. Finally, the doctor came home, and together we enjoyed the current fiesta.
Another scene took place when the Second World War descended on Europe. I wrote to the Putney office from München asking them to inquire of Experimenters and their parents, whether anyone had friends in Central America and Mexico with whom we could co-operate, telling them that "Donald Watt wishes to visit them on his way home from Europe via Panama and Central America."
Of the rather large number who replied, almost every one said, "Don't risk it." But there was one authority who, as a religious worker, had lived for twenty years in Latin America. His letter is available to be quoted. He wrote:
As far as placing young Americans in Latin American homes is concerned, let me say, rather you than I. They are too different from us to expect to enjoy living with them.
Let's not be too hard on the good doctor. Like all missionaries, in order to raise his budget, he had to make it clear that Latin Americans were inferior people, and no doubt the people he succeeded in proselytizing were inferior.
The first group we sent to Mexico in 1940 loved their families, who understood instinctively the idea of making friends. Warmhearted Mexican mamas, who throw their whole lives into creating a fine home for their children, accepted the American youngsters as one more member of their big families. It was in those early years in Mexico that the custom was started by the Mexican families of calling their visitors "sons" and "daughters." Now all over the world in many programs when young people live with a family abroad, it is the accepted custom to refer to "my German daughter," or "my Japanese mother." The change from suspicion to affection was immediate.
The Oseguera-Iturbidi family of Morelia soon became our representatives in Mexico. First it was Luz, and when she married, Elena took over. It seems that the introduction which Elena arranged in those "good old days" gave Mexico the impetus which made it one of the outstanding Experiment countries. All morning, the Americans were learning useful conversation, and Mexican songs and dances. Elena's charges learned to participate in and enjoy the happy lives of their hosts.
The fifth scene is also laid in Mexico. In The Experiment's search for a better understanding of Mexico, I felt uneasy about associating only with the fortunate classes, gente decente (respectable people), as they called themselves, in distinction to the poor who did not have money enough to live well. With my American background and our ideal of a classless society, I did not want to accept the social organization which Mexico had worked out for itself. One family after another warned me that the young Americans could not live with "those people." They were not clean; they had a low standard of living; they were crude.
After a search, I found a woman school teacher who was clearly one of the upper classes, but in her teaching had come close to the village people. It was not easy for her to find a family which was not overwhelmed with timidity at the idea of accepting an American into its humble home. But in the village of Tenancingo, not far from Toluca, she found the Avila family, a patriarch and his calm, dignified and hard-working wife. There were two daughters and four sons. Their big patio contained a factory of rebosos (the shawl that every humble Mexican woman wears), and painted chairs. The whole family was busy either making or selling them.
The head of the family agreed to find homes for a group of six American girls, two Mexican boys, Leslie and myself. When we appeared in Tenancingo, all the families which had agreed to receive a gringo, except the Avilas, withdrew their invitations on the day we arrived, but ten people were not too many for the boundless hospitality of the Avilas. The big table in the family dining room seated eighteen people, and Papa Avila presided over the board with dignity, courtesy, and finesse. The astonishing fact was that although our Mexican city families looked down on our village families, we came to admire them for the same courtesy, consideration, and gaiety that we admired in our city families.
The next year, some of us stayed in a different village called Erangariquero. (Just to pronounce the word was a delight for me.) But the leadership of Papa Avila was missing and the enthusiasm for village living languished. How delightful it would have been to report that our American groups lived happily ever afterwards with village families. Unfortunately, those who knew "it couldn't be done" won out this time over those with a sense of adventure.
The next scene came many years later. When The Experiment found it possible to send groups to Africa, Nigeria was the country wisely selected. Its level of education and standard of living were far ahead of many African countries. Having no contact with the people there, we consulted the American Embassy, asking them to find someone who would arrange for a group of ten young people to live in Nigerian homes. The answer which came back had a familiar ring. It would not be safe to risk the health of young Americans in Nigerian homes.
Perhaps if our group members had been going to live for several years in Nigeria, as people of the Embassy do, we might have been more influenced by their warning. We went ahead against their objections, and the repeated visits of United States Experimenters to Nigeria all included homestays with people of the country. It is true that they were largely families of college professors, physicians, or others of advanced education. Year after year, the experience proved to be a satisfactory one, and when David Henry, originator of the African Scholarship Program of the American Universities, asked The Experiment to place Africans in American homes for a month, we had confidence enough to try. We were not prepared for the fact that many American families preferred an African guest to one from Europe. They explained that both the challenge and the achievement were greater. As Experimenters travel in foreign countries where the American treatment of our Negroes is deplored, it is especially satisfying to point out that each year two hundred American families accept an African for a month in their homes. They take them with the understanding that the African boy or girl will probably look to them for friendship during the four years of undergraduate life, and return repeatedly for visits.
SOMEWHERE IN THIS BOOK THERE NEEDS TO BE A FULL LENGTH portrait of the experience which has become known as the Classical Experiment. This description should be written not by me, but by an Experimenter. Out of the many diaries that are available, there are many good reasons for selecting the one written by George Blackman. He has written in great detail, with intellectual appreciation and unusual zest. What a satisfaction for me that he grasped so completely and put into practice so thoroughly Experiment ideas.
It is not surprising that I have a nostalgic attitude toward the early groups because I knew all the Experimenters and many of their parents as well. I spent seven or eight days with many of them crossing the Atlantic. I frequently visited them in their home towns abroad. In those early years, The Experiment could pursue its ideal plan to perfection. Excellent leaders were available. The roads were not too dangerous for cycling. There was great enthusiasm for simple living and adventuring on foot.
At eight o'clock every morning (except Sunday), M. Delmas knocks at my door, sings a line from some opera or old French song, sticks his head around the door, and says, "Bonjour, Georges, vous avez bien dormi? Eh bien, vous descendrez à huit heures et demi? Bon. A tout à l'heure." Promptly at 8:30 I go down to the dining-room on the second floor and have breakfast with Paul (M. and Mme. Delmas having already eaten). Breakfast consists only of café au lait (chicory flavored) and French bread, butter and jam. At 9:00 A.M. we go to the Lycée where we have lessons all morning---the Americans at a table at one end of the room, the French studying English around another at the other end . . . From 10:30 to 11:30 or so, we all dance and sing together. Twice a week a French music teacher interested in the native dances teaches us dances peculiar to this region, so we have learned la Pio, La Farandole, Bourns, Schottisch, Double Polka Pique and two clog dances. Afterwards till noon, we return to our lessons and read parts from a play. At twelve o'clock, everything breaks up, as déjeuner is at 12:30, when the stores close and everything stops everywhere. The members of the group are now having lunch with different families every day, so as to meet all the parents, which is very pleasant.
For déjeuner, there is usually an entrée, tomatoes in dressing, cold sausage or something similar; then a meat course, some vegetables---beans or potatoes---generally accompanied by red wine, usually taken half and half with water. After that, in a well-to-do family, one may have some type of patisserie, followed by a conserve or fresh fruit.
After déjeuner, everyone rests and reads or talks. Mama and the daughter, if there is one, clear the table and wash the dishes. The men never do any housework. In the afternoon, everyone is free to choose: to go swimming at Ardus, wander around the city or stay at home and read French literature.
Dinner is at seven sharp at the Delmas'---other families dine anywhere from seven to eight. That is not a large meal, the déjeuner is the big meal of the day. One has potage, then an entrée, a vegetable or left-overs and fruit. There is wine, of course, at every meal except breakfast, and occasionally M. Delmas will drink some special wine besides the usual red variety. We were interested in the way chicken was served---with the head on-and the comb and brains are eaten, too, the skull being opened right at the table. In every family where the group stayed, no effort was spared to give us the best that the land and their incomes provided; our families delighted in cooking special dishes to please us. After dinner, one either goes for a "short walk" of about two miles, or stays at home and reads and sings. There is practically no night life, and I am generally in bed by 10:30 or 11:00, sometimes earlier.
M. Delmas is a professor of French and Latin at the Lycée. He loves to sing and has made a collection of old French songs. He is a type from the Midi, his family has lived in Languedoc for many generations. He is animated, cheerful, and has a wonderful sense of humor. He is a Catholic and therefore a good deal more lively and broadminded than the Protestants. He drinks his wine "raw," so to speak, and always has coffee after dinner in the evening, alone as Mme. Delmas and Paul do not drink it, and I cannot as it prevents my sleeping.
Mme. Delmas is a Lyonnaise, not a Midi type at all, and being a Protestant is much quieter and more reserved. She has two beautiful cameos, which are the only ornaments she wears to relieve her otherwise uniform black attire. She is not musical, although she has had ample opportunity, having studied with the best masters, but all to no purpose, she says. Her pet subject is the Church, and her main objects of demonstrative affection, her two Angora cats. She goes to market every morning around seven o'clock. In this way, she gets things cheaper as she buys them directly from the peasant proprietors.
Paul is twenty and is studying to be a lawyer. He is not as musical as his father, but is just as exuberant and full of fiery gestures.
The house is very old, with two rooms on each floor. The kitchen and salon are on the first floor, the dining room and bedrooms of M. and Mme. and Paul are on the second floor, and I am in solitary grandeur on the third. There is running water only in the kitchen, there is no plumbing of any sort, and each person has a washstand in his room for washing. From my rear windows (my dressing room), I have a wonderful view of the lower Montauban and the surrounding plains. (On very clear days one can see the Pyrenées, they say.)
July 16 The whole group was received at the Hôtel de Ville by the Mayor and M. le Deputé of the Département and officially welcomed to Montauban. The French were so eager to honor America, through us, that we were received in the wedding chamber, the only room that was considered large and gorgeous enough for such an occasion. Afterward, toasts were drunk in port. It is an interesting sidelight that a great many of the public buildings around here were built before the Revolution and were Church property, often the Episcopal palace, as in this case.
July 23 M. Vergnes, who arrived yesterday from Paris, talked to us from 4:30 until 6:30 about The Experiment and its purpose. He said we must be charitable in our attitude toward the French people, and very careful what we discussed with them. Religion and international affairs were dangerous subjects because the two countries had different conceptions of both, and Americans could talk about them with a detachment that was impossible for the French. Group discussions (between Americans and French members) were, he thought, delightful in theory but difficult in fact, and he suggested that it would probably be better if we waited until on board the Paris before indulging in any very controversial discussions. Grand'mère [Grand'mère was the name the group gave to their leader, Miss Catherine Bill, because she looked so young] said that these group meetings on the return voyage were an important and interesting part of the trip.
That evening a group of peasants and petty fonctionnaires who called themselves the "Chanteurs Quercynols" gave an evening of regional talent for the Americans. It was interesting and entertaining, and the dances were wonderful. They gave a little play in patois revolving about the simple plot that a man advertises that he has a hunting dog for sale, and when a man comes to ask for the hand of his daughter in marriage, he thinks he's come to buy the dog. The subsequent conversation is, as you can guess, full of quips and double entendre, and the French were completely bowled over with laughter! In partial repayment, the Americans and French sang a few songs and danced the Virginia Reel (which has been a most popular success here) .
August 2 In the afternoon, nearly everyone went out to the Ardus to swim and afterwards danced at the Hannard's. In the evening after supper, Mme. Hannard, Charles, and I discussed French politics, finance, and such. They are very conservative, and the most leftish statesman they will support is Georges Bonnet. They agreed, however, that it is this French lack of confidence in their leaders which holds France back.
August 3 Adelaide Kern and I went to have lunch with Mme. Bougniol at Espanel, about eighteen kilometres from Ardus, where Miss Bill, Bob, and Frances went to tea last Sunday. Mme. Bougniol is wealthy, and the meal certainly showed it. First we had cantaloupe, then roast duck, French-fried potatoes, and a delicious but strange type of meat paté; then ice cream, chocolate of just the right rich consistency which is rare in France, then wood strawberries in wine. We were served by a butler in white gloves. (Bicycling home, Adelaide and I passed the butler, still wearing his livery, but with a nondescript straw hat on his head, quite a French incongruity, and accompanying an old peasant woman in her everyday clothes.) Mme. Paul Valéry was also a guest at lunch. After lunch we listened to the victrola (Fauré, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Beethoven), then she showed us around the house. It is very old, built in the twelfth century, I think, with thick walls and very small windows in the cellar. Of course, the upper floors have been rebuilt. There is a dungeon where English prisoners were kept during the Hundred Years' War, and two towers to guard the entrance to the house. The furniture is lovely, Empire Louis XIII, with several of the enormous "armoires" one sees everywhere, filled with Mme. Bougniol's wedding linen, etc., which she still has in perfect condition after all these years. I have noticed fine furniture everywhere in France, but it is not always well arranged. Here it was perfection itself.
August 6 After lunch I went back to Montauban to get presents for my family, first consulting Grand'mère as to what to buy!
After supper, all the French families gathered at the Hornus' villa, where the grande soirée was to take place. First, Paul Delmas gave an excellent monologue of Amphitryon's servant in Molière's play, "Amphitryon," in full costume with lantern and all. Then Jacqueline St. Genies and Violette Verly gave an interpretive dance, "Le Printemps," accompanied by the victrola (Anthologie Sonore). After that, Jean Claude Hornus and Frances D'Albis gave a little play. It was all delightful and amusing. Then came the opera "Moname" presented by the Americans. The opera was written by me with helpful suggestions from Adelaide and was meant to take off every grand opera ever written. It contained a "Carmen" entrance and gypsy dance; a "Trovatore" villain, a "Robin Hood" fight (movie instead of opera), "Barbier de Seville" aria and a "Tristan und Isolde" love death. I forgot the "Hamlet" duel. The whole affair was a "howling" success. After the opera, everyone had champagne or fruit syrup and patisserie, then we went up on the flat roof and danced country dances and victrola waltzes and foxtrots, surtout "le Tambour." The party broke up around 2 A.M.
August 8 At twenty minutes before nine, everyone was at the Montauban station accompanied by all the French parents that could come. The bicycles and remorque [trailer] had left for Orléans the day before, so all we had as luggage was our suitcases and our packs, quite enough as we had to change trains twice to get to Orléans. The group had two reserved compartments, and everyone squeezed in. We were sorry to leave our kind and congenial French families. We were the first Americans they had ever entertained in their homes, and they planned for our pleasure as if we were their most beloved and long-time friends. The train pulled out amid the tears and farewells of the Montalbanais, and we waved until the last bit of view of the good friends had vanished and we were well on our way to Orléans.
August 9 On our camping trip, we would start for the day's destination about 8 A.M. Breakfast and chores were over, of course, before we started. Bill and I usually got up before the others to help Hélène Nahas prepare breakfast. The advantage of helping Hélène with the tartines was that in helping her, one also helped oneself---very freely---and thereby got the first choice at breakfast. After breakfast came the drying of the tapis de sol [ground sheets], tents, etc., folding sleeping bags and tents, and packing the remorque. Each person was supposed to have a map of the region through which we were traveling, and before starting, Grand'mère would show us what route to take, and where and when to meet.
When lunch time arrived (twelve o'clock noon), the box was taken from the remorque and unpacked. Hélène had previously bought bread, lettuce, and usually tomatoes; and after cutting bread, slicing tomatoes, and washing lettuce, lunch was ready. Usually we had also canned sardines or pork paté to eat with the omnipresent bread. For dessert there was some kind of cheese or chocolate bars. Everyone was then given his mid-afternoon gouter to carry with him (two slices of bread and two bars of Suchard chocolate), and after packing everything up again, we were on our way. Before leaving, Grand'mère again told the route for the afternoon and the approximate place for camp that night.
About five o'clock we would meet again near the town where we were to camp, and M. Tastevin (chauffeur and a grand Midi type) would be waiting to tell us where the camp was. It was often in a cow pasture and among poplar trees, and near a brook or river if possible.
On arriving at camp, each had his own special job. First the tents were set up under the general supervision of Bill and Jean Claude, girls in one line, boys in another, although occasionally tents were just pitched where the terrain was the flattest without regard for trimness. Then the girls helped Hélène Nahas unpack the cooking utensils and start supper. The French members of the group wanted to help, theoretically, but actually they found it was too difficult to submerge their independence in a united effort, and the Americans did the general work. Hélène and Frances got supper ready, officially, while Adelaide (chief dishwasher) and I kibitzed. Bill also took a great interest in the culinary proceedings. It was my special job to light, regulate, and clean the rechauds (small portable stoves worked by air pressure) with the again theoretical help of Felix Caston.
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If we were near a river, the natural thing for everyone to do was to wash their laundry and go in swimming with a cake of soap---preferably Ivory! Every evening there is a pre-supper hour of self-beautification among the French which is accompanied by friendly badinage and discussions of the Americans. The French think the Americans understand much less than they actually do. They have qualms occasionally, but the love of discussion on practically any subject soon overcomes their caution!
Supper is about 7:30 P.M. and consists of hot soup (dehydrated cubes) and a hot meat (pork or beef steak, generally), a vegetable, and fruit as a finishing course. AND BREAD; everyone eats loads of it. I know, because I cut it!
After supper, Adelaide appoints helpers, differing from night to night. Dishes are washed, and Felix and I clean the rechauds. After everything is done, there are three choices: to walk and see the sights, stay in camp and read or talk, or go to sleep. Almost everyone is in bed by 10: 30 P.M., for rising time is 7 A.M. or earlier.
August 12 After seeing Chenonceau, we bicycled off for Amboise, where we were to have lunch. This meant that we had to cross the ridge again (between the two river valleys), but the fine view of the chateau of Amboise, seen while descending the other slope, was sufficient recompense. One could easily imagine the court shivering on the balcony while the Huguenots were executed below. A fine rain had begun to fall, which was whipped into our faces by the wind, and thus increased the gloomy effect. The chapel of St. Hubert is a lovely piece of flamboyant Gothic, the stone carving of the interior seeming as fragile as lace, and in the pavement of the left side are the bones of Leonardo da Vinci.
We had lunch in the pouring rain on the outskirts of the town and then made our way to Tours. This road wound along the banks of the Loire, and from time to time one could catch a glimpse of a chateau in the fog on the hills which shut in the valley. After an hour or so, we saw the towers of the cathedral, and presently we were in Tours! The cathedral itself is very old and contains some of the original stained glass in the apsidal chapel of the ambulatory. After seeing the cathedral and stopping in one of the best patisseries (pastry shops) I have yet found, we rode to the outskirts of Tours where we were to spend the night in a youth hostel, since the ground was too wet for comfortable camping. The French youth hostels are not as pleasant as those of other countries of Europe, for they were started by the Front Populaire and are used chiefly by laborers from the big industrial areas. However, for one night they were interesting, real beds for a change, etc. We met a type of Frenchman who was quite new to our experience, as so far we had only seen peasants and petit bourgeois. Here was the proletariat from the great business sections of the country.
SEEING OLD FRANCE THROUGH
THE EYES OF OUR FRENCH FRIENDSAugust 13 This morning we got up bright and early and all the group again squeezed into a bus to go to Chartres. It took two hours to get there, and we sang songs (Gilbert and Sullivan) all the way. For the last half hour of the trip, we could see the towers of the Cathedral through the haze. Seeing Chartres is an intensely personal and unforgettable experience. None of the accounts of it does it justice; it cannot be described, it must be seen. I shall not attempt to describe either the Cathedral or my impressions of it. However, before seeing it, one should read Henry Adams' Mont St. Michel and Chartres. After a picnic lunch behind the Cathedral, we stayed all day in Chartres, sitting in the Cathedral.
September 2 Last day in Paris. In the afternoon, there was a Renaissance Field Trip to St. Eustache, the Louvre courtyard, etc. That night we went to a farewell dinner for all the French groups at the Rotisserie de la Reine Pedauque. It was very gay and the food beyond belief! The group sang songs intermittently throughout the meal, and after dinner moving pictures of several groups were shown. As it was our last night in France---too grim a thought to mention---the group, the Cadiers, Macy, and others joined in a last celebration for Adelaide, who was staying in France during the winter.
September 6 On board ship. We had a long group discussion on the summer, what we had done, what we had learned, and what could be done to smooth some of the ropes in the future. Had we, in the words of Crossroads, been successful in "promoting mutual understanding and respect" between ourselves and the French people with whom we had lived? The discussion was a lively one, but by the time we were forced to stop in order to go to supper, we had managed to agree on certain definite conclusions.
The first condition of successful adjustment was the positive desire to become adjusted, which for us took the shape of a belief in and an understanding of the purpose of The Experiment. Everyone agreed that he had been a little bored when so many of our group discussions on the voyage over to France had been taken up with clarifying for each of us, beyond the possibility of doubt or misunderstanding, "what is the purpose of The Experiment?" We also agreed that during the early days of adjustment, we all wished we might have been keener to take advantage of the training course.
In order to make the most of one's opportunity and find the happy adjustment to foreign customs and living conditions, one must also possess first the kind of zest which is able to give all the minor daily events of life in the foreign country the glow and excitement of an adventure. Second, a carefully cultivated sensitivity to the differences in customs. By far the most important and interesting thing for future Experimenters was, as reviewing our experience had made clear, that the enthusiasm we now felt was an acquired and not a natural attribute.
When we arrived in Montauban, although we wanted to make The Experiment a success in our group and although we loved France, yet the barrier of an incomprehensible language, strange people, and stranger customs was so great that, far from being either enthusiastic or particularly sensitive, the only positive emotion which-we could remember was a shy, inarticulate desire for friendship and a desperate, rather pathetic "aim to please." In those first days, it would have been hard to say whether the group of mousy but willing Americans would make friends of their hosts or not. And then something happened. Adelaide, who was the oldest and most mature member of the group, and who knew more clearly what she wished to accomplish, began appearing at the Lycée every morning bubbling over with an enthusiastic tale of some quaint, new idiom she had picked up, of an amusing rencontre with a storekeeper or farmer's wife, or of the hilarious evening she had spent with her family the evening before. Grand'mère wisely fostered this spirit, with the result that such enthusiasm proved contagious. Adelaide seemed to be having all the fun, although her family was little different from any of the others; and, partly in a spirit of competition, perhaps, the rest of the group began looking about them for material. This observant "just wait till I tell the group about this!" frame of mind quickly became a part of our natural attitude. Instead of retiring within a reserved shell as a defense against immersion in an unfamiliar milieu, from whose confines we might look forth with critical, disapproving, foreign eyes, we embraced this new life with enthusiasm, always seeking new experiences. The effect on our French families was immediate. As soon as they discovered our eagerness to miss nothing of interest, and to examine every facet of French life, they could never tire of thinking up things for us to see, or do, or eat! Everything over which we exclaimed in delight caused them to beam with pleasure; and under their wing we attended country fêtes, school graduation celebrations, dipped into French music and literature and radio programs, met their friends and relatives, and tasted all sorts of dishes du pays. The national difference in ways of living and thinking remained undiminished; but our point of view toward them had undergone a complete transformation. Instead of looking at them as one watches a moving picture, never relinquishing for a moment one's national and individual identity, we continually exercised our understanding in an attempt to see these differences through French eyes. That we might think in our hearts that things were done better at home was natural; what was important was that we tried to understand why they were done in a particular manner (or not done at all) in France. In the end, if certain differences seemed too great to bridge, there was always the resource of a talk about it with Grand'mère, whose sympathetic attention in itself often solved minor problems without further ado.
Now on our way back, we realized how important it was that we had clearly agreed we were going to France to study their way of doing things, not to convert them to ours. The only axe we had to grind was not liberalism, or democracy, or progressivism, or bigger and better motor cars, but simply The Experiment idea itself alone.
Something not mentioned in discussion was very important for me. The initial shock of discovering conditions which would have struck the average tourist as exasperatingly backward was materially lessened and eased for me simply because it tickled my historical fancy to find myself living in a way which either Napoleon or Cardinal Richelieu would have found quite familiar (except for electricity and higher standards of cleanliness). As we looked back on our two months in France, it seemed to us that whenever we had failed to adapt ourselves, and had found ourselves in conflict with our hosts, it had almost always been because we had been either too tired or too pre-occupied consciously to summon the qualities of adaptability to our aid. The strain of keeping mind and feelings attuned to the delicate subtleties and nuances of French life was great, demanding constant attention and alertness; and when occasionally there had been minor clashes of French and American temperaments during the camping trip, we felt that a contributing cause probably was that bicycling and sight-seeing combined with sleeping on the hard ground had left both French and Americans too weary to cope with each other's idiosyncrasies.
We probably will never be able fully to appreciate all that our French families did for us, because the conditions and customs in France are so different from those in America that we must have taken for granted many things that were done especially for us. For instance, the Delmas family served me milk to drink, and it was a week before I discovered that this was quite an extra expense for them and not part of the usual routine. It took considerable tact and convincing assurance that I really wanted to have only what they ordinarily had themselves, to dissuade them from continuing this special favor. Books may talk about French parsimony, but in the Midi where we spent most of our time, the French people were exceedingly generous. Although they were often amused and doubtless often amazed at some of the things we did and said in ignorance of French ways and speech, they never let us know it at the time and when they did set us right, they did it in the most charming and tactful manner.
Their tact was astonishing. They put us completely at our ease the moment we arrived in their homes, and if any of us were a bit homesick during the first few days, it was when we were alone and never when we were with our families. Of course, we tried to make ourselves as little in need of tact as possible, and I found that the oftener we laughed and joked, the better they liked it, and very little was necessary to set them roaring with laughter. They were intensely interested in all we did and at the supper table urged us to tell long and detailed stories of the day's activities---this, incidentally, benefited our French enormously. They constantly questioned us about America and never tired of hearing about our life at home. We shall think of France, not as a place of historic and beautiful buildings and places (although they were there in abundance), but as a familiar land of warmhearted, well-beloved friends.
