"CROSSROADS" WAS THE NAME GIVEN TO THE RATHER luxurious, profusely illustrated brochure which from 1935 to 1947 brought an explanation of The Experiment to the public of the United States. The name came from the first issue, which introduced itself as follows:

This Crossroads is a place where young people of many nations may meet, meet not merely in passing, but, in meeting, take time to know one another, meet to make friends in another land.

Thus to make friends abroad is the purpose of an Experiment in International Living, which now offers Crossroads as its mouthpiece.

The carefully limited and polished text of Crossroads had its origin in the evaluation discussions of every group which in the early years were then rediscussed and consolidated at the Mid-Winter Reunion and in later years at the October Policy Meeting, after which I prepared the statements for publication.

From the first to the third year, The Experiment was advertised by a four-page pamphlet. The organization was a small affair, and the pamphlet was sufficient for the small circle of friends which supported it. The Second Experiment had twenty-six members and all of them went to Germany. The Third increased to fifty-one, nineteen of whom went to France and thirty-two to Germany. The first summer in France turned out to be delightful both for the French and for the Americans. This success was very important, since there was then no longer a question about finding homes in France.

Since the French language was taught widely and well in northeastern United States, it was clear that The Experiment would grow, but it needed to be well advertised. Now, an attractive presentation was needed to describe an entirely new way of visiting Europe, a way of investing a summer. The public must be made to realize that The Experiment had become more than the notion of a single individual and that it had enthusiastic advocates.

In 1934, with the active help of the Experimenters of that year, a periodical to be printed three times a year was designed to hold the attention of those who had participated, as well as to gain the interest of others. The program at that time was for secondary school students only, and the journal was intentionally juvenile in style. On the cover was a picture of young hikers, and in bold letters the name, Crossroads, with its equivalent in French and German, Carrefour and Kreuzweg.

Its masthead contained the address of the office in my home at 817 Comstock Avenue, Syracuse, New York, and the names and addresses of helpful Experimenters, plus those of the European representatives. (A persistent tradition that The Experiment was founded in Putney, Vermont, has developed. From June, 1932, until September, 1937, it was in Syracuse. Then our family moved to Putney so that our three children could attend Putney School, founded by Carmelita Hinton, who had played such an important part in the second year of The Experiment.)

With the need for a very much larger edition, the periodical of 1934 expired in 1935. Its place was taken by a twenty-eight page pamphlet which retained the name of Crossroads. The name was kept until 1950, although the last of the luxurious type appeared in 1947.

The meetings which produced the text of Crossroads were started with a gathering of Carmelita Hinton's Third Experiment group held at the Christmas vacation in the buildings which were soon to house the Putney School. From that year, there was a midwinter New Year's Reunion, and this led directly to the fact that Putney became the seat of The Experiment. In addition to discussing the affairs of the organization, there was skiing and skating in the daytime and, at night, sleigh riding and square dancing. The Reunion was very popular and drew people from all over the northeast. We were fortunate in being able to use the buildings of Putney School, for by 1938 seventy Experimenters attended.

The move of the Watt family from Syracuse to Putney took place a few days before the first hurricane which had ever reached New England hit, on the evening of September 21, 1938 . It was about supper time, and the southeastern sky had turned an eerie yellow. According to my recollection, the wind began to blow about seven o'clock. Its roar and the groaning and crackling of the trees was punctuated now and then by the crash of a tree going down.

The family was living in the Putney School Inn, a relatively flimsy farmhouse known as the Houghton Place, which had been made historic by the fact that its owner had imported the first Holstein cattle into the United States.

When we woke early the next morning to see the damage, we found that cars were of no use because the roads were blocked by fallen trees. Our new house, Himmel, not yet finished, had been placed in a line of beautiful old maples, and we hurried to see whether they were all on the ground and whether Himmel's roof, not yet closed in, had been carried away. To our delight and surprise, our place suffered almost no damage, while two hundred yards away, in Mrs. Hinton's woodlot, there was a swath in which no tree was standing.

As a result of this move to Putney, the mid-winter reunion was changed to the first week-end in October, when the maple leaves hold their festival of color. The name was changed from the Mid-Winter Reunion to the Policy Meeting, but the program started previously went on as usual. The groups continued with the evaluation started at the summer's end by each group discussing and criticizing what they had accomplished. This effort to sample the thoughts of all the members was part of a cycle which produced "Experiment Method, a cycle which consisted of planning the experience, trying it out, evaluating it by the groups, criticizing it at the Policy Meeting, and then replanning the program for the following year."

Because I am proud of the beauty and the effectiveness of Crossroads, a complete brochure follows.

In the long search for ways to One World, we have begun to find an open door. It is the door to your home and to every home on earth.

The most important educational institution in existence is still the home, without which our children can scarcely grow into civilized human beings. Our national life without the education of the home is unthinkable. Our international life without an opening door is untenable, as two world wars have proved.

Now for the first time we have a world government, but because it is new and because the countries involved do not sufficiently trust one another, we see that freedom from fear cannot be created by legislation alone. Neither can our chiefs of state nor our diplomats and delegates release us from the expanding circles of suspicion.

The kind of broad maturity that will make us citizens fit for One World can be achieved only by changing the foreigners we suspect into friends whom we trust. It can be done. During fifteen years two thousand homes in seventeen countries opened their doors to unknown foreign students to demonstrate that different peoples of the world could learn to live together by living together. These homes inevitably came to feel a community with their foster child and with his country.

We need not be experts in the intricacies of international relations. We need only the will to work and an understanding of the way. This booklet suggests that in your home some foreigner may learn to become a fellow citizen of One World.

DONALD B. WATT

WHAT IT IS.
WHAT IT HAS DONE.
WHAT IT PLANS TO DO.

* WHAT IS IT?

It is a proven way of making friends out of foreigners. It is the most direct Education for One World.

* WHAT HAS IT DONE?

It has given 1494 Americans a living experience of the meaning of world community. It has recognized and stated the fundamental problem of Education For One World. It has practiced in eighteen different countries. It suggests selection, training and leadership as the necessary method.

* WHAT DOES IT PLAN TO DO?

It will provide a way by which any person may work for peace. And, finally, it will ask for financial help in order to provide this leadership.

WHAT IS THE EXPERIMENT
IN INTERNATIONAL LIVING?

... A proven way of making friends out of "foreigners."

It is a non-profit educational organization, with headquarters at Putney, Vermont. Since its beginning, in 1932, it has been attempting to demonstrate that it is possible to teach key individuals to understand and to trust the people of other countries to such an extent that they work for world community, the interests of which go beyond narrow nationalism.

The Experiment takes young Americans to live as members of families of education and culture in other countries. To a lesser extent it brings young people from abroad to live in the homes of Americans. It chooses its members carefully, requiring the applicants to meet high standards. In every stage of its operation it stresses quality rather than numbers.

These young people are accompanied by adult leaders who are carefully chosen by the Experiment and experienced in living in the other country. Versed in Experiment principles, they are capable of leading the thinking and acting of the group so that its members and the families who are their hosts learn to like and trust each other.

In each country visited, competent citizens, instructed by the Experiment, select the families which will be hosts, choosing for each visitor a home which has a young person of the same age and sex. For about six weeks each visitor lives the normal life of the family which has adopted him: speaking their language; participating as a "brother" or "sister" in their social life; seeing events through the eyes of his family; sharing their travels, pleasures and work; making "foreigners" into friends.

The paradox that education must be a happy experience is inherent in our educational method and cannot be avoided. Only by learning to enjoy living with others can we gain a feeling of community with them. In this paradox the Experiment believes that it has isolated a principle in education for understanding.

Questioning any originality in the Experiment's work, some educators have pointed out that students have gone abroad for centuries and that many of these have lived in homes. The Experiment replies that just as a university does not leave a student's education to chance by turning him loose in a library, so the development of world-mindedness must be intelligently directed. The presence of an individual in another country is just as likely to turn him into an extreme nationalist as an internationalist.

Since the development of attitudes is a less understood and more difficult branch of education than the teaching of facts and skills, education to achieve it must be organized more carefully. The fact that the teaching of emotional education has not been recognized by educators in general is strikingly apparent now when one notes that almost every international educational organization uses the words, "sympathetic understanding", in its statement of purpose, but so far as we have yet seen, the programs of all of them are confined to the normal scholarly pursuits that may or may not result in sympathy.

The idea that people from many nations may learn to live together by living together has not yet received serious attention. Information is only half, and the less important half, of the equipment needed for "understanding" another people. To understand another people, the more knowledge of the language, the profounder the scholarship the better; but what really determines whether one will appreciate a country and cooperate with its people is not one's information about it, but one's attitude toward it.

In 1498 in Germany, Albrecht Dürer engraved this picture on wood to say that the enemy of mankind was not Man, but Pestilence, War, Famine and Death. Four and a half centuries later we use his ancient symbol as a background to show the extent of our efforts to solve an ancient problem---to show how terribly meager they are.

The numbers show the American members of the Experiment between 1932 and 1946.

Since it was begun in 1932, the Experiment has operated without interruption for fifteen summers. When the war excluded its activities from Europe, it worked in Latin America. During these years, 1,494 Americans visited an estimated 9,000 people in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

The following number of Experimenters from the United States have lived in these countries, arranged in the order in which they were first visited: Switzerland, 52; Germany and Austria, 304; France, 368; England and Scotland, 195; Norway, 34; Spain, 12; Sweden and Denmark, 41; Italy, 14; Canada, 62; Japan, 5; Mexico, 162; Peru, 44; Guatemala, 15; Brasil, 7 and Colombia, 14.

Statistics are only half the story---the easiest hall to explain. The educational method which these 1,494 people have produced is probably more important than the total of what happened to them all and their friends abroad. What they have learned may be equally well taught to a hundred, or even a thousand times their number. Principles have resulted from the experience and thought of these people and the people with whom they lived. They are the Experiment's formula for developing an attitude effective for successful adjustment to the life of another country. They are always growing but at present may be stated as follows:

* In order to understand the people of another country, one must have the desire to do so.

* To get and to keep this desire, a mutual enjoyment of one another's company must be the ultimate objective.

* To achieve this objective, one must put himself in a position where he can learn and appreciate, rather than teach and criticize.

* Respect is the necessary requirement for those wishing to learn. Experience has shown that to maintain one's attitude of respect one must bear in mind in living abroad, that trifles are all-important, and that principles will be found to be much less so than one would suppose.

* Adjustment to another country is difficult. Most people going abroad do not find themselves in an environment where a satisfactory adjustment to the new culture is possible.

* The reward of making friends abroad is worth more than the great effort that it costs.

* The final step in developing the correct attitude is to realize that one must strive always to understand others, but never expect to do so fully.

To insure the success of any person's experiment in international living three controls have been found necessary. They are selection, training and leadership.

SELECTION

The privilege of becoming a member of the Experiment is won by outstanding achievement in the a owing requirements for a mission:

THE FAMILIES THAT WILL GIVE HOSPITALITY

to people from abroad will not be limited to those who have sent one of their number abroad. Showing a guest the life of an American family, helping him to understand our ways is a contribution to world unity that many will make who cannot go abroad themselves. This is what one family wrote whose interest started with entertaining:

"Great ideas are few, and few ideas are great, but I think you have a great idea. After experiencing one of the first phases of the Experiment in International Living, I can say for the entire family that we have learned some of the fundamental steps by which we may have a better understanding with other nations and thus bring about a durable peace.

"We are very grateful for the opportunity you gave us to join with other people in this Experiment. We became very fond of Jose ... He didn't seem like a guest after the first few days, but instead he seemed a part of our family. From the moment he arrived we tried to do as you suggested and treated him as a member of the family.

"He seemed thoroughly surprised that I did my own washing, and when I asked if he didn't want to help me you should have seen his look of wonder. It so happened that he did help and in the process we had some wonderful discussions. He is certainly well-read' and has definite ideas on many vital issues of the day. Mr. McIntosh and I sincerely hope that we may continue to assist you in your plans and activities."

THE EXPERIMENT REQUIRES STUDY

by each individual before a trip starts. It provides booklets on Experiment practice and principles, directed readings on the country visited, and language exercises adopted to everyday needs. It requires a physical examination and gives the members and their families an opportunity to realize the responsibility and the risks involved.

Once the trip has started, the leader calls a conference where the summer's language classes are begun. The principles and methods of adjustment, already studied, are discussed till each one makes them his own. A start is made in building a group spirit by assigning duties and responsibilities to each member. Underlying all of these things is the development of the necessary attitude.

The Experiment tries to develop in each member before he meets his family abroad the attitude which allows friendship to grow. Each Experimenter accepts the task of making himself a trusted friend. To aid him in doing this, he has the pattern of an experienced leader and the motivation of an enthusiastic group.

But the family who receives a guest needs training too. While it is the visitor's job to do the adjusting, the hosts must help. Some families that have been unable to follow the Experiment's suggestions have not enjoyed their experience. Such failures must be avoided at all costs, for one failure seems to cancel the good of many successes. Taking someone from abroad into our home is not only a privilege, it is a responsibility. One cannot expect to accomplish great good without corresponding thought.

LEADERSHIP IS OFTEN MORE IMPORTANT

than selection and training, because a wise leader can forestall a difficulty before it develops.

The qualifications of an Experiment leader are stated as follows: A leader must know the language of the country beyond the possibility of misunderstanding. He must know the customs of the country from having lived with its people. Above all, he must have a love of its people which will be unconsciously transferred to the members of his group.

The organization has existed long enough to have developed competent people to direct not only the groups going abroad but also the affairs of the organization.

While one man, Donald B. Watt of Putney, Vermont, has been largely responsible for its promotion, it is the Experiment's ideal and its boast that every individual---student or leader---because of the Experiment training in discussion and criticism, has made a contribution to the policy of the organization. These contributions grew out of the solutions that each group, thinking together, provided for its members adjustment problems. The ideas of the groups compiled and studied each year grew into the organizations principles, for the guidance of leaders and members alike.

The objectives of the organization have attracted the finest type of forward-looking people from many lands. Their part in determining Experiment thinking has been just as important as that of the Americans. Experimenters of eighteen different countries, to a greater or less degree, contributed the characteristic ideas of their own lands to produce principles of more general acceptability.

The relationships that grew up between the Experimenters of any country are as varied as the people involved. The following illustrations from several countries can only suggest what the many have felt who have not had a chance to speak.

IN FRANCE

. . . There was something in rural France in 1938 which appealed to me. I immediately loved the country and the people, even the language which I spoke miserably, and I made some good friends. These friendships were formed when I was only 18 years old. Politics didn't concern us then, as it does now . . . Last week Eric and I held our first reunion in seven years. We found ourselves changed in many respects. We argued bitterly over the problem of post-war Germany; we would doubtless argue hotly and frankly over the revolt in Syria today if we were together ... (But) Eric and I remember a summer of shared fun together, a time when we deliberately set about the job of getting acquainted. it was the thing to do, everybody was doing it; it was part of the program. The Experiment arranged that the group in Luneray would spend a large part of the time singing songs together, both French and American; and I think we learned more from those sing-songs than a few lyrics. I know, for instance, that we were deeply impressed by the French members of the group when they expressed a reluctance to sing the Marseillaise with us, because they weren't sure we could sing it properly. Little things like that built up a genuine understanding. Doubtless, they learned a great deal about us . . . in the same unintended way. We learned about the French by doing as the French did. We found flaws, too, as well as virtues, but friendship is founded on a realistic acquaintance ... Eric and I now find ourselves separated in many respects, but in no way are we separated as friends. Both of us now know pretty well why the other thinks the way he does. Both of us have benefited by a knowledge of the influences which play upon the other. I regret only that I spent so short a time in France before 1939.

I absorbed from the Experiment a mass of general notions about how-to-get-along- long-with-foreigners. When I joined the American Field Service I drifted into many relations with civilians in much the same fashion ... I have brothers and sisters, families even, in Alexandria, Foggia, Turin, Lanciano, and a near-brother or two in England. I have families in Naples and Rome and Paris to whom I write, try to send packages to, etc. And they have given me help several times when I seriously needed it. I think now that all of us (and there must be thirty of us) now knit into this loose sort of family I've adopted, will continue to be interested in each other ... I feel the Experiment sowed the seed of such adventures as these, and I am grateful. It would have been difficult to make friends in uniform without having had experience before in adapting myself to unfamiliar situations, for the uniform is highly suspect ... It would have been much harder to overcome the disadvantage of being in the Service had I not learned in 1938 in Luneray such things as this: That I happened to be born in America; that this means only that I tend to think as Americans think, and know more about what makes America act and live the way it does than I do about other countries; that an American can adjust himself to a foreign living routine as quickly as anyone, more quickly than many, particularly the English; that every country has something to give, something desirable, which Americans can use; that America can give something useful and desirable to every other country; that people who can sit down hungry together to eat rarely give much thought to the way the other fellow holds his fork ...

PAUL RODGERS, American Experimenter, 1938

Mexico and the United States, countries with very different traditions, have found one another, since the war. Thousands of visitors to Mexico have been charmed with such beauty as the ancient church at Tlaxcala. But too few Mexicans and Americans have had an opportunity to appreciate the best characteristics of one another.

Dr. Boss Parsons, whose daughter had just returned from Mexico, wrote:

"Never has any experience had the deepening effect upon Jean which that trip had, First of all, she became relaxed from the too-high tension of life in our own country. She became understanding of and appreciative toward the Catholic religion, a thing almost impossible among Protestants in the U.S.A. She felt deep reverence in large groups of worshippers, for the first time. She came to see that even the very poor may have a good life by other than material standards.

"The courtesy, the conservative, restricted feminine life there all stood in contrast to the jostling disrespect and the too liberal and unrestricted life of women in our country. Those of us who are profoundly disturbed by mannish ways, the drinking, the smoking, sometimes the wildness among our young women, know that the example of gentleness, restraint, good manners, devoutness, and womanliness to be found among our Latin American neighbors, can have only a salutary effect upon our own girls. I could wish that it might be possible for them to tone us down rather than for us to 'pep them up'."

IN ENGLAND

the American girl who wrote of her satisfying experience did not sense any "problem of adjustment". Nevertheless in spite of the fact that we speak the same language, experience has shown that there is need of the right way to reconcile national differences.

"It is impossible to describe that summer. I was so alive and perceptive to surroundings and events that, four years later, I can remember and visualize those daily incidents more clearly than I can picture events that have taken place between then and now.

Though they are all like a second family to me, Peggy is especially my dearest friend. That summer with her, along with the letters that have come since then, have been enough to influence many of my ideas about what is best and most meaningful in life . . .

Not long after Pearl Harbor there came a fat envelope stuffed with a thick letter from Peggy. Eagerly reading page after page of her miniature writing, I had suddenly come upon this:

'During this week we have had the bad news from the Pacific, and the entry into the war of the United States and Japan. Last night I heard on the wireless an excellent American commentary describing the United States as a nation at first staggered with rage and shame, but quickly recovering and now steadily determined.

'But in addition to courage and resolution and self-sacrifice, there is yet another quality of mind even harder to acquire and maintain, but which is essential if the war and the peace are to be won. This is a certain gentleness---the negation of spite or anger or antipathy to the German people. I don't know how to describe it. It is well shown in Aeschylus' play, The Persians, written to celebrate the brilliant victory of democratic Greece over the great totalitarian Persian empire. It contains no noisy self-congratulation or boasting pride, but depicts the sorrow of the relatives of the Persian dead. To be dignified in victory is very hard. How I hope that both Britain and the United States will maintain the quiet sanity of Athens after Salamis, the reasoned strength and a belief in the future.' "

ELLEN CHAFFEE, American Experimenter, 1937
PEGGY STANIER, English Experimenter, 1937

IN GERMANY AND AUSTRIA

Of the score of countries where Experimenters have lived, none have opened their doors more readily than the people who now carry the Nazi brand. None spoke as often of the need for the young people of the world to be friends. None expressed so clearly the dread of another war. Then the Nazi machine wiped out such thoughts until once again they appeared in letters from our German friends.

... Please tell all of those who were in Aussee at one time or another, and who still remember us, to please write to us. We crave news and we rejoice in the smallest detail that our friends write about. It gives us a renewed sense of freedom to know that we can once again communicate with the outside world.

"I was particularly interested to hear that you continued the work of the Experiment during the war years. That was most gratifying and shows your faith in your life work.

Perhaps our mutual plan will yet materialize: to create a home herein Aussee for American friends, a beautiful house on which will wave the American Flag as a symbol of lasting unity. My boy is learning the English language with special gusto and talent, and I have already told him that some day he will be allowed to travel to America and to you. I want him to make up for what I have missed. I have hopes that he will continue the work that I have begun with you

HANS GIELGE,
Bad Aussee

"Your letter of the 14th of May, 1946 has moved me very much and stirred me almost to tears, because after so many years, and after all of the happenings, you think of us that kindly. From the heart, in the names of the family and in my own name I thank you... Often we look painfully back to those carefree years when you came to us, so many young, eager Americans. Those were really splendid weeks when we lived and talked and hiked together with you. Shall those good things ever come again? ...

"Would God the Experiment had gained more ground and laid hold upon more families. Then perhaps this catastrophe of humanity would not have come; then the criminal fanaticism and nazism would not have attained mastery..."

DR. KARL LOOS
Freiburg, Germany

THE EXPERIMENT IS NOT A EUROPEAN TOUR

In planning an ordinary trip, the itinerary is the important thing. When one's purpose is to make friends and to understand other people, itinerary becomes a minor consideration. During the first month of the Experimenter's stay abroad, when the American is living in a European home, he is encouraged to avoid his American friends (except at language lessons) to become immersed in the spirit of his foster family and land, to follow his individual interests, and to make his own investigations.

During the second month, the Americans, still with their European friends, visit carefully selected portions of the country, mostly on bicycle, foot or in a canoe. By this time they have learned enough of the language and culture of the country to really appreciate and enjoy it. The Experimenter leaves Europe with a real knowledge of the country he has visited. Sightseeing is not abolished; it is simply made intelligent.

People interested primarily in seeing things should not apply for admission to the Experiment.

THE EXPERIMENT IS NOT A LANGUAGE SCHOOL

The study of a foreign language is not a primary consideration when the Experiment's summer plans are made. It is a secondary consideration, but an important one, for one cannot really understand a country unless one can speak with its people and read its literature. For this reason, we do not accept people in the groups who have done poorly in their language study. Every effort is made to put the American visitor in a situation where he is obliged to learn the language. However, we do not insist on members ceasing entirely to speak English. Many members of the Experiment have learned more language living with their families and in the class work, which is provided, than students who, while taking university language courses abroad, have not lived in spirit of the country.

People whose ONLY purpose in going abroad is to learn a language should not apply to the Experiment. They should travel by themselves and speak only the language in question.

THE EXPERIMENT IS NOT A JOY RIDE ...

It provides a cheap and pleasant way to go to Europe. There are cheaper ways of going and there may be more pleasant ways. Because the only way we know of making friends is to enjoy ourselves with the same people over a considerable length of time, the first objective of the Experiment is to have a good time. Members ore selected, and the whole of the summer is planned to accomplish this purpose. It is for this reason that we do not place good friends in the same group. If members wish to give their best to their foster families, there is no room for cliques in the small travel groups. For so many years, we have seen the timidity with which people have joined a group of strangers invariably turn to enthusiasm for the friends made in it, that we have no hesitancy in saying that this is the best plan for every one.

We expect members of the Experiment to have a grand time, but we are trying to keep out of our ranks those who go only for a grand time.

 

THE EXPERIMENT HAS NO AXE TO GRIND . . .

If there is any one solution to the question of war and peace, the Experiment has not heard about it. It does not urge the acceptance of any dogmas on its members, but aims to give them a living experience of the essential similarity of people in every country, and a first-hand understanding of the tremendous difficulties involved in the ideal of getting those people to work together for the common good. It aims to give a picked group of young people an interest in one of society's most difficult problems in such a vivid way that this interest will always remain a part of them.

We hope some day to perfect our methods of selection so that all Experimenters returning from abroad will want to work as actively for its ideals as some do at present.

During the second week in October, 1946, a members' Policy Meeting was held at Putney, Vermont, to discuss and determine the future course of the Experiment. Not only those who have long been active in the organization but also more recent Latin American Experimenters attended and had their say. All agreed that the Experiment, now mature, has a proven method of :education uniquely suited to meet the problems of the post-war world. Its ,past limitations and present handicaps were frankly discussed, so that both long-range and immediate plans could be made realistically.

The Policy Meeting recognized these shortcomings in the Experiment's program:

* Since the cost of going abroad, averaging $550 per student, has been borne mainly by individuals rather than by endowment, participating in the Experiment has been limited to the members of well-to-do families.

* The Experiment's desire to bring students from other countries has been even more limited for financial reasons.

* Despite the fact that the government, commerce and education seek methods to improve the ability of the people that they send abroad to cooperate with the people of other countries, and although the Experiment has trained substantial numbers in many countries to do so, it has not yet obtained recognition for having done it.

* The great bulk of promotion and office work has always been borne by the Director, Donald Watt, assisted by a very small staff. The members have unanimously agreed that the Director's burden of detail should be assumed by others, leaving him free to determine Experiment policy.

In the light of the Policy Meeting, the Experiment's major long-time proposals are:

* To seek contributions, grants and endowments, so that a true cross-section of the qualified young people of the country, both geographically and from the standpoint of family income, may have the privilege of active education for one world.

* To emphasize and develop the visits of students from abroad to the United States, for whom hospitality will be needed.

* To make the Experiment's usefulness known to the public through a suitable publicity program, with CROSSROADS appearing three or four times a year, and other publications as needed.

* To organize and finance an administrative office adequate to handle the program undertaken. It was decided that the Putney office should be reorganized immediately, but the financial drive only after a year's preparation.

The Experiment plans for 1947 were divided into the part which is the responsibility of the Putney office, and the part which will be carried on by members of the Experiment working as volunteers.

The 1947 plans for the Putney office, as shown by the recently issued CROSSROADS, are:

* To send 100 college age students to serve as camp counsellors in cooperation with the French Government's camping plan for 700,000 children during the summer of 1947.

* To send small groups to Germany, Austria, Scandinavia or Holland as may be feasible.

* To organize a Russian Center at Putney, Vermont to start preparing a group to visit Russia in 1948.

* To send college and school groups to Mexico, Guatemala and Colombia, following the well-established Latin American program.

* To provide hospitality in the U. S. for Mexican groups and for some of the thousands of students from abroad studying here.

* To bring students from France, England, Scandinavia, Germany and Italy as soon as steamship transportation permits.

* To organize and expand the number of Experiment representatives throughout the United States.

* To establish two Boards of Trustees, active and honorary respectively, to be selected by Donald Watt for the purpose of guiding the organization to greater usefulness and to greater financial power.

THE EXPERIMENT AS A
WORKING GROUP

It is safe to say that if we citizens of the world worked as hard to destroy war, during peace-time, as we do to defeat the enemy, during war-time, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse would have met their doom long ago. It is not clear why we can not do this, but it is clear that we do not do it.

We know however that even men of great goodwill may oppose the peace policy of others who are equally well intentioned. It is the Experiment's hope to build a substratum of mutual confidence on a human level that will make it easier for men everywhere to talk to one another understandingly.

It has been the Experiment's ambition to build up in various countries groups of talented young people, who have not only the desire to establish world peace, but also the ability. Some of our young people have made a profession of international work. Others have made it an important avocation. As an organization the Experiment has not been able to provide the leadership that was necessary to establish a group in which all took an active part. Where good leadership has been forthcoming, Experimenters have been found who were willing to make the necessary time to do excellent volunteer jobs.

In the spring of 1946 when the unexpected opportunity come to send groups to France, and the Putney office was more than busy with the Latin American program, Adelaide Kern Licklider worked eight hours a day for three months so that the Experiment could send forty people.

Beginning in June, 1946 Margaret Ann Rusk White started securing the current addresses of German Experimenters to send to the Americans who had lived in their homes. The hope and encouragement which a substantial stream of letters and food and clothing parcels have brought to the defeated, are shown by their letters. Otti Hirt Rollins is organizing the sending of clothing, while Sue Fleisher has tackled the biggest job of all, organizing the relief packages for France. Louise Shire Nathan is working for Norway.

Writing for the publicity and publishing program will be much needed. Janice Oettinger Rothschild and Sue Macpherson have both made fine contributions in this field.

When 27 Mexicans in four groups visited the United States, from December 18th, 1946 'til February 28, 1947, .there was real need of assistance in securing hospitality and organizing programs. Anna Huntington, Erna Schneider, Elizabeth Wolcott, Leslie Watt, and Buel Trowbridge worked long hours in their respective localities, with results that made the Mexicans eternally grateful. As the Experiment is able to develop this side of its work there will be unlimited need for this kind of assistance. There have been many other contributions of work too numerous to mention.

The last two pages of this booklet list some of the members of the Experiment who wish to represent it. To them as well as to others this booklet is offered as a chart for showing how every family may develop, in its own way, understanding where it did not exist before. Peace, whether within a family or among nations will exist only as the individuals that form them are capable of working together for the common good. Every person who reads this is one three-billionths of the population of the world. In so for as you are capable of turning a foreigner into a friend, the world is one three-billionth of a step nearer to peace. Insofar as an individual fails to change dislike into confidence the world remains at war by one infinitesimal relationship between one man and another man.

THERE ARE THREE FINANCIAL ITEMS
OF SPECIAL INTEREST

People have always said that The Experiment gave them much for little. The low price explained the rapid growth after the first proving years. The first ten weeks trip to Europe cost $365. Later those less than nineteen years old paid $400, while those older paid $450. The low price was due to the large amount of volunteer work. For example, in the year 1938 when $87,694 was paid by 184 people, the salaries paid for promotion and organization amounted to $2,488. The director has never received a salary.

The organization takes special pride in the financial control achieved under travel conditions that made record keeping difficult. Its ambition to be a non-profit organization in a very real sense, led to giving away surplus as scholarships. During the three years that the income was over $80,000 annually the "profits" were estimated and given away in advance. The control was so accurate that the balance sheets showed two small profits and one small loss.

The Experiment has always been able to pay its own way. The business of collecting funds consumed little of the management's time. Relatively small scholarships have been granted by The Schurtz Foundation, The Co-ordinator of Inter-American Affairs (now the State Department), Princeton Harvard Universities and Carleton College. More recently Robert Haas Jr., whose life was a sacrifice, made a bequest in his will. Mr. and Mrs. Edwin White have given scholarships in memory of their son Gardner who was killed in action, believing that education for peace can scarcely be matched as an appropriate memorial for life cut short by war.

The Experiment of the future cannot exist without financial assistance. All those who believe that it must go on are asked to make their plans accordingly.

The following friends of The Experiment say they will be glad to answer questions about Experiment activities.

Chapter Nineteen
Table of Contents