MEXICO WAS AN UNKNOWN LAND TO ME, AS IT WAS TO MOST of my countrymen in 1939. I approached it first from a most unusual direction, the south. I was retreating from Europe and the Second World War, and the only transportation that I could get in September, 1939, was an Italian ship which touched first at Panama.

I had previously asked the Putney office to circularize The Experiment parents in order to get contacts in Central America and Mexico, which I would visit on my journey north. I visited Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico, everywhere explaining The Experiment idea. My first contacts with Latin Americans were most pleasant.

When I finally arrived in Putney, I was anticipating that the liquidation of The Experiment staff would be my principal job. The extra expense of bringing home some two hundred and fifty Experimenters from Europe saddled The Experiment with a debt. However, one grateful parent, Mr. Joseph Morris of Cincinnati, had already taken it upon himself to raise funds from the parents to cover what had been spent to get their children back to the United States. Almost all of the families responded, and the debt was wiped out.

At the suggestion of the Advisory 'Council, all thought of liquidating the office staff was given up, and in the summer of 1940 we had three labor-language camps in the United States, using as teachers German refugees who needed jobs badly. The camps were located in Vermont, Minnesota and California. Four groups of the usual Experiment type went to Canada; the two in Quebec were French-speaking, while the two in Nova Scotia were work groups living in homes. A small group went to Japan, two to Peru, and one to Mexico. For the long trips to Canada and Mexico we had found amazing contraptions. They were one-ton trucks, which at night time were converted into dormitories.

By the summer of 1941, there were five groups in the United States, two in Canada, and seven in Latin America, including the countries of Brazil, Colombia, Peru, Guatemala and Mexico.

When the cold war became hot, the difficulties of securing both group members and transportation became so great that, at the end of 1942, the Putney office was actually closed, and I had no intention of sending any groups abroad in the summer of 1943. Quite unexpectedly and at a very late date in the spring, four girls from Bryn Mawr made up their own group and asked me to take them to Mexico. We went to Morelia and the four girls were delighted with their experience. From the point of view of 1966 the experience does not sound unusual. But in 1943 for an American to live in a Mexican home was extremely rare. Fortunately, Michelle Myers wrote a detailed diary as follows:

Mexico, July, 1943. After a terrific bus ride from Mexico City, we arrived in Morelia. I was scared to death to get off the bus, but finally took the fatal step. For the first time in my life, I was unable to say a word. There were many young Mexican girls around, all smiling and shaking my hand and jabbering away in some language I knew just couldn't be Spanish. Before I knew what was happening, one of the girls---Esperanza, my new "sister"---had my hand and away we went, my two heavy suitcases being carried by an old man. I tried hard to make conversation, finally succeeding in putting over the idea of how nice it was that we were both the same size. The only thing that Esperanza said that I understood was, "Mi casa es muy grande." (My house is very big.)

It was but two blocks to the house. I was completely surprised when I walked through the heavy front door and got my first glimpse of a Mexican home. It is square with a big cement patio full of flowers in the center, off which the rooms are built. All the sisters, five at a time, and the two brothers, greeted me, but all I could do was shake hands and smile. Naturally, the first thing I wanted to do was shed my dirty clothes and bathe, but I was to do quite differently. They showed me my room, wherein, my bags were deposited, and then took me on a tour of the house. All five sisters and two brothers went around with me. They were doing their best to make me feel at home and show how glad they were to have me.

They laughed an awful lot, but I, understanding nothing, could only force a sickly grin and wonder uneasily what was so funny. Generally they all spoke at once, but when only one was talking, I concentrated with all my strength on what he was saying, catching a word now and then. My efforts were rather futile. Once in a while someone asked me a question, slowly and with gestures. Then I understood, and my mouth opened to answer. Just as quickly it closed, having said nothing. At this point I was completely bewildered; although I had studied Spanish at college and worked hard on it before starting for Mexico, I couldn't bring forth one word that I needed .

To make matters worse, although they didn't mean to offend, all the boys and girls roared with laughter at everything I said, but for the life of me I could not see that there was anything at all funny.

When we came to the bathroom, I managed to explain by use of the sign language that I would like to take a bath and wash my hair. Similarly, they explained to me that my wish was quite impossible as there was no water. That was the first big blow. How could I possibly live without running water? The idea of a bath unsuccessful, I next thought of unpacking my suitcases. We went back to my room, a large and simple one, and my idea to unpack was understood; but there was no place to put my clothes. I was ready to scream, but instead smiled sweetly and insisted that it wasn't important that I unpack, anyway. The next move I made was toward the bed. How wonderful it would be to lie down on a soft mattress and sleep! I put my hand down, but felt nothing soft. I sat down, but I didn't sink. Heavens above, my bed was a board!

This was the last straw! I'd never be able to sleep on anything as hard as that. Tears came to my eyes, but I realized they would do no good ---here I was for six weeks, and I must sink or swim. I decided to swim. Even so, when Carmen, my oldest "sister," suggested that I lie down for a while, it seemed a heaven-sent suggestion. We had been traveling for three days, under conditions more uncomfortable and dirtier than I had ever seen, and I was dead tired. I did my best to be polite, but by this time more than anything else I was ready to give up. When, half an hour later, our leader Edith gently pushed open the door into my room, I felt I was seeing an angel. It was wonderful to compare experiences. It was wonderful to be able to say something without a tremendous effort.

She told me when the Spanish class was to meet next morning. We would meet at ten o'clock at her house. That date was a little oasis on which I pinned my hopes during the next twelve hours. The prospect of it kept singing inside me through the rest of the day, the hours of tongue-tied Spanish and endless mistakes. Finally, Esperanza came and asked me if I would like to "dar una vuelta" (take a walk). I accepted, and we wandered around the city streets, meeting many of Esperanza's friends, boys and girls. An evening walk is apparently the usual thing to do. About nine o'clock we came back for supper. A few minutes later, Esperanza excused herself from the table. I didn't know where she went, but she didn't come back. Later I caught a glimpse of her in the window talking to her "novio," the man she is going to marry in December! This continued to be a nightly program from nine to eleven during the six weeks I stayed in her home, and it will probably continue until the day she marries. The custom is widespread in Morelia, having developed because a girl is neither allowed to entertain a boy in her own home, nor walk with him on the streets unaccompanied. How Esperanza knows she loves her novio is beyond me, but "es la costumbre," that's how they do it.

That first meal I had in my new home consisted of a scrambled egg and a Coca-Cola. Needless to say, I had been quite dubious about eating, but imagine my surprise and contentment when presented with two of my favorite dishes! My family knew I could not drink the water unless it were boiled---hence the coke. For the next three days I had so many cokes I thought I'd turn into one. But my family, wishing me to be perfectly happy and contented, thereafter had a small pitcher of boiled water set at my place at the table every meal. Some of the families use a purifying pastille in the water and thus avoided the inconvenience of boiling it for the "American children." My family didn't seem to mind this trouble, though, and thus one of my biggest fears was overcome.

The next morning came. After breakfast I quickly retired to my room to wait for Edith, for the thought of trying to struggle with conversation was now more than I could bear. The hour that passed seemed endless, for all the time I was in a dither, fearing that Esperanza would come in and, finding me doing nothing, would realize that I had intentionally run away from them. At last Edith came, and the first thing I asked her was how to say "you are so very kind to me" in Spanish.

We went to the language class, and that reunion with Edith and the other girls was a tremendous relief. Although we were studying Spanish, the thought that there was someone who could understand me was like getting a drink of water when one is terribly thirsty. After sitting in the Spanish class all morning, I hurried home, glad to be moving again, and famished after a tiny breakfast and three hours of concentrated attention in the class. I arrived home shortly before one, but found to my dismay that dinner wasn't until two o'clock. I thought it would be simple to forget how hungry I was by doing something interesting, but all the girls were sitting around knitting or sewing while they talked vivaciously. I tried hard to think of something to suggest, but even if I had known enough Spanish to suggest something, even if I had known enough about the town, it would have been impossible to break into that stream of conversation. So I sat down thinking, "Ye gods, I am going to spend the summer here doing absolutely nothing!"

When two o'clock came, it brought a really delicious meal. Carmen, realizing that I was not accustomed to Mexican food, prepared mine separately. Instead of the very hot chili, which the family had, my meat course was prepared with plain tomato sauce. The food was Oh! so wonderful, and what mountains of it! First came a sort of noodle soup, then a huge dish of rice served with avocados. Then, what became my favorite dish, a casserole of meat balls, cauliflower, and corn. Next came frijoles (beans) which I refused. I couldn't have eaten any more, anyway. There were tortillas and hard rolls and, finally, fresh pineapples. Supper was usually only coffee-with-milk and pan dulce (sweet rolls), but I was always offered more---rice, an egg, soup. Several times we had supper in the portales, sidewalk shopping districts, where we feasted upon the most delicious chicken I have ever tasted.

After dinner, that second day, I was feeling very contented. But I wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, being thoroughly fed up with sitting around for two days. It seems, however, that in Morelia girls never go anywhere, so we sat down again to knit. I tried without much success to follow the convention, but found it much easier to follow my own thoughts. At home, my day would have been full of tennis, swimming, a cocktail party, and perhaps a dance. Now it looked as though I'd spend the summer sitting in one room, trying to talk with girls whom I did not know, about things in which I had no interest.

At the end of the six weeks, the trouble which had loomed so large my first days in Morelia seemed not to matter at all. I had learned especially that the little material ways in which American life differs from Mexican life were simply not important. The time we spent in Morelia was anything but dull; the food was not only good to eat, but I even became healthier; and even the difficult running-water situation worked itself out. As for my very hard bed (it wasn't exactly a board), suffice it to say that I slept soundly every night, except when pleasantly awakened by a gallo (a serenade).

Again I must say how glad I am that I didn't let those first days' discomforts mar the happy days in Morelia. Every morning was the beginning of a beautiful day which I knew would bring only peace and contentment. The minor troubles were outnumbered by the pleasant times. Looking back on those inconveniences while rereading my diary, I can still say even more truly that "I believe my heart is still in Mexico." Never had I spent a happier eight weeks. The culture they possess, the refinement, their piety, their attachment to home life---all these excellent attributes we miss so in this country, are things I have come to value very highly.

Sharing the satisfaction of the pleasant outcome of Michelle's summer should not prevent us from remembering how difficult her early days were. She very nearly gave up in spite of the fact that she was carefully trained and had the benefit of a skillful leader.

Morelia does not seem like a city of the Western Hemisphere. The long series of arches of the colonial aqueduct gives the impression of Roman remains. Beautiful churrigueresco (Spanish-American Roccoco) churches alternate with well-made stone buildings and colonnades to decorate the main street. This substantial architecture makes our wooden buildings seem feeble in comparison.

Inside and outside the city there was much of interest, but the new volcano, Paracutin, was something everyone wanted to see.

Just after tea time, the bus carrying the younger members of the host families and their four American sisters left for an all-night visit to the volcano. First it traveled over the main highways at good speed, then more slowly over the country roads, till soon a thin layer of volcanic ash hid the ground from view. We were nearing our objective!

Improvised bridges had to be negotiated with care. Everyone got out and sometimes we tried to help by pushing. As darkness began to fall, the red glow of the volcano was clearly visible in fading twilight. The deep layer of gray ash had turned the upland corn fields into what one imagines the moon to be. Elena Oseguera, the representative in Morelia, had been singing for about two hours, and since she had taught the Americans many Mexican songs, were able to share with their Morelian friends in keeping the songfest going, letting their voices go, as the Mexicans do. Finally, out of the darkness, the lighted windows of a city appeared on the left of the bus. What could these lights be? Even the Americans knew that there were no more villages, and certainly not a city so near to the volcano. Finally the bus, with its wheels deep in the soft ash, could go no further. But we did not have far to walk. The Mexicans who had visited previously said that we were approaching a lava stream, which certainly seemed to me a foolhardy thing to do, because I thought there was danger of being caught in a sudden rush of molten rock. But as the Mexicans went ahead, the Americans followed. Soon we were standing within ten yards of a rounded mound stretching to the left and to the right. The windows which we had seen were small places where the crust of the cooled lava fell away exposing the white-hot interior. The falling of the ash was the only suggestion one had that, with the pressure of the molten lava flowing from high on the volcano, the mound was slowly but surely moving. Presently a building which was said to have been occupied by an American scientific group burst into flames, and then in the distance one could see that there had been a village here. The chief evidence was a church tower rising above the bed of lava, and most astonishing, a huge tree whose trunk was surrounded by lava, but whose leaves were still quite green. We never heard a good explanation of why the tree had not burned.

We had our picnic, which was most welcome, as we had not eaten for too many hours. It was getting cold. We were beginning to recover from our fear of being incinerated; and although we could hardly believe it ourselves, each one wrapped himself in his blanket and lay down within a few yards of the pleasant warmth that only a short time before had been most terrifying.

During the evening and throughout the night, I became more and more aware of two handsome Mexican boys, Luis and Enrique Amescua. This was the first sight of the young men who were to play a leading part in the Mexican Experiment for several years.

Before leaving for the United States, I made arrangements with the Amescua brothers to bring two of their classmates, Guillermo Hernandez and Fernando Gonzalez, to spend the month of January with us in Himmel. They proved to be much livelier than any boys we had ever known. During all of our meals, we were laughing almost continuously. Enrique Amescua was the clown, and he actually learned to speak English by telling over and over again the same funny stories in an approximation of that language. Our mood was such that we laughed just as hard after the fifteenth rendition as after the first. All of these boys, raised by doting mothers and several accomplished servants, were not accustomed to doing anything for themselves. We made it clear that in our servantless household, they would wash and dry the dishes. Their intentions were good, but Luis Amescua, for example, was so vocal and voluble that he would stand with the dishcloth in his hands, forgetting completely that there was something to do besides talk.

The Amescua home in Calle Chiapas 139A became the center of the small Experiment activities for several years. Nothing was too much trouble for Señora Amescua. If a group of twelve Experimenters from the United States was coming to town to spend their last week, they were all invited to live in the Amescua home. First, all of the numerous bedrooms would be rearranged, and those for whom there were no beds slept on piles of serapes in the basement, which was not really a cellar. Year after year, I was always a welcome guest in the Amescua home, and there was a stream of other guests, both at the big table and to spend the night. Señora Amescua and her principal servant, Crispina, who lived exclusively for the comfort of the big family, always seemed to enjoy the many visitors from the United States.

Beginning with the visits of the two Amescua brothers, Elena Oseguera and her brother Roberto, a program of visits in United States homes started which finally became one of the largest Incoming Programs.

When Elena Oseguera married, Barbara Baer took over. She is the only director who is not a born national of the country she represents. She married Arturo Gomez and became Barbara Baer de Gomez. With her great energy, Barbara was soon sending groups of young people to the United States during the university holiday in Mexico, which is December, January and February. Barbara worked closely with the United States Cultural Institute which teaches English to Mexicans. It was not long before American families were asking for Mexican young people, who came in time to spend the Christmas holidays with their American families. Mexican charm, people said, added great gaiety to the Christmas festivities. The young people brought their Mexican costumes and were prepared to do the folk dances of the different parts of Mexico.

As the years passed, from seventy to one hundred young Mexicans came to the United States every winter. It was noticed that the girls who were secretaries doubled their salaries on returning home because of what they had gained.

The city of Raleigh, North Carolina, was particularly fond of Mexicans, and the following story, written by one of the hosts, makes the reason clear.

Sim and I are forty. We've been married almost eighteen years, have a sixteen-year-old daughter, one twelve, and one three plus. All of this is in order. But suddenly we find that we're to be parents again---this time of a twenty-six-year-old girl---not even an American like the other three, but from a country where neither Sim nor I have ever been---Mexico!

The idea of such a parenthood is surprising, compelling, frightening, challenging, and delightful all at once. It came about following a family "pow-wow." We were---the oldest four of us, for Ann's three years do not constitute a voting age---in agreement that our newest daughter would come into the family for a month by unanimous invitation. We have acknowledged to each other in advance that privacy will be forfeited, inconveniences incurred, and sacrifices demanded on all four fronts, but we anticipate compensations far beyond the call of sacrifice.

When the invitation came from The Experiment in International Living to include a stranger in our Christmas and New Year plans, all the reasons for not cooperating loomed big in our minds. We thought of everything! But the desires to participate---to share our American way of life with another---to be a part of this scheme of International Living---to make our own family celebration a little larger in its scope than it had ever been before---all of these desires became exciting possibilities, and we know now that a wonderful privilege is waiting for us.

We do not know Maria. She has written to us once as her foreign friends with whom she "looks forward to an exchange of the ideas from the American minds to the Mexican heads." But we look forward to her stay in our home with love and understanding for we know that she, much more than we, must have many fears and misgivings about coming into a foreign home, an almost unknown language, five strange people, and countless unpredictable situations.

January 20, 1958

A month has gone---the most delirious, scintillating, unpredictable, yet delightful month I've ever spent. The Experiment in International Living is, in its truest meaning, really an experiment; but for our family, it was the most successful and enriching venture that we have ever undertaken.

The full impact of the responsibility that I, as the mother, had taken upon myself and for my family, did not really hit me until the day before our new daughter was to arrive. Then the suspense was worse than that experienced immediately prior to the birth of each of our three girls. I wondered if Sim would be able to forfeit his privacy; I wondered if the two teen-aged girls, Sherry and Lynn, could gracefully bear the strain of sharing a room after having enjoyed their own for three years; I worried for fear that three-year-old Ann might not "take to" a foreigner in the house; and feared that the unknown girl who was soon to be our newest daughter might find our way of life too strange. Was she to be thin or fat, clean or careless, cooperative or a problem? All these questions and many more crushed down upon me and had me wondering whether or not it had been wise to let our hearts rule our minds.

We---all of us---waited impatiently as the 9:20 hour set for their arrival approached. Then came the first of a monthful of schedule changes, "flexible living," we learned to call it---the bus was a reported three hours late. We canceled baby-sitting arrangements, sat around nervously, finally convinced the big girls that twelve-thirty on a school night was too late even for meeting a new sister---sat around longer, and then at 11:10 had a call that the Mexicans had arrived---early.

None of the eleven families seemed prepared for what we were to see that night of December 18 in the bus station. Eleven young people from another country---travel-worn after three days spent mostly on a bus, baggage-laden, puzzled, apprehensive---yet trying so hard to be gracious---to be the grateful sons and daughters they were to become.

We gathered our own, each to himself, sat around longer waiting for the news photographer who was working according to the second, not the third, schedule change. Each was, I'm sure, thinking his own thoughts about his newly acquired family or portion thereof.

From the very first minute, Chuchina (as Maria preferred to be called) won our hearts. With her small stature, short neatly cropped hair, delicate features, she seemed lost in the piles of baggage, rope-tied boxes, mesh bags filled with heaven knew what. (We certainly couldn't know then that she was head of the "Posada" Christmas fiesta committee, and therefore had charge of lugging with her all the favors, food, and decorations which had been brought all the way from Mexico.)

The first day was spent getting acquainted---a relaxed trip to the supermarket, a feeling our way into each other's consciousness, learning to communicate with a speaker of English as it is taught in foreign schools as opposed to our careless, I've decided, idiom-packed American English.

Then the fun began! The usual Christmas rush, last-minute shopping, decorating---all the activities that could be, had been left until the last in order to make Chuchina feel that she was being included in the preparations for a typical American Christmas.

Certain incidents will, I'm sure, be treasured by each family---some humorous, some pathetic, but all heart-warming. There was, for instance, the time in our household when Chuchina, left alone for a few minutes, answered a telephone invitation for dinner. When I came back, the name written by her on the kitchen blackboard meant nothing to me. The message she had received was that she, Sim, and I were invited to somebody's house for dinner on the next evening. After calling several friends to ask candidly if they'd called earlier, I decided I'd better just wait, hoping that whoever had issued the invitation would call back---or deciding that, if worse came to worst, we could all get dressed Tuesday prepared to go we knew not where at some unknown time, hoping that if we didn't appear on the proper scene, the hostess would call to ask why, thus letting us know where. While it was humorous to me, it was embarrassing to Chuchina so I couldn't even share our little experience until later in the day when we ran into a friend who asked if I'd received her message. Both Chuchina and I were happy and relieved to know where we were going to dinner, and we enjoyed together the experience.

There was a wonderful spirit of cooperation between the American families and the Mexican Experimenters. We had demonstrated a charming example at our house on Chuchina's birthday, Sunday, the 29th of December. She had not heard from her parents since her arrival in Raleigh, and all of us had already realized that her birthday was going to be a little less than perfect because of that fact. But we had arisen a little earlier than usual for Sunday in order to get her to eight o'clock Mass. At 7:30, the telephone rang and one of the visitors told us to be sure to delay Chuchina for a few minutes. By 8:05, Sim was having to fabricate excuses for being late---a habit which she had already learned didn't usually exist in our house. Just when the excuses were wearing thin, up drove two carloads of the Mexican girls---guitars and all---to serenade Chuchina on her birthday. This, we learned, was an old Mexican custom, a beautiful one, we thought, and in this particular case a sacrificial one for it had meant that the families had to get their "daughters" off-in some cases by six-thirty, which is early on Sunday in anybody's household---and two of the American families had furnished a driver at that early hour to pick up the Mexican girls from all over town. But the spirit was there, and it was wonderful! Then the girls decided that they should go to breakfast together on Chuchina's birthday. After much discussion about whether to try to attend Mass first and then go to breakfast, or breakfast first and then Mass, they finally decided on the latter plan. After Sim called several restaurants to establish which was open that early on Sunday, the nine girls and two drivers piled back in the cars, rushed to the hotel coffee shop, rushed through breakfast, and when Sim picked them up at 8:55, they all rushed to nine o'clock Mass. And Chuchina's spirits had risen to the sky. So the thoughtfulness of the Mexican friends and the cooperation of the American families made up to some extent for the disappointment in not having heard from home.

I'm confident in my heart that there was a Power higher than either the Mexican or American leaders who took charge of seeing that the right families and Experimenters were placed together. The only "speech" that Chuchina made to us was later on her birthday, and it convinced us that she, too, felt that some higher leader had brought us together. We were entertaining her at a family dinner at the Country Club. It was as festive an occasion as I'd ever given either of our girls---big, personalized cake with all the trimmings, presents brought in by the head waiter---everything as American as we could make it. Then she, who wasn't given to verbosity, made the most touching and soul-warming impromptu remarks I have ever heard. In her halting and sometimes incorrect English, she said something like this: "When I wanted to come on this trip to the United States, I felt I couldn't afford to take off two months from my work, so I prayed to my God what to do. The man I work for heard about the trip, and he offered me an extra month's leave. Then I couldn't get anyone to teach my Catechism class (we later learned this entailed being driven each Sunday by her father to a suburb one hour's distance from her home, teaching under-privileged Mexican and Indian children for an hour, then catching a bus back into Mexico City), and I prayed to my God what to do. Before too long, someone I didn't even know volunteered to take this big work. Still I didn't have enough money for the two months' trip, but my father said he would help me. But I was afraid to come because I thought my 'family' might not like me. So I prayed my God that He would put me in a family that would be the best family for me---and I'm sure now He did." At that minute all of us knew that one God had a big hand in planning the trip for, as we told her, "He's a big God, Chuchina, because we too were praying our God that into our household would come the one girl who was best suited for our family."

There are many, many other things I hope I'll remember about our first Experimenter: her winning way of saying, "It ees good" about everything that pleased her; her unlimited patience as she taught Sherry more Spanish during the month she was here than Sherry had learned during a year and a half of instruction; her earnest attempts to improve her vocabulary to the extent that she would make long lists of American words to look up later in her Spanish dictionary; her wholesome inquisitiveness in the grocery store; the genuine efforts on her part to adapt herself to our routine and her concern when she felt that she was being any extra trouble. Truly, I'm sure I've never had in our house a guest who was so much a part of the family, or a member of the family who was such a perfect guest.

As I look back now retrospectively, it's not the harried schedule of too many parties, too much chauffeuring, too many last-minute plans, never knowing how many would be for a meal, or just how late we would finally be for an appointment---all of these things seem unimportant. It's the "exchange of ideas from the American minds to the Mexican heads" that seems important. The understanding that we reached on such diverse questions from segregation in the south to comparisons of the school systems in Mexico and America, the discussions of the political policies in each nation, the explaining on each side of the history of the people---local, state, and national. None of us realized how much we knew, and didn't know, the searching through Compton's, the World Atlas, the Bible, and the daily papers for answers to questions that were constantly being asked.

The young folks have gone now. They left amid more tears than I have ever seen shed in any one day. All eleven families, Raleigh's own Community Ambassadors, friends of the families, young Mexican students from State College---all gathered to wish the Experimenters Bon Voyage. One father even was seen unashamedly wiping the tears from his cheeks. All were sad---yet glad that we had known the young people from Mexico who had come into our community, lived in our homes, become entangled in our heartstrings, and had truly been good neighbor ambassadors for their country. They have given each of us a better understanding of the problems of our neighbor to the south; they have made each of us aware and appreciative of our advantages; they have brought together eleven families in a feeling of comradeship that can never be surpassed. Each of us knows that only the members of these eleven families can possibly understand the problems and joys that make this experiment such a delightful venture.

I got to know the Mexicans first and other Latin Americans more recently. But I found them all the same in that their main preoccupation in life was maintaining pleasant relationships with the people around them.

HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I THANKED MY LUCKY STARS THAT I found Gordon Boyce! Of a very superior group of men and women who had been Experiment leaders, he had all the qualifications for directing The Experiment. It was a red letter day when, in great excitement, I drove through Bennington and Schenectady to Duanesberg on the Cherry Valley highway and Gordon drove over from Colgate University.

I told him that I believed the development of The Experiment as an educational plan had been completed and the time had come to make it grow into a nationally known organization. We agreed that "the idea" was too good to be dependent upon any one man and that the rather parochial Board of Trustees should grow into one which would more nearly represent the United States. He did not accept the offer of president and director of The Experiment that day, but said that he was tired of being an assistant to a president and that he wanted to be the top man. I went home more convinced than even that he was the man I wanted. Within two weeks he came to Putney to accept the position and after two more weeks he had moved to Putney. In less than a month we were together in Ueberlingen, Germany, attending the first week long International Meeting. There were twelve European offices represented and it did not take this group long to agree to a steady growth of The Experiment.

After nineteen years as director, I realized that it would be difficult for me to adopt the new ideas which Gordon would most certainly have, so we decided that my chief job in the future would be to build up the foreign offices so that I would not "be underfoot." Gordon tells me now that I carried out this policy of not interfering with his plans to the extent that I did not enter his office unless he invited me. From that time Leslie and I started to travel extensively and at this date, 1966, we still continue to do so.

When he arrived, general conditions were most favorable for rapid growth. The country had recovered from the war and all over the world people were determined that "it must not happen again." Moreover, by this time, there was a large body of loyal members who made The Experiment popular.

I had been determined to establish a reputation for quality and now it was time to grow. I had never been a promoter. I was much more likely to tell people why they should not join The Experiment than why they should. Not a little of the printed matter carried similar ideas. Gordon Boyce was quite the opposite. He had been a newspaper man and his university job had been promotion and fund raising. I had been a self-taught administrator, while Gordon came with the experience of top level administration in a big educational institution, Colgate University. After taking a year to get acquainted with the job, the numbers in The Experiment began to show a steady annual increase. Where 10% was the goal, the actual growth was about 15%. This began with the year 1951 and has continued steadily since. (See page 293 for the numerical statistics, 1932-65.)

Up to 1950 there were only occasional groups coming from Europe but now the time was ripe for return visits from countries that had been receiving Americans for so long. The chief factor which had deterred them was their lack of money but in the meantime Europe had become prosperous. With the grant of $270,000 from the Ford Foundation, in a short time the program was growing in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America. In the year 1963 the number of incoming Experimenters rose to 2,088 and surpassed the 1,879 outbound Experimenters.

Cooperating with the State Department we were soon bringing considerable numbers of scholarship students to live for a month in the United States as preparation for a year of university study. This preparation had previously been done on college campuses where the students, living together, listened to lectures for a month. The Experiment was then given a small number of students to see whether the homestay was an effective introduction to living and studying in the United States. Then came the tussle to see whether campus orientation or the homestay would triumph. There were repeated research studies and finally it was decided that practicing living the American life isolated from his fellow countrymen and forced to speak English was far superior to a campus gathering with students of the same nationality. The preponderance of foreign students was then sent to The Experiment.

In the year 1961 Gordon Boyce was loaned to the Peace Corps for six months and since that time The Experiment has trained more Peace Corps Volunteers than any university. In 1962 a twenty room mansion, built at the turn of the century in the hills above Brattleboro with a fine view of the valley, was purchased to house the Peace Corps units. In 1965 the place lost its Indian name of Sandanona and was called The School of International Training. With its present function of language teaching the school has been growing rapidly. In 1956 Dr. John Wallace became Executive Vice President and the director of the great variety of programs which were now being carried out. Gradually the School of International Training became specialized as a training center with five dormitories built in 1965-66 while the "Putney campus" was reserved for administration. During the previous five years the number of staff members had doubled---70 in 1961, 140 in 1966---including the employees on both of the Vermont campuses, the three branch offices in the United States and the one in Europe. During this time The Experiment gained an enviable reputation as a congenial place in which to work. The labor turnover was very low and in the year 1966 there were fifteen persons with more than ten years of service which in an operation where routine is minimal and thousands of decisions are to be made is a tremendous advantage.

Because of its steadily growing reputation for effectiveness the number of organizations with which The Experiment cooperates include the State Department, the Institute of International Education, the Kuwait Educational Bureau, the National Headquarters of the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. and through its cooperative programs a number of colleges and universities, led in numbers by State University of New York at Buffalo, who send about eighty students for a five-month study abroad program each year in which the homestay takes a prominent place. Also included are Carleton College, Cornell (Iowa) College, Dartmouth College, Duke University, George Washington University, Lewis and Clark University, Pomona College, Rhode Island School of Design, State University of New York, Syracuse University, Trenton State College and Tyler School of Art.

Among the newer and more challenging projects is a program organized by David D. Henry, the African Scholarship Program of American Universities (ASPAU), which annually brings about two hundred selected African students to the United States for four years of undergraduate study. The Experiment's part is to provide them with homestays. We were both surprised and pleased to find that many families preferred the African students as sons and daughters than the more usual students from Europe and Asia. They said they felt "that it was more challenging and more significant." In 1965 LASPAU, the Latin American Scholarship Program of American Universities, was added.

With his amiable personality, his tireless zeal, Gordon Boyce has increased the number of participants in The Experiment by six and a half times. In addition, he has built a Board of Trustees which, with the exception of a few prominent educators, are either former Experimenters, leaders, or Experiment parents. This group, under Gordon's leadership, developed a loyalty, a willingness to work and, where it was possible, a willingness to give financial support that was truly astonishing. In 1966, the Board of Trustees numbered 35.

It had been my intention in writing this book to deal only with those years in which I was director but this brief description of the triumph of Gordon Boyce brings the story up to date.

WINTER IN VERMONT DOES NOT GIVE UP ITS ICY GRIP easily. On May 3, 1963, 1 was seventy years old. There was to be a birthday party and Shirley Harlow who was in charge kept changing her mind all morning as to whether the celebration would be out-of-doors or in. About 3 o'clock nature decided to be kind and it became clear that the end of the afternoon would be warm and springlike. She set up the refreshment table on Himmel lawn which still has vivid memories for me of the delightful parties held there, when each of our daughters was married. A gable end of Himmel, the broad and flat Austrian farmhouse (which people insist on calling a chalet) faces the southeast where one can absorb the winter sun and look over the bright spot of the pond to the hills of New Hampshire. Himmel snuggles into a sugarbush where the huge maple trees, probably two hundred years old, keep the house in shadow during the summer and therefore cool even on the few very warm days.

Gordon Boyce with his instinct to make people happy had planned far ahead for this occasion. He had invited the friends of The Experiment in the neighborhood. He had alerted all the forty-two National Offices that a recognition of my seventieth birthday was going to take place. The members of the Board of Trustees, thirty-four in number, had also been invited. Of course the office staff was there and they alone would have made quite a gathering, for at that time there were ninety-three, including Archie Whitney whose faithful daily services to The Experiment date back to 1943.

Gordon, in his easy friendly style, presented the evidence of a world-wide celebration. There was a large blue scrapbook in which at least one hundred telegrams and messages in eighteen different languages were arranged. There were presents from four different continents, artistic reminders that in the thirty-one years since The Experiment was founded, it had gained representatives and I had acquired friends as far away as India, Iran, Japan, the Argentine, Chile, Brazil, Israel, Lebanon and Nigeria. From them had come characteristic gifts with which I will be living for the rest of my life. Last of all from the office force there was a distinguished looking attaché case in aristocratic pigskin. I was overwhelmed with an emotion of gratitude but did my best to express the deep appreciation which I felt.

But this moving event was my fourth celebration. Leslie and I had just finished a two-and-a-half months' trip which started in Miami and zigzagged across the continent up quite close to Canada and down near the Mexican border-by car and plane finally reaching the Pacific Ocean.

We visited centers of Experiment activity, held training courses and spoke to university and city groups. Concluding the long trip there were three celebrations. One was on Sunday, April 21. Young Experimenters and their parents of Marin County, California, gathered for a gala occasion in a lovely garden and there was a big birthday cake. The impressive banquet in Los Angeles with one hundred and fifty people present was held on April 25 at which Howard A. Cook, President of the National Association of Foreign Student Affairs, conferred on me honorary membership in that association. On our way back to Vermont we were invited to attend a dinner of the St. Louis Council of The Experiment, when it contributed $2,500 to the Founder's Fund.

At these occasions I feel deeply grateful that I have arrived at my seventieth birthday well and healthy, and that I am able to continue to work for The Experiment traveling around the world. Actually I am writing this more than three years after the birthday celebration. I have just returned from my hometown, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where it was a genuine inspiration to see my twin sisters, Annie Watt Davis and Katharine Watt Heidelbaugh, who are ten years older than I and also active and cheerful. I came home planning for the future and with the expectation that I would be able to watch the development of The Experiment and the growth of my nine grandchildren for a number of years.

Thus far I have not mentioned the four very important honors which were given to me and for which I am profoundly grateful. It took a long time for people in the United States to get a clear idea of what The Experiment was about. For most people, it was a gay trip across Europe for privileged young Americans. They couldn't grasp the fact that it was anything more than that. So it is not surprising that recognition came slowly to the organization. However, in the past eighteen years The Experiment has received four important awards.

LESLIE AND DONALD WATT

THE CELEBRATION OF MY SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY AT LOS ANGELES

An unknown person in Sarah Lawrence College was responsible for bringing about The Experiment's first public recognition. She told a representative of Lord & Taylor about the organization and a short time thereafter 2,000 people gathered for a posh dinner in the grand ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria to honor five recipients of Lord & Taylor's American Design Award.

President Dorothy Shaver of Lord & Taylor was chairman of the banquet. She introduced the award to The Experiment as follows:

The little village of Putney, Vermont, is high in the Green Mountains, far from the great cities one usually associates with international relations. Its tallest spires are its old white pines; its industrial centers, the maple sugar houses; its embassy, a make-shift red barn. Yet this little village is the home of an Experiment in International Living which has instilled more mutual trust and liking among persons of different countries than any intricate treaty has ever achieved.

The Experiment was conceived seventeen years ago as a nonprofit but self-supporting project by one man who has since made it his life's work. It is based on a simple, profound idea---that the only way for different peoples to learn to live together is by living together. Accordingly, he has sent some two thousand young Americans to live with families in eighteen foreign countries. To a lesser extent he has brought persons from abroad to live in American homes.

The Experiment is a living tribute to the personal vision and courage of one man. In the long search for ways to one world, he has opened a door, the door to your home and mine, to every home on earth.

Upon receiving the award I answered:

I am sure that people all over the world are looking for a clearly stated design for living in one world---a design that anyone anywhere can use to make a positive contribution to peace. After years of carefully planned experimentation, we now feel that we have a design which is worthy of your attention.

What is our design? It is learning to live together by living together. It is learning to make a foreigner into a friend. It is a force for peace and understanding.

Because the home is still the greatest educational institution in the world, The Experiment in International Living places young people from one country in the homes of another. Learning to live with people anywhere is a difficult job. Learning to live with people abroad calls for all the intelligence, enthusiasm and tact that the best of us possesses.

At the commencement exercises of the University of Vermont in June, 1954, President Borgman conferred upon me the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, with the following citation:

Because you have devoted your best years to the welfare of university students, because you have been a successful pioneer in a new field of education, because you have had the vision and initiative to create a practical and effective means to combat tension and suspicion between nations of our present world, and because through you the State of Vermont has gained distinction in many foreign lands, we delight to honor you.

By virtue of the authority vested in me by the Board of Trustees, I confer upon you the degree of Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, and admit you to all its honors, rights, privileges and obligations.

The first recognition of The Experiment's work by a foreign country took place near the city of Bonn. Representing the President of the West German Republic, Ambassador Kiewitz awarded Germany's highest civilian honor upon me in a citation in German which, translated, read in part as follows:

Dear Mrs. Watt and Dr. Watt,

You have both come from the United States to celebrate together with your German friends the 25th anniversary of the organization which you created in 1932 and to which you have devoted such generous care.

More expert authorities than we of this successful experiment, of this attempt to bring together again our two nations as well as other ones across the ruins of the past have already appreciated your great service to this work, your spirit, your courage and your confidence and your patience in the attention to details in spite of all opposing powers and many early disappointments. High honors have already been extended to you and our revered President of the West German Republic would like to share in this.

He presents you, Mr. Watt, in recognition of your special services to the young of Germany

The Service Cross, First Class

of the Federal Republic of Germany, which I now have the great honor to bestow on you in his behalf. At the same time I should like to express to you the good wishes from the Secretary of State, Dr. Klaiber, as well as those from my fellow countrymen who are here with me today.

In a small Louis XVI palace, beautifully preserved and the present home of the Cercle Interallié in Paris, the leading Experimenters of France and representatives of the French government met for a delightful dinner. César Santelli, Inspector General of the French Bureau of International Education, named me a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur.

LE PRESIDENT DE LA REPUBLIQUE FRANÇAISE
Grand Maître de L'Ordre National de la Légion D'Honneur

nommé par décret de ce jour, Monsieur Donald WATT (de nationalité américaine) Directeur-fondateur de l'Association "The Experiment in International Living"

CHEVALIER DE LA LEGION D'HONNEUR

Fait à Paris, le 25 Octobre 1957

Part III, Chapter Thirty-One
Table of Contents