MODEL U.N. ASSEMBLY

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28257, 20 April 1957, Page 6

MODEL U.N. ASSEMBLY

Meetings At Princeton

[By NORMAN R. MORGAN, of the literary staff of "The Press, who is visiting the United States under the State Department’s programme for foreign journalists.] TRENTON (New Jersey) April 8. In any univesity of the modern world, it is not surprising to hear discussions on the social sciences, international law, and like topics. But they are customarily in the field of theory, and leadership remains with the principal theorists. Only rarely is theory given the semblance of practical reality. Last week-end, at Princeton University, about 12 miles northeast of Trenton, was one of those rare occasions. About 600 university students from 67 colleges of the Middle Atlantic States had gathered at Princeton for the annual model United Nations Assembly, sponsored by the Collegiate Council for the U.N. These student assemblies are not new; they began more than 30 years ago, with the object of studying the problems and procedure of the League of Nations. They have continued each year since then, with a gap over the war period. Last weekend, it was Princeton’s turn, to be host to the Assembly, and no more fitting place could have been found for the meetings. From its foundation in 1746, Princeton has traditionally fostered the liberal arts and sciences, and has promoted the intercourse of persons of widely differing cultures through knowledge of ancient and foreign languages, literature, and social organisations. The activities of the university today are based on a magnificent heritage of sound learning jealously preserved, but are adapted to the progressive demands of a changing world. Princeton’s grey and dull-red buildings, an amalgam of classical, Gothic, Byzantine, and contemporary architecture, formed an impressive background against which the 600 young men and women from a wide sweep of American territory gathered in an obviously sincere attempt to advance their preparation for national leadership and understanding of world problems.

Delegates to the model Assembly registered at Princeton on Friday evening. were chosen for each of the 81 members of the United Nations. The male preserves of Princeton—a university exclusively for men—were invaded by 300 delegates from women’s colleges, and the women took equal place with the men in their debates. The women visitors were billeted in two of the undergraduates’ eating clubs and in private homes; and the male delegates shared the Princeton dormitories. Delegates sat down to meals together in the lofty, timber-ceilinged halls of Madison (named for the President, a Princeton alumnus) and Upper Cloister.

Suez Question The Assembly began with a meeting of “national bloc” leaders, caucuses, committee meetings, and a first plenary session on Friday evening. It continued in similar fashion, with social interludes, on Saturday and yesterday. On Saturday morning, when I visited Princeton, the political and security committee of the model Assembly was meeting in Woodrow Wilson Hall, a splendid modernistic building. Delegates were discussing the Suez question; and the austere blue uniforms of West Pointers contrasted rather oddly with the varied attire of the other students. Looking about the crowded hall, I could not help feeling that the young men and women participating were paying the best possible tribute to Wilson, progenitor of the modern concept that patient international negotiation is invariably preferable to war.

After lunch with the delegates, I attended the second plenary session of the Asembly in Alexander Hall. Delegates were ranged upon the tiers of curving seats in that extraordinary ByzantineRomanesque building. Upon the stage, below elaborate mosaics of ancient heroes, were placed the multi-coloured flags of the United Nations. James W. Beckman, a 20-year-old Princeton student from Menlo Park, California, served as secre-tary-general, and Warren White, a senior student at Pace College, New York City, was president of the Assembly. The topic of discussion was the development of the world’s poorer countries. As each delegate advanced to address the Assembly, it was refreshing to realise that here future leaders of the American nation were receiving realistic, stimulating training in their duties and responsibilities of tomorrow. Warrant for their earnest approach to future tasks was not difficult to find. Just a few hundred yards away, in historic Nassau Hall, the university’s oldest building, I had seen the long lists of Princeton’s war dead—men honoured for dedication to their ideals of individual freedom.

Participants in the model Assembly had no need formally to affirm their determination that their compatriot’s deaths in world conflicts should not have been in vain. When the torch of leadership is passed into their hands, these young people intend to grasp it firmly and with confidence, in the sure knowledge that they have been well prepared to carry it. By contributing to their training, Princeton has added yet another page to its long and venerable history, and has continued to discharge its function as Wilson’s “seminary of statesmen.”