BREAKING BARRIERS

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 14, 16 July 1921, Page 16

BREAKING BARRIERS

EDUCATIONAL WORK

THE RESULT OF SELF-HELP.

No permanent result of American relief in Enrope is more significant than the Educational Foundation which has grown out of the work of the Commission for Belief in Belgium^ Although it was instituted a year ?.<?o, it is just being translated into practical action. Like the charity for the children, it is bound to exert a strong constructive influence through all the coming years, writes Isaac Marcosson, after interviewing Mr. Herbert Hoover, for the Saturday Evening Post. . When the Armistice was signed the Commission for Relief in Belgium wae, to use Hoover's ->hrase, "the bi-"est groceryman in the world." Everybody in Belgium was being rationed, and this means that the organisation had about seven million five hundred thousand customers on its books. Every Belgian' who was able to pay for his ration had to do so. The profits that accrup^ were devoted in a largo measure to Hie support of the destitute. With the cessation of war the Belgians, animated by the doctrine of self-help, which had been part of the policy of the relief administration, turned swiftly to recovery. The combination of Belgian pride and Belgian energy quickly eliminated the necessity for charity, for the destitute disappeared into industry with almost unbelievable speed. . Meanwhile the provision of the people had to go on until the Government could restore the inflow of food through normal channels. The Commission for Relief, as a result, found itself in possession of about two hundred ten million francs, or £8,000,000 at normal exchange, upon the completion of its post-armistice labours. It belonged to the Belgians, since it was profit from food bought on their credit .at wholesale and sold back to them at retail. What to do with it was a problem.

The Belgian Government requested Hoover to establish some permanent memorial to the ;e!ief organisation, and suggested that the surplus be employed for this purpose. Just as Hoover developed actual relief along the lines-of economic statesmanship, so did he now divert this fuu-1 to what might'be termed educational statesmanship. In a letter to the Belgian Government he said :—

A DEMOCRATIC SERVICE.

" During these years of association with-.the Belgians, and-from the discussions with my colleagues iir the National Committee, with the members of the government of the universities and the public, it has become evident that no more democratic service could be rendered to the Belgian people than that these funds should be implied to the extension of higher education in Belgium. The war and the recent economic situation have demonstrated the extreme importance of the widest distribution of higher education amongst al) classes, especially those of limited means. In order to compass this end it is necessary— "1. To undertake such measures as will open the institutions of higher'learning to the SOH6 and daughters of those who have not the means to undertake the expenses of such higher training; and "2. To strengthen the financial resources of the institutions themselves so that they may not'only render more efficient service, to the community as a whole, but also that they may undertake the additional burden of this increased attendance." ' His susrijestion was, of course, adopted. In the organisation of the first portion of the programme two foundations have been created. One is the Commission for Belief in Belgium Education Foundation in America, and the other is the parallel Fondation Universitaire, founded by Act of Parliament in Belgium. EXCHANGE OF STUDENTS. The plan of the American foundation includes the establishment of forty-eight exchange graduate fellowships between Belgian and American Universities,, twenty-four Americans to study in Belgium and.twenty-four Belgians to study in America each year; the creation of exchange professorships between Belgian, and American Universities; the employment of grants for special investigations leading to the advancement of economic education, scientific and social ideas between Belgium and the United States. The various branches of the undertaking are now in full operation under the ex-change-fellowship system. Twenty-four American students are entered in the Belgian Universities of Brussels, Ghent, Liege, and Louvain. Belgian students have been matriculated at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Pennsylvania-; Columbia, Cornell, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of California, Johns Hopkins, Chicago, and Leland Stanford. These foundations represent only one detail of a big scheme- of advancement. The other portion deals with the rehabilitation of the educational institutions of Belgium. Already one hundred million francs have been divided between the | Universities of Brussels, Ghent, Liege, and Lbuvain, the School of Mines at Mons, and the Colonial School at Antwerp. When you hav6 seen some of these battered institutions—the result of the advance of German Kultur in 1914—you [ realise how much they need resurrection.-

I asked Hoover to explain the consequences of this notable work.. His characteristic reply was: "In Belgium there existed before the war a wider gulf between classes than in almost any other European country. One result was that 37 per cent, of th« population was illiterate. The only way to bridge the gulf between classes is to, educate the children on a wholesale scale. Through this education the sharp class distinction can be obliterated. Thus the educationalfoundations, together with the subsidising of child welfare, which is also part of the programme, will in time help to recast the whole national social fabric."