International education : a documentary history

This fifth volume of documents in the Classics in Education series is a valuable contribution to American education: first, because of the tremendous importance of the problems with which it deals; second, because of the excellent quality of the selections; and third, because it makes these important materials available in a convenient and relatively inexpensive form. The author, David Scanlon, is professor of education at Teachers College and a man who, because of his training and experience (which includes a year's work as a member of a Unesco team on a fundamental education project in Liberia and extensive travels in the undeveloped areas of the world), is eminently qualified to select and edit such a collection of documents. The book begins with a good, short survey by Professor Scanlon which provides background information for each of the five major sections which are contained in the volume. Part I is devoted to the "pioneers" of international education and includes a proposal written in the seventeenth century by John Amos Comenius to establish a "College of Light." Part II deals with the question of international organization and contains documents from the period immediately following World War I (e.g., the establishment of the International Bureau of Education at Geneva) down to the constitution of Unesco. Part III, entitled "When Peoples Meet," treats the problems of developing understanding through the exchange of persons and to some extent the problems of education in undeveloped areas. This section contains former President Truman's statement on the Point Four Program, a copy of the cultural exchange agreement signed by the United States and Russia in 1958, and an exchange of letters between Gilbert Murray and the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore. In these letters two great human beings express their hopes and fears and dramatically emphasize the need for understanding between East and West. Part IV, "Helping People Help Themselves" is devoted to the problems of fundamental education and Part V to "Communication." The last selection in the book is an excellent essay by Martin S. Dworkin on Edward Steichen's exhibition of photography 'The Family of Man."