about France, Holland, Rumania, Russia, and many other lands, but little is done to study the literature, the history, the political set-ups, the commerce, the music, and the art of countries whose roots extend as far back as

our own.

* * * The Pan American Student Forum will sponsor several activities which will present in an enjoyable manner some very valuable and basic knowledge. The students who take Spanish, United States History, and American literature are eligible for membership in this club. The Spanish unit will meet each 2 weeks on Monday (2 and 4 weeks), the history and literature unit will meet each week on Tuesdays, and the international relations group will meet on call. Student members of the Pan American Student Forum may attend any one or two of these groups each week. Class credit will be given for the educational programs held by the club; no credit for business or other meetings.

The program of the Spanish classes in cooperation with the Forum is explained in another bulletin:

The most difficult phase of our training, in Spanish, is the conversation. We all realize that we could learn to talk Spanish much quicker if we could listen to radio programs, go to theaters, converse, read signs, and do business in Spanish-24 hours in the day, if we chose. The average set-up is too artificial to stimulate the students. The student does not try very hard, in most cases, either. We have tried several things on a small scale. This quarter, the Spanish groups will use a modified workshop, called El Taller. Students will be assigned on committees of three or four each. Each committee will select a theme, such as: A grocery store-where people come to buy to sell to return unsatisfactory goods-and to gossip; a railroad station where people arrive late-buy tickets-read-meet relatives, etc.; a library; a radio station; tailor shop; etc. Each committee will be prepared each Friday to have El Taller (the workshop). They will furnish such necessary physical equipment to carry out the theme. The rest of the class will play minor roles (assigned the day before). ALL CONVERSATION IN SPANISH. The fourth hour (Spanish II) will set up the shop and the material will also be used by the Spanish I group the fifth hour.

Cooperation with the United States history and civics classes was provided through the Individual-Advancement Study plan. Each pupil was freed from class routine and was allowed to do individual research on a topic of his choosing. Many of the topics chosen were on cultural and economic cooperation with other Americas: Chile; Rio de Janeiro; Venezuela; Know Ecuador (and all of the other South American countries); Mexican Art; Latin American Music; Educational Trends in Latin America; Greater America; Conferences on Inter-American Relations; Good Neighbor Tours; Inter-American Highlights; and World Citizenship.

The Pan American Student League of New York is an official organization of the New York City Schools. A monthly page in La Prensa, a Spanish-language newspaper in New York City, has been devoted to the activities of the clubs making up the league. The coordinating council, which acts as a committee of the whole and as a clearing house, is divided into subcommittees on literature, art, music. visual aids, elementary, junior, and senior high-school programs.

The Pan American Student League has spread, and now has chapters in Florida, in Illinois, and in other States. Webster Groves (Missouri) High School has a Pan American Student League which publishes a bulletin, Panorama. Excerpts from editorials of this student paper illustrate the seriousness of pupil purpose:

I wonder if pan-Americanism is only a report on schools in Latin America, or sports in Peru, or the history of the Pan American Union? It seems to me that there is a lot more than this involved; that the type of pan-Americanism we want will not be based merely on reports gathered from a 10-year-old book; it will not come from vague talks about culture or inter-American good spirit; nor will it come from viewing excellent movies. Not that these things aren't important.

Pan-Americanism is much more than merely a league of American nations; it is more than governmental unity. It is not something which can be brought about by a decree or by presidential proclamation. Rather, it is a state of mind, a deep-seated mutual understanding between the people of North and South America. It is an appreciation of one another's common virtues and problems. Pan-Americanism is an ideal which is important in the life of every American. For we are fast realizing that if the United States or any other American nation is to survive, it must be banded together with the other American countries. True continental solidarity will always be impossible without true pan-Americanism.

In the Southwestern States in which there is a large pupil group of Mexican descent, school clubs have been formed to meet their needs and interests. Some of the administrators reported that in their schools in which there is a goodly proportion of children whose parents were born in Mexico, or Central or South America, there exists a unique laboratory for developing understanding and good will. By becoming better acquainted with these children and by working side by side with them on problems of common concern within the school community, all of the school children are being prepared for the larger cooperative undertakings of the Americas.

The program for children of Latin-American descent operated by Abraham Lincoln High School in Los Angeles stresses a 2-way relationship. Boys and girls of Latin stock are helped to develop a healthful self-esteem and to feel a racial pride in their culture; their fellow pupils are helped to appreciate the culture of the other Americas and the contributions that the countries south of us have made to our own culture. All of the pupils in this cosmopolitan group, therefore, are helped to develop a sense of tolerance and respect for cultural differences, and a sense of unity of idealism and purpose in achieving common goals, which is, after all, the essence of pan-Americanism.

Boys and girls of Latin parentage sometimes have experienced difficulties in adjustment and have found matters of deep concern in their racial and national backgrounds. The guidance program of Abraham Lincoln High School has been directed toward relieving such tensions and conflicts and toward helping these adolescents solve the

held in southern California. At the conference at Fullerton in December 1940, the topic, Adjustments to be Made by Mexican-American Youth, was discussed and discussion groups followed with the topics: Health Problems, Club Problems, High School Problems, and Hobbies. Inter-American School Correspondence.

A piece of paper, pen, and ink can easily bridge the distance between the Americas when at each end there is a boy or girl who has developed a correspondence friendship with another student of his own age * * * With emphasis upon appreciating and understanding our neighbors of this Hemisphere, there is increased interest on the part of American boys and girls in getting to know each other by the pen and paper route.2

Individual pupils, clubs, classes, and committees within classes were carrying on inter-American school correspondence, according to the reports of the administrators. Not only were the pupils in Spanish clubs and classes corresponding with youths in other American republics but pupils in home rooms, in French, English, Latin, social science, and geography courses also were doing so. In some elementary schools, writing letters to children in another country was part of the unit of work in the study of that country. One third-grade group in the United States exchanged letters with a third grade in a Canal Zone school. In one school alone 300 pupils in English and foreign language classes were reported to be corresponding with pupils in other republics. They ask about each other, about their countries, families, movies, schools, and sports. They exchange pictures and sometimes small gifts. A Peruvian girl recently has written to her friend in New Castle, Pa., asking her what she would like for a graduation gift. She wants "to share in her so very important day." A boy from Argentina wrote, "We are firm to defend, together with all the Americans, the democratic ideals."

According to the reports, pupils corresponded with relatives in the southern lands, with personal friends, and with a former teacher now teaching in South America who is arranging the contacts with the children there. Most of the contacts which administrators reported, however, were arranged through agencies which sponsor correspondence between children of different lands. Administrators referred to the Junior Red Cross Correspondence programs more frequently than to those of any other agency. Junior Red Cross correspondence groups were reported in 81 secondary and 215 elementary school systems. It was interesting to note that reference to the Junior Red Cross correspondence was made almost four times as frequently in elementary as in secondary schools by administrators in cities of smaller sizes (less than 30,000 population). Reported less frequently by administrators of the larger cities, inter-American pupil correspond

Mackintosh, Helen K. Pen and Ink Friendships for the Americas, School Life, July 1941.

ence under the direction of the Junior Red Cross appeared about equally often as a high-school and as an elementary activity.

Probably as important as the letters themselves in developing interAmerican friendship are their accompanying materials and illustrations that are bound into portfolios and exchanged. Descriptions and illustrations of school life; of distinguishing facts about their communities; phases of national life; holiday observations; sports and amusements; birds and trees; hobbies; transportation and communication; and of famous authors and artists were examples of the types of materials exchanged between children of the Americas. They served not only as a source of knowledge of another country but also as a means of developing real friendships among the children whose artistic efforts and careful research were so much appreciated.

Other agencies besides the Junior Red Cross sponsoring interAmerican correspondence referred to by administrators with much less frequency were: International Friendship League, El Eco, Peabody Foundation for International Educational Correspondence, Student Forum on International Relations, Student Letter Exchange, The Caravan, The Mail Box of The Christian Science Monitor, and The Foreign Friends' Club of the Cleveland Press. 3

Moving Pictures.

The increasing use of visual and auditory aids in education was clearly indicated in the number of times administrators referred to the use of movies, radio, records, etc., in connection with the studies of the other Americas in their schools. By means of moving pictures pupils made motor trips to Mexico and flying trips to Rio; they went through the locks of the Panama Canal; they explored archaeological treasures, witnessed the preparation of coffee, visited the Incas, and saw the homes, the schools, the arts and crafts, and the people of Latin American lands.

Two hundred fifty-four administrators indicated that moving pictures were being used in the secondary schools and 194 reported their use in the elementary-school system for the purpose of enriching the studies of other American republics. About equal proportions of the schools in cities of various population were reported to be using movies in classrooms, in assemblies, in clubs and for school entertainments. In some school systems educational films are owned and are made available throughout the year in the audio-visual aid department. Other schools rent or borrow films for use on certain occasions or for the development of specific units of work. The Pan American Union, State universities, State departments of education, State muesums. the Pan American Airways, and the Grace Line were frequently listed as the sources from which the schools obtained the films. In many

Ibid., for the addresses of those agencies as well as for description of the services they supply.