EDUCATIONAL INTERVENTION

The self-constituted committee of American publicists and educators which has devoted a year and a half to careful study of Mexican affairs has at length published a report recommending the establishment of an American college in Mexico, similar in scope and aim to Roberts College in Constantinople. It is generally agreed that the regeneration of Mexico awaits the appearance of trained and competent leaders. Such a college with a faculty of skilled and devoted American instructors and directed to the "training of future leaders in Mexico in a spirit of sacrifice and devotion to the best interests of the country" would accomplish much in helping Mexico out of her present difficulties. Educational intervention would do much more than merely help the Mexicans, it would provide a solid basis for future development by helping them to help themselves.

The plan of an American college in Mexico also has the merit of relative simplicity and moderate cost when compared to other schemes which contemplate the education of Mexican youths in this country through a system comparable to the Rhodes scholarships. This latter idea also has the defect that the Mexicans can hardly be expected to display much eagerness in sending their sons for a long sojourn in a country which they regard not only as alien, but as distinctly hostile.

Educating Mexico is an undertaking not to be entered upon lightly. The task of bringing a people from educational darkness into light is one which calls for an administrator of the utmost tact and executive ability, for unselfish devotion on the part of a large body of professors, and for considerable funds of money. It may be expected to yield large results, not only in the regeneration of Mexico, but in the promotion of more amicable relations between the two sister republics of North America. The Mexicans have neither the resources nor the equipment to educate themselves; it is a task which must fall to some outsider. What is more fitting than that it should be performed by the nation whose traditions and spirit have found such worthy expression in Barthold's famous statue of "Liberty Enlightening the World?"