A BRANCH OF THE "LEAGUE OF YOUTH"

In suggesting what may be termed an exchange of youth between America and Europe as a means towards bringing better understanding throughout the world, Dr. Drury of St. Paul's School has reduced one stage further the idea to which Clemenceau contributed the proceeds of his American tour.

Hitherto all suggestions have been for an exchange of students of University age, to accomplish on a large scale what the Rhodes Scholarships are doing for Colonials and Americans in Oxford and what the Chapman and Fiske scholarships since the war are doing at Harvard. Dr. Drury's plan deals not with University students, but with schoolboys. He suggests the sending of a hundred American boys next September to study for a year in European schools and in return to receive five hundred European boys in American schools.

The proposal is well worth careful consideration. There will be scoffers, of course, to ask where two hundred American parents can be found with the means or inclination to let their sons spend a year alone in a European school, or whether Dr. Drury considers one American boy the equivalent of five French. But after pushing aside such objections, there remains the one serious criticism: How much can boys of the high school senior or preparatory school sixth form age benefit by a year in an institution whose traditions, institutions and in most cases whose language is foreign to them? Are they not likely to be too young to understand the ideals and aspirations of the national life about them, while just old enough to feel strange and out-of-place?

In considering the question one of Major Higginson's letters comes to mind; a letter where young Higginson, still in his town wrote to his, father from Germany to say that he thought he was not yet old enough to go to Paris. It may be said that today a European secondary school does not necessarily mean "Paris"; but on the other hand, very few American boys in their 'teens are Henry Higginsons.

The final answer to the question can only be found through experiment. Given a trial of the ten years that Dr. Drury prescribes, a great deal towards better understanding of national problem might be accomplished. Certainly the feeling towards the United States in the central European countries where the American flag meant to the children food and care during the years of the war and after, cannot help affecting state policies when these children take a hand in their governments.

But whether or not the best solution, Dr. Drury's proposal makes for propaganda, in the best sense of the word, the sense of mutual understanding. There is an ideal to be worked for, Sir James Barrie's ideal "League of Youth," and Dr. Drury's suggestion may prove to be the most practical way of finding it.