THE SWITZERLAND OF AMERICA

Now that the colleges' presidential poll is ended, undergraduates inclined to politics have a chance to show their skill in treating the more awkward subject of international affairs. Amherst, Cornell, and Michigan have been selected for assemblies of student representatives, who will proceed, in the approved League of Nations manner, to discuss such matters as disarmament and the tariff.

These youthful delegates have something of an advantage over the League itself. At Genoa the babel of languages must be transferred to one tongue; at Amherst, though many representatives will be bona fide Europeans or Asiatics, no reading knowledge of foreign languages is required--provided the pleasant possibilities of education have been realized. And therein lies an analogy, or at worst a similarity. If education makes it possible for these foreign students to speak comprehensible English, it has one point in favor of its finally producing the mutual understanding among peoples, so long desired, so slow to come. Not that Mussolini's sword-shaking is a symptom of insufficient linguistic knowledge; still, be never had the opportunity afforded by model assemblies of the League of Nations. All in all, there are possibilities in this sort of meeting. There is one great defect, however; the model assemblies can offer no model Alps to amuse bored delegates.