HAIL COLUMBIA

A suggestion of widening influence accompanies the announcement from Columbia that the Casa de las Espanas, a new center of Spanish culture, has been opened. An endowment fund will be sought to enable it to carry out its twofold purpose as an agency of university education and of world cooperation.

The effort to promote interest in foreign civilizations and to foster cultural relationships between America and other nations is by no means an innovation. But as a definite movement the endeavor has recently gained considerable momentum. "Maisons", "Hauser", and "Casas" have been successfully established at Columbia, and there are those colleges that have inaugurated foreign study units by means of which students may spend the Junior year at a continental capital and receive credit for the work done abroad. These devices are but ramifications of the original plan of inviting foreign students to enroll at American universities.

The search for the educational Grail is ever-present. Prompted by foreign decision and the realization that American methods have not yet attained a satisfactory degree of perfection, educators are constantly striving to improve native processes and standards. All plans are worth the attempt, but emphasis should not be placed on those that are for the most part peripheral. To imbibe and understand foreign manners and customs a protracted residence abroad is essential, for the merely casual intercourse with the scattered cross-sections to be found in this country results in a superficial knowledge at best. However, if the fundamental elements of improved instruction and student concentration are stressed the finished product of American Institutions would be more highly developed. There would then be less need for extraneous educational embellishments.