RESTLESS EDUCATION

For the second time a small group of Harvard students are travelling to Lingnan University in Canton, where they will sleep on mats, cat rice, and absorb a blended education drawn from both Oriental and Occidental sources. The picture is a pleasing one--a Westernized institution of high standing set in the heart of ancient Cantonese culture, where the exchange of knowledge is fostered and developed. The picture lacks only one element, which may easily be supplied by the University authorities. Harvard should grant full credit and recognition to the work done by students in Canton.

The march of education is a restless one, it knows no barriers of race or nationality in its swift progress. The center of gravity, political, economic, educational, is shifting westward still, contemporary sages tell us. It would be definitely valuable, then, to disprove Mr. Kipling's stern address to the white race. With such a shift comes necessary readjustment. And only by the exchange of understanding for ignorance can readjustment be facilitated.

It is in such intangible but potentially powerful ideas that the value of sending students abroad must be discovered. Here one finds intimately connected education, peace, and all the other worth-while ideals of mankind. As a stitch in the vast fabric of human events, these student ambassadors, quantitatively considered, represent little. But when many such stitches are woven together in a thread, the direction of events may be changed.