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Through the Campus Gates278Relations, held at the college, June 14-20, discussed and recognized the need of machinery for world cooperation but by the very educational process of the Institute demonstrated an idea through which the world might be repaired from the inside out.The Institute did not meet to set its approval on any particular specific for solving the world's problems, or to listen to set speeches, or to debate the claims of rival plans, or to be swayed by oratory. The instinct for oratory and the spiritof debate were curiously out of tune at the Vassar Institute. How did it happen that women from most of the leading women's organizations and specialists experienced in most of the social sciences could come together and discuss the most controversial questions without controversy? The secret lay in the con-V wfscientious following of those laws of mind and spirit which we are learning how to use through the discussion method. The hypothesis of the educational process of tlie Vassar Institute was that the experience of all is necessary for the solution of problems of human relations, and that therefore an Institute which provided for free participation on the part of every member whether lay or specialist would produce a more valid result than a conference which only sought acquiescence with the ideas of certain “experts/*With participation as its method and appreciation of the contribution of each member as its spirit, the Institute journeyed forward through its meetings with a disinterestedness of purpose which made it truly a “competition in cooperation/’ There were singularly few “special pleaders” in the group, and they decreased in number as the days passed. The members were too honestly anxious to find the Christian way in a war-racked world, to stop their ears with argumentation. “Frogs” saysHeywood Broun, “are curious creatures. They argue and argue all night long and none of them hears what the others have to say.”Among the one hundred and thirty members of the Institute most of the missionary organizations, denominational and interdenominational, the League of Women Voters,the Y. W. C. A., the W. C. T. U., andvarious educational and civic agencies and institutions were represented. Participants in the Institute who did not represent organizations were usually specialists in some particular subject. These specialists contributed most helpfully of their experience in the general discussions, and on request spoke more at length on questions of fact, scientific or historical, as these questions came up in the discussion group# and forums. The feeling of the reality of questions of world relationships was intensified by the membership in the group of representatives of eleven other countries and the membership of ten colored women who are giving distinguished service to America through educational, social and religions work and through journalism.The Institute began with a forum in Rockefeller Hall when Miss Rho-da McCulloch, dean of the Institute, asked the group, “What shall we do?” It was a new experience to the members to make their own curriculum, accustomed as they wereto the regimentation of American-education. Nevertheless they did make the curriculum and in analyzing their special interests found such a remarkable similarity of fundamental interests that the program naturally evolved into a discussion of the racial, economic and political barriers to world cooperation.With what a warming surprise does the sensing of spiritual law come to us who see through a glass darkly. As the discussion unfold-wed, and the analyses of profound
Newspaper Details
Poughkeepsie Vassar Alumnae Quarterly
Poughkeepsie, New York, US
Fri, Aug 01, 1924
Page 59
Full Page
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USA 13 Oct 2022
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