904 



closely linked to foreign policy considerations. Constraints imposed 

 by these considerations, says Young, contitine to characterize the 

 program today. He cites: 



... a feeling that a program based upon the limited and transient interest of 

 individual scholars lacked continuity of purpose and impact; an increase in 

 cold war tensions and extension of the East-Wett conflict to the cultural and edu- 

 cational area; [the subordination of] private interests to national needs; . . . the 

 influence of the Point IV concept of '^technical aid;" and the need of justifying to a 

 reluctant Congress steadily increasing expenditures on educational exchanges.'* 



Thereafter, "the effect of all these factors was to swing the pendulum 

 over to the side of more explicit program objectives, more centralized 

 planning, and more bureaucratic control." 



ADMINISTRATIVE OBSTACLES TO FRUITFUL SCIENTIFIC EXCHANGE 



Philip H. Coombs, first Assistant wSecretary of State for Educational 

 and Cultural Affairs, appointed duruig President Kennedy's adminis- 

 tration said the 1950's, when most of these programs were initiated, 

 ". . . were a period of unplanned proliferation of international educa- 

 tional and cultural activities on all sides, and while this constituted 

 progress it also created a heritage of problems." ^* An important 

 ramification of this unplanned growth is that international education 

 activities are not governed by the Government department concerned 

 with education, but by an agency charged with designing and imple- 

 menting foreign policy." Coombs has described the cause and effect 

 of this choice: 



. . . Educational and cultural affairs had not yet come to be regarded ... as 

 having a vital bearing on our foreign relations. They were "good things to do" but 

 not in the same class as political, economic, and military affairs which dealt with 

 the "practical realities" and "serious business" of foreign policy." 



As a result, "the exchange program was an orphan in the State 

 Department." " 



Other critics of this arrangement contend that international educa- 

 tional programs are unrealisticall}^ expected to contribute to foreign 

 policy goals. For instance, Miriam Rooney, research professor of law 

 stated in 1967, after returning from a year at the University of Saigon 

 as a Fulbright professor: "We have unfortunately had to tie our 

 cultural program to military power and might, in the interest of 

 defense. This has affected unfavorably our cultural and intellectual 

 impact upon the rest of the civilized world." ^^ Another scholar reports 

 that "... cultural activities [are] regarded as nice but inconsequential, 

 from the unreasonable expectation that they are capable of solving 

 immediate political problems." This leads, he said, "either to naive 



" Ibid., pp. 122, 166. 



'< PhiliD H. Coombs. "The Past and Future in Perspective." American Assembly. Cultural Affairs and 

 Foreign Relations (Washington: Columbia Books, 1968). p. 151. 



» The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was given increased responsibility under the 

 International Education Act of 1966 to coordinate these activities and established the Institute of Inter- 

 national Studies to carry out the purposes of the Act. However, the act was never funded, constricting th e 

 Department's ability to implement it. 



'6 The Past and Future in Perspective, op. cit., p. 151. 



" Idem. 



" Statement of Miriam Rooney. In Allan A. Michie, ed.. Diversity and Interdependence through International 

 Education: A report of a symposium marking the Twentieth Anniversary of the International Educational 

 Exchange (Fulbright) Program, sponsored by the Board of Foreign Scholarships and co-sponsored by the 

 Edward W. Hazen Foundation, The Johnson Foundation and Education and World Affairs (Education 

 and World Affairs, 1967), p. 127. 



