FINAL ACT OF SECOND PAN AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC CONGRESS. 99 



learning, may, while they are still open to conviction, be impressed 

 with the necessity of a knowledge of international law and of inter- 

 national relations. 



The Congress regarded knowledge of international law as not merely 

 useful but as essential, and declared it to have become, by reason of the 

 democratic control everywhere existing in the western continent, a 

 patriotic duty. 



In prescribing that systematic instruction which should be offered dur- 

 ing a full academic year and that the course should include international 

 law and diplomacy, the Congress did not mean that only one year should 

 be devoted to international law and that the course should be devoted 

 only to international law, in the technical sense of the term, and to 

 diplomacy. The Congress had in mind the minimum, not the maximum, 

 of instruction, and declared its opinion that, to be effective, the course 

 of instruction should not be confined merely to the principles of inter- 

 national law in the abstract but that instruction should be given in 

 diplomacy and in the fundamental principles of foreign policy, so that 

 the student might understand the agency by which the principles of 

 international law are applied in the relations between countries and 

 the policies which nations pursue among themselves. No maximum of 

 instruction is stated, as that must necessarily depend upon the univer- 

 sities and upon the students, but it is clear from the recommendations 

 already cited, and to be referred to later, that the Congress fully appre- 

 ciated the importance of careful and thorough training in the principles 

 of international law and of an adequate understanding of the workings 

 of diplomacy, both by the public generally and especially by those 

 whose good fortune it may be to create and to guide public opinion. 



The Congress recognized the fact, familiar to all who have had to 

 do with the class room, that students like to hear those who have had 

 experience in international law discourse upon its principles and its 

 application. The professor without experience in the actual conduct 

 of affairs may be more deeply versed in what is called book learning 

 than the international lawyer or the professional diplomatist, and yet 

 the latter create an interest and an enthusiasm by virtue of their expe- 

 rience and the confidence which they create beyond the reach of the 

 academician. The Congress therefore recommended that international 

 lawyers, termed experts in international law, and that preferred diplo- 

 mats be invited from time to time to lecture upon the subject at the 

 several institutions. 



