Seeing Ourselves as we See Others

Abstract

That interest in European Study Tours is spreading rapidly in this country is well known and it is not only to the credit of the students who join but the result of the enthusiasm of those who conduct them. It is not equally well known that in the European countries there is beginning to develop a reciprocal interest in Study Tours in the United States. This can only be explained by the social and economic unrest which prevails there and the consequent demand for social change. I received an announcement about a year ago that such a tour in the United States was being planned for students—the future leaders of thought and the moulders of the minds of the next generation—by the distinguished Professor Rudinsky Yedislavovich, who fills several chairs in important fields of knowledge in the University of Cumgranosalis, the leading university of Sergaria. This little country, whose distinction is greater than its size, has in the past been predominantly agricultural in character and outlook, but was facing a serious economic crisis and was in dire need of social and other change owing to foreign competition, changing fashions in the consumption of cereals, and the growing preference for cows' milk in place of the traditional goats' milk¹, which was brought about in part by the results of scientific investigation into food values, and in part by the existence of a surplus supply of cows due to the decline of the export market. Industrially Sergaria is still on the handicraft level.