SPAN: September 1963

able through the library. Librarian Mrs. Hazel Fobes has seen the library through its greatest period of growth.

T

HE PRESENT school structure in Chanakyapuri has been occupied for less than one year. It is a monumental improvement over its former quarters on Janpath, which were reconverted barracks dating from World War II. Old equipment and well-used furnishings have been replaced with new and modern fittings.

Long before construction of the new facility began in May, 196r, there was agreement between the school community in general and the architect, Joseph Stein, as to how the physical structure should complement and further the academic goals of the school. Basically, it was agreed that functional buildings with a high degree of

flexibility were needed. There was also an awareness that an informal, intimate and inviting atmosphere was necessary if maximum communication among pupils and staff members was to be achieved. The new school opened in January, 1963, and it stands as a tribute to the skill and foresight of the architect, the school administration and the parents who played an active part in its planning. While \ funds made available through the U.S. Government financed the bulk of the new construction, donations from parents, friends of the school and private companies were of considerable importance in making the project a success.

The complex includes buildings for the primary school, middle school and high school and an administration block. The single-storey primary school building has sliding doors along its perimeter, enabling each classroom to open onto an attractive terrace during good weather.

The middle and high school buildings are two-storey structures, located along a low, rocky ridge. Natural

"To Teach the Whole

Child"

features of the terrain have been incorporated as integral parts of the construction, as both functional and aesthetic elements. Each of the three buildings has a nine-sided shape, multiple arch roofs and a central audio-visual hall surrounded by classrooms. A massive air conditioning plant provides cool air during the hot season and heat during the brief cold season.

Good facilities are an important ingredient in the total make-up of a school, but they represent only a part of the means and are not an end in themselves. The measure of a school's effectiveness can only be determined by the manner in which a staff utilizes the tools at hand to accomplish goals that may be general in nature but are unique in application for each individual school. The American International School in New Delhi accepts the basic American view that academic instruction must be accompanied by an effort to develop in each child an awareness of the opportunities for individual development and expression in a free society. Along with thousands of other American schools it strives to equip each boy and girl with knowledge and skill in the pursuit of knowledge. It attempts to apply the tenets of the democratic way of life in the school community and to instil a sense of honour and right conduct.

It strives to lead each student to the realization that he or she must participate effectively in society, if responsible self-government is to be perpetuated.

While these goals are shared in numerous places, the manner in which they are approached and realized varies considerably from school to school. In the case of the American International School the curriculum parallels that of many U.S. public schools, but it makes available additional materials pertaining to Indian and Asian history, literature, arts and languages. A conversational Hindi class is attended daily by all students in the first six grades.

In this way a student is able to gain a wider knowledge and understanding of the area in which he is a temporary resident, and he obtains an international perspective of the world. In the words of Willard ]. Henken, the school's superintendent, "Each school should reflect the needs of its community. We should learn from others and be adaptable, but even though there are many common problems one school cannot pattern itself after another. In this sense, our school should be, and is, unique."

Managemen t of the school is in the hands of an elected Board of Governors. While most of the operating income is obtained from tuition payments, supplementary funds come from many sources. A grant from the U.S. Government assists in the payment of teachers' salaries and makes possible a limited scholarship programme. Gifts from the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations equipped the science and audio-visual laboratories and improved the library.

Donations from friends of the school and a special fundraising drive by the parents have been instrumental in allowing plans for expansion to move forward.

Administration of the educational programme is the responsibility of Superintendent Henken. Young and dynamic, he came to India in 1962, after having served as a high school principal in the State of, Wisconsin for

INDOORS AND outdoors are one at American International School, top photo. Young pupils admire an exhibition of their own works, centre. A perspective of the school's entrance, bottom photo.

six years. "Our first job is to educate," he says, "but since we are an example in Asia of American education in action, we aim to make it the best example possible." He is a believer in the "firm but fair" doctrine of discipline and encourages close teacher-student relationships. "Our classes are small, averaging less than twenty students. Because of this we are able to give a great deal of individual attention to the needs of each child. This is the key in our effort to develop the entire personality of a youngster, to teach the 'whole child.' "

T

HE TEACHING staff, as well as the students, bring a variety of backgrounds to the school. Some of the American instructors are long-time residents of India, others are dependants of men who are posted in Delhi with either U.S. Government or private organizations, and still others have paid their own way to India for the express purpose of teaching in this school. A continuing problem is that of maintaining staff continuity in the face of conditions that require many of the Americans to leave India when their husbands' tour of duty is completed. It is not a problem that can be solved quickly, but until a more permanent faculty is assembled it will remain for the Indian teachers to provide vital links from year to year. Some of the school's Indian teachers have received training in the U.S., all have Masters' Degrees and all have taught in other schools where English is the medium of instruction. In an international school there can be no "outsider." Experience has proven that Indian teachers function as vital "members of the family," and are accepted as such.

One great advantage of close contact between persons of many nations is that many misconceptions are dispelled.

At the completion of her first year at the American School, one Indian teacher mentioned that she had heard so many horrifying stories about the conduct of American teen-agers that she applied for a job in the primary school only. "I found," she said, "that these students are no different than those I had been teaching for the past seventeen years.

If the teacher commands respect and the children know what is expected of them, there is no major discipline problem. Now that I have been here for several months I would welcome the chance to teach in the high school."

Putting the theory of catering to the needs of a given community into practice, the high school has been geared to prepare its students for college. Among the pupils there is a strong motivation to enter institutions of higher learning in America. During the past two years twenty-four students have graduated from the American International School.

Of these, twenty-two are in college and one is planning to enter. The college-oriented curriculum varies, depending on the major interests of the students, but a typical tenth grade student will take courses in French, English, biology, history, physical education and geometry. Special courses to accelerate the progress of superior students and assist the slow learner are being initiated.

CHUKIE SHAKEPBA of Tibet concentrates on a typing exercise, a useful skill taught as part of the regular curriculum.

The distinctive character of progressive education is that the subject matter is considered to be the total world in which the child exists, and the effort of the teacher is to find ways in which the child can learn for himself the things he needs to know. The school is a living example of this ideal. A survey of some daily activities of children in the first six grades reveals how the system operates in practice.

First grade children planted wheat and beans near their window so that nature could work its wonders before their eyes.

In the second grade, Rumiko Shibayama taught her classmates the art of origami, Japanese paper-folding.

Using their new-found skill the class made birds, flowers and balls and hung them on a specially painted, white tree-branch to decorate their classroom.

The third grade students painted pictures of Pueblo Indian life, depicting cooking, pottery-making and weaving.

They also prepared a handsome bulletin board to illustrate the religions of India.

Fourth graders participated in a scientific experiment to show the effects of light on plant growth. They placed plants, in 'various positions, near a window to observe how they grew towards the source of light. Also, a poster filled with pictures was used to assist their study of Indian leaders of yesterday and today.

In the fifth grade a long time-line was made and hung on the wall to illustrate at a glance how historic dates of Indian and Occidental civilizations coincide.

To supplement their study of aircraft, the sixth grade set up experiments that illustrate jet action. For French they constructed a model of French shops, with signs in the language, and created paintings in the impressionist style.

Upon entering the primary school building, one encounters learning in a different form. Prominently displayed in the audio-visual hall is a huge poster that reads, "This is Our Good Manners Keyboard." In the centre are multi-coloured keys, each having a label, such as: Please, Pardon Me, May I, You're Welcome and Thank You. At the bottom is painted, "In Our School We Use These Keys Every Day."

F

aLLOWING THE tradition of schools around the world, the American International School encourages a variety of extra-curricular activities. To foster the spirit of democracy and enable each student to participate actively in his school government, a Student Council Association was founded in 1961. The purposes of the Association, as stated in its constitution, are to (a) give the student body voice and experience in participating in the management of the school programme, (b) co-ordinate various school activities by organizing the student body, (c) promote better relationships by acting as a communicating agent between the students and the administration, faculty, Parent-Teachers Association and general community, and

ADVICE FROM the teacher for Rumiko Shibayama of Japan on the essay she has written.

(d) promote the general welfare of the student body by providing a forum for the exchange of ideas, by sponsoring co-operative activities and by encouraging high standards of safety, discipline, scholarship and citizenship. The Association is divided into a Senior, Junior and Elementary Council, each having officers, class representatives and a faculty adviser. The Councils have published a Student Handbook, sponsored refreshment sales, dances and assemblies, established social, monitorial and clean-up committees, initiated a safety patrol and set up specific rules of behaviour.

Those students with a talent for writing can compete in periodic essay contests; those who enjoy singing can join the Glee Club. Junior and Senior Youth Fellowships have taken trips to Sat Tal in the mountains and to Jaipur.

Younger girls are invited to join an active Junior Girl Scout Brownie Troop. Sports such as volleyball, basketball, softball, golf and ping pong are popular attractions for both boys and girls. Early in 1963 the students sponsored a "Bake-Sale" to collect money for the planting of trees around the new school.

AIS students publish a handsome yearbook, called Flashback, which' is a treasured souvenir of alumni. The journalism class sponsors short story contests and produces a fortnightly newspaper, the Taj Times. The paper contains not only news of school happenings and social items, but articles of substance and thoughtful editorials as well.

Shortly after bus transportation was made available, an editorial in the Taj Times said: "After so many years of wishing for buses, and after the hard work of our HomeSchool Auxiliary to make the project effective, we must not lose them through bad conduct. Orange peels thrown from bus windows will not make a very good impression on a car following. Of course, good manners must be shown by everyone, from the smallest' to¡ the seniors . . . . Each year the school becomes more praiseworthy, and more like home. Let's hope we will let others know what we think of our school by our actions."

What is in the future for the American International School? Limited boarding facilities for students who reside outside of Delhi were made available this year, but plans call for completion of fullscale, modern hostels within two years. Present enrolment stands at approximately 400 students. There is room to expand the pupil population to 550 without impairing the advantage of small classes and close student-teacher relationships. The second phase of the building programme will add a kindergarten, auditorium, gymnasium, kitchen and an expansion of the present library facility. Finally, the never-ending task of strengthening the curriculum, providing improved equipment and furnishing skilled, meaningful guidance to every student will go forward.

Through the years the American International School has broadened its scope and its perspective, but it has not deviated from its basic goal, from the purpose of American education: to provide an opportunity for the individual to develop fully his potentialities, physical, mental and spiritual, so that he may enrich his own life, the life of his community and the life of his nation .•

VIJAY KAPUR demonstrates for Mrs. Liming's science class battery-operated motor he made.

new ideas splatter

drance. Some educators, taking the principle too literally, have allowed the pace of teaching to be set by the slower learners, thereby holding back those who are quick to understand new ideas.

The new education takes a different approach: the student's learning pace is not set by some external standard, but rather by his own ability to assimilate knowledge.

The fast learner sets one pace and the slow learner another.

Even more important, the material to be learned is now taught in a different way: where the emphasis was once placed on the learning of rote facts and dates, it is now focused on the fundamental intellectual structure of the subject. Not only has this new approach to teaching brought a deeper understanding to the young student~a deeper insight into the meaning of modern physics, for example~it has also brought a gust of fresh, clean air into the classroom. The tedium of memorizing clusters of meaningless information~much of it out-of-date anyway -is gone. And with it goes boredom. The new education is trying to present the worlds of science and mathematics as they appear to the scientist and the mathematician: as exciting adventures.

It all began about six years ago, when several prominent American scientists and educators at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology decided that something should be done about the way their specialty~physics~ was being taught in the schools. All remembered their own school days. Some saw their own children yawning through the same dull labyrinth of school science.

To these men, physics was an adventure just as exciting as the fictional adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

But there was none of this excitement in the way the schools were teaching it. What was wrong? Most of all, pre-college physics had little relationship to the real world of modern science. It was often outdated and dull.

I talked about this with a young physicist who has been involved with the new methods of physics teaching developed by the men at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.LT.). He had gone to public schools in New York City. By almost any standard, his had been good schools which had prepared him adequately for college.

"But I hated physics in those days," he said, "even though I had known from the time I was twelve years old that I wanted more than anything else to become a physicist.

I hated it because it was the biggest bore in the curriculum."

The men at M.LT. soon found that this attitude prevailed widely. They found also that few teachers of high school physics had been adequately trained in their field or had had opportunity and means to keep their knowledge up to date. Clearly, these conditions had to change. So the M.LT. men decided on a most ambitious objective: to produce at least one million truly welltaught students in physics.

They decided at the start to try to do at least three things: I. To present physics as an exciting intellectual adventure, not merely the learning of a body of dry rules.

2. To put the student in the place and world of the professional physicist, allowing him to experience the thrills

UNIVERSiTY OF ~HlCA(;O students, left, innate balloons for launching cosmic ray research equipment.

with

the speed of light

of discovery and the disappointments of failure.

3. To have the young student emerge from the physics course not only knowing facts relating to the world about him, but also endowed with a sense of the beauty and the grandeur of the physical order of the universe and of the intellectual structure called physics.

A STUDENT

microscopic

records photographically her observations of a study project.

To accomplish these goals, it was necessary to create a whole new course in physics, one which would be made up of a broad but closely integrated set of materials: a new textbook had to be written; a set of films had to be made, films which would harmonize with the textbook and thus make it more meaningful to the student; a new laboratory manual had to be written, one which would present unsolved experiments and which would show the student how to build his own accurate scientific instruments at little cost; a teacher's manual had to be written, to suggest the best methods of teaching the new course.

But even this was not enough: when the new course was ready for use, teachers who wanted to follow it were invited to attend special training courses during their summer vacations.

For about a year, the group at M.LT. worked at preparing the new course. By 1957, they were ready to give instructions on how it should be taught. Eight teachers came to M.LT. in that summer of 1957 to prepare themselves for the new school year in eptember.

laws of motion, which he had formulated, to the law of gravitational attraction.

Thus, the new course is a tightly-woven fabric of text, experimentation, and film-plus a set of supplementary inexpensive paperback books (currently some IOO in number) which the student uses for still further information -and plus, above all, a teacher who has been given special training in the course of study. Each of these elements has been carefully formed to supplement the others, presenting physics as a cultural and intellectual pursuit, indeed, as an integral part of daily life.

But how do students fare under this more interesting, though more rigorous programme? Teachers say the normally poorer students have a better grasp of the subject than they would have had in a conventional programme; but the real gain shows most prominently with the better students, who do remarkably well. Perhaps the new programme's most important contribution, however, is the opportunity it offers the student to think critically and creatively. As one teacher has said, "Most of my students admitted that the course helped them to 'think more.' I noticed toward the end of the year that they actually stopped to think before answering questions. And I believe there is a carry-over of this acquired skill in their other studies."

Such comments are gratifying to Professor Jerrold Zacharias, the man in the physics department at M.LT. who got the revolution under way. "The object of our effort," he says, "is not just to provide more physicists or more students or more technologists or more professional scholars; it is to be part of a greater effort to make science a part of our culture, and to make learning part of everyone's life."

The real significance of this new approach to teaching is that it goes far beyond the field of physics. The philosophy of men like Professor Zacharias now permeates the approach to teaching such subjects as mathematics, chemistry, and biology.

No branch of learning has been busier revising its approach to teaching than the field of mathematics. And no branch has more important work to do: if science is the new frontier of knowledge, then mathematics is the language of that frontier. And the pioneers in all fields of science and engineering must be proficient in this language.

Universities are being called on to fill a seeminglyendless need for mathematicians and mathematicallytrained scientists. Medical research may soon require mathematical training comparable to that of the nuclear physicist. Automation-the word symbolizing the new industrial revolution-is demanding thousands of mathematically-trained men and women to command the giant computers-the "brains" of automation's new technology.

Yet none of these future mathematicians can be rigidly trained for assaults on specific problems, for the problems they will one day solve do not exist now, while they attend school. Such problems will require the ability to "think mathematically"-and this kind of training requires an educational system which teaches fundamental mathematical techniques, then goes even deeper, to develop understanding and originality of thought.

Many programmes are under way in the field of mathematics, including some which are quite radical.

For example, many educators now introduce algebra and geometry to children in their sixth school year-children aged ten or eleven. Experimental psychologists at one university are probing into the basic questions of mathematics learning itself: in this instance, how children learn algebra. In all, there are some dozen programmes under development, each aimed at strengthening the child's grasp of both the fundamental concepts of mathematics and its inherent fascination. For educators feel that the child who can be shown the fascination of mathematics

THE LASER T HE BEWILDERING pace of technological development is continually changing science fiction into science fact. This was never more effectively demonstrated than by the laser, an invention which may well turn out to be one of the greatest accomplishments of science during this century.

Laser-"Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation" -is a new kind of electric torch which has already performed astounding feats. Its tremendously powerful, concentrated, pencil-like beam of light-millions of times brighter than the sun-has journeyed through space to the moon and back within two-and-a-half seconds, lighting up a spot on the moon no more than two miles wide. In a fraction of a second it has burned holes in thick steel girders as well as through diamonds. It has transmitted telephone conversations and television programmes. Used in a surgical experiment, it has instantly and painlessly destroyed cells in an eye tumour when flashed through the patient's eye for a millionth of a second.

Discovered after years of intensive research in the United States and still in an early stage of development, the secret of the laser lies in its use of coherent light. In the case of common--or incoherent-light, the light waves are of many different lengths and frequencies and spread out in many directions. This results in loss of intensity and the light getting steadily more diffuse and eventually disappearing. The function of the laser is to transform ordinary light by forcing its atoms to produce waves which are identical and parallel and emerge as a narrow, extremely intense and powerful beam of light which can travel great distances.

A number of substances such as synthetic rubies, crystal glass and gases are being tried out in lasers and are currently under study. The most common type of laser in use at present has a single crystal ruby rod, with ends made precision flat, parallel and silvered. It is encased in a tube surrounded by a coolant and a cork-screw-shaped flash lamp. When light from the flash lamp comes into contact with the rod, it excites the chromium atoms in the ruby. The atoms give off photons, or particles of light, which strike other atoms and produce many more photons in a continuous chain reaction. Reflected by the silvered ends of the rod, millions of photons are thus released and bounce back and forth between the two ends. They make up the beam of coherent light which is then shot from the laser and may be focused by a lens into a thin, concentrated ray of great intensity.

The names of two scientists, Dr. Charles Townes and Dr. Theodore Maiman, head the list of researchers who, basing their experiments on Einstein's theories, first put the laser principle to practical use. In 195I Dr. Townes, then a member of the Columbia University faculty, devised the "maser," a device with a core of synthetic ruby for amplification of microwaves. Following up his suggestion that a ,similar device could amplify light, Dr. Maiman of Hughes Aircraft Company carried out further experiments and produced the first laser in 1960.

IN MAY 1962 a laser beam from lighted area at lower right was flashed into space for first time in history, lighted small spot on moon, was reflected back to earth. Beam's round-trip took two and a half seconds. During three successive nights U.S. scientists shot eighty-three thin light beams at moon, each time successfully lighting its surface.

light

NURSE PREPARES patient for firstknown laser surgery. performed at Presbyterian Hospital. New York City. Beam from laser in foreground. flashed for a millionth of a second through patient's eye. destroyed tumour behind eye in. stantly, painlessly.

optical tubes have been successfully developed on an experimental basis. Having regard to the volume of traffic such a system of light pipes could carry, it would be no more expensive-and might even prove more economical -than the underground communications cables used at present.

Another potential use of the laser which could prove to be of great value is its application to aerial and space navigation. A new type of gyroscope, incredibly accurate, is expected to provide simpler and much more efficient automatic guidance for aeroplanes, spacecraft and rockets.

The device consists of four fluorescent tubes arranged in a square on a flat surface. Through these tubes two laser light beams travel in opposite directions, reflected around corners by four mirrors to form a closed circuit. The beams

travel into a light-sensing device called a photo-detector.

The slightest rotation of the flat surface causes one light beam to travel a little farther around the square than the •other, and this minute change is recorded by the photodetector. Using the constant speed of light-I 86,000 miles per second-as a control, deviations in a speeding vehicle's movement can thus be detected with an accuracy which equals one fifteen-thousandth of a degree on a compass, and it can be immediately redirected on its course.

Industrial applications of the laser are expected to be equally spectacular. Its ability to burn holes instantaneously in hard substances may revolutionize metal-working processes such as..machining, drilling, grinding and welding.

While no one carr yet assess the laser's full potential power, experiments already carried out have shown that it can

The Duke, second from left, conducted the Eureka Bross Band of New Orleans on the sidewalk in front of the White House during a jazz festival held in Washington, D.C. Ellington, a native of Washington, holds a gift key to the city.

The Aristocrat of Swi ng

by Lokenath

Kennedy Ellington, he spent his childhood listening to the captivating rhythms of ragtime pianists who had at that time recently invaded the capital. "Man, those were twofisted piano players," he would recall later. "With their left hand, they'd play big chords for the bass note, and just as big ones for the off-beat, and they really swango The right hand played real pretty. They did things technically you wouldn't believe."

EVEN AS a small boy, he used to dress so well and showed such fastidious concern with personal appearance that his schoolmates nicknamed him "Duke." His professional debut was as a relief pianist in a Washington, D.C. theatre, when he was fifteen. In the days of silent movies, pianists provided a musical accompaniment for the film.

Even at that age Duke was trying to do things "differently" -"I saw a riff and a chance to do something different so I took off"-which was not liked by the theatre's manager.

He was promptly fired. Prior to this event, a part-time job as "soda jerker" in a Washington ice cream parlour had already inspired him to start his first memorable composition, Soda Fountain Rag.

Bhattacharya

Duke's fabulous career really began in 1927, when he got a job with a Harlem cabaret in New York City, known as the "Cotton Club." The patrons found his music so refreshingly different from all that they had heard before that the Club soon became one of the city's most frequented show spots. In spite of this success, Duke somehow managed to be always short of money and, after experiencing "some mighty hot nights and a few hungry dawns," assembled a five-piece band which was soon hired by New York City's Kentucky Club. That five-piece band was an immediate sensation, which launched him into a new life with music publishers, song pluggers, newspapermen, band leaders and celebrities. Since then Duke's fame has never ceased to grow.

A master of swing, who prefers to call his own works "Negro music" rather than "jazz" or "swing," he planned an opera depicting the history of the Negro in five episodes.

About his people and music he has this to say: "My men and my race are the inspiration of my work. The music of my race is something more than the American idiom.

It is the result of our transplantation to American soil and was our reaction, in plantation days, to the life we lived.

The characteristic, melancholic music of my race has been forged from the very white heat of our sorrows and from our gropings. I think the music of my race is something which posterity will honor in a higher sense than merely tha t of the music of the ballroom.".

AT ONE OFSERIESofmeetings on civil rights held at the White House, U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy talks with Negro leaders. Left to right are: Kennedy; the Reverend Martin Luther King, Chairman of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference; Roy Wilkins, Executive Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People; and A. Phillip Randolph, President of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.

The President himself had joint meetings with both white and Negro leaders from the fields of business, law, labour, religion and education.

FROST-COATED MODULE in man's hand is entire cooling unit for the thermonuclear refrigerator in front of young woman. Module is made of copper strapping separated by a "semiconductor."

It was discovered a century ago that when two different ele'ctrically conductive materials are joined and electric currents passed through them, one junction absorbs heat while one rejects it. But good conductors of electricity have also been good conductors of heat. Research with new materials has now produced good conductors of current which are good insulators of heat. Small refrigeration units using module, which plug into wall outlets, areal,r.eady in the U.S. market. Portable units utilizing batteries are designed for long field trips.

PHOTO NEWS

51X M EMBERS of the Indian Parliament visiting Washington were honoured at a luncheon given by the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the U.S. Capitol. Talking with Senator Quentin N. Burdick of North Dakota at right, are, left to right: R. K. Khadilkar, G. S. Pathak (pa~tially hidden), Diwan Chand Sharma, Surendra Nath DWlvedy and M. N. Kaul.

ECHO TWO, a larger version of the Echo communications relay satellite, undergoes pre-launch visual examination by a technician riding a smaller balloon. The aluminium coated mylar sphere is 135 feet in diameter.

The 100¡foot Echo I was launched in August 1960 and provided good signal reflectivity until its surface became too badly battered by meteorites.

FACED WITH an immediate need for dust-free area in which to assemble air-navigation systems, a United States manufacturer utilized this plastic swimming-pool cover. A small pump provided sufficient filtered air to keep the ~over inflated and no supplemental room lighting was requIred.

AMONG SEVENTY·NINE officers of other nations who graduated with 670 U.S. officers from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College was Lt. Col. Niranjan Singh of India. General Alfred M. Gruenther, U.S. Army, retired, presents Colonel Singh his diploma. Graduation exercises brought to a close the ten-month course held at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

o YOUNG INDIAN scientists and engineers, students in the International Institute of Nuclear Science and Engi. neering at the U.S. Government's Argonne National Laboratory, operate "slave manipulators" during a visit to atomic laboratories of General Dynamics Corpora. tion. At General Dynamics the students inspected engineering and test facilities for the High Temperature Gascooled Reactor nuclear power system. Left to right are: Doddaballpur V. Gopinath, Mallasamudram S. Rama· kumar, Nair Ravindran, Howard Shoemaker of General Dynamics, and Jakkaraju Balachandra. A group of twenty students of the Institute, representing seven countries, made a two-week inspection tour of nuclear installations in the United States.

•

STRIKING PHOTO of South Vietnamese paratroopers jumping from U.S. Air Force C-123 transports in an airground envelopment operation against the Communist Viet Cong some fifty miles from Saigon. Sixteen C-123's dropped more than 840 paratroopers in two minutes in the strike pictured here.

Mohawk Indian on High Steel

WITH ANOTHER worker Leon Rice inspects roll of steel wire used in spinning bridge cables.

MOHAWK INDIANS are the heroes of the high-steel construction industry in New York and many other American cities. Because of their skill, courage and agility, they are regarded the best structural steel workers in America.

Typical of the Mohawk high-steel workers is forty-year-old Leon Rice, a foreman on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge, now under construction in New York's harbour. Like his father, Mr. Rice became a steel worker soon after he finished high school. For twenty years he has helped to construct many of New York's tallest structures.

As a youngster he lived on a Red Indian reservation in northern New York State. Mr. Rice says, "There never was a tree I couldn't climb, no matter how high. I guess I inherited a feeling for height; it's in my blood."

As a high-steel worker, Leon Rice is making the most of his natural abilities. He works from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., five days a week, weather permitting. His annual income is nearly twice that of the average American family. But most important, he is doing the work he likes, "that's what counts," he says.

STEEL WORKER RICE fastens an uncompleted cable to a girder. Finished cables will support double-decked, twelve-lane suspension bridge nearly three miles long, spanning New York's harbour.

SIX HUNDRED and ninety (eet above the harbour Rice supervises spinning o( ane o( (our main cables from which bridge will be suspended. When completed each cable will be bundle o( wires a yard in diameter.

Mohawk

Indian on High Steel

SINCE HE rarely works more thon (orty hours a week, Mr. Rice has leisure time to spend with his family. He and his sons-Peter.

16. Roddy, 6, and Bryan. 4-at for le(t, work on their motorboat which they use for ftshing and water skiing in nearby Oyster Bay. Young Bryan, at near left, comes in from play to share with his mother one o( spring's ftrst flowers.

IN

THE early 1920'S a teen-aged American factory apprentice lost his first job because he did not relish the idea of working on Sundays and tried to organize a protest against the practice. The restless apprentice was Walter Reuther, now internationally famous as President of the United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, Vice-President of the American Federation of Labour and Congress of Industrial Organizations, and one of free labour's top world leaders.

This early action of Reuther's was indicative of the role he was to play so zealously in the coming years as an effective spokesman of labour and doughty champion of its rights. It was also symbolic of the new labour philosophy which has developed in recent years and is a significant break from older concepts. Demands for wage increases are not the sole preoccupation oflabour union leadership today. It is concerned with the whole spectrum of the worker's interests and welfare needs, not the least important of which is the opportunity for leisure.

It also holds that the worker's welfare is bound up with the economic progress of the community as a whole and no single group in the community can eventually prosper at the expense of another.

Walter Reuther's long association with the automobile industry began in 1926. Then eighteen and having already had his first "labour relations" experience as an apprentice tool and die-maker in his home town of Wheeling, West Virginia, he decided to move to Detroit, America's automobile manufacturing centre. He served in several plants including the Ford Motor Company, where he worked for six years, at the same time continuing his education by attending night classes at Wayne University. At the university his interest in labour welfare led to the formation of the Social Problems Club, which supplemented its academic studies by visits to picket lines when strikes were in progress.

Reuther's earlier experience was repeated in 1933, when he was dis-

The Equity

of

the Worker thirty years

charged from Ford for union activity.

Trade depression was then at its peak in the United States and there was little hope of his getting another job immediately. The dismissal seems, however, to have acted in his case as an incentive to foreign travel and more extensive study of labour problems. Accompanied by his younger brother, Victor, he embarked on a world tour which lasted about two years and took the venturesome pair to eleven countries in Europe and Asia.

This was no luxury tour but a bold, imaginative enterprise which the two young men, still in their early twenties and inspired by radical ideas, undertook in quest of knowledge and experience. They had only a few hundred dollars between them and they travelled economically, making bicycle tours of the Continent and often spending nights in farmhouses or cheap hotels.

They usually earned their living as they travelled. In the course of their tour they saw the automobile plants, textile mills and coal-pits of England, lived with anti-Nazi students in Germany, some of whom they helped smuggle into Switzerland, and worked for about sixteen months in a Russian automobile plant near Gorki. At the latter plant, Walter Reuther became the leader of it group of workers and was awarded bonuses for his production ideas. Before returning to the United States, they visited India, then in the throes of its struggle for national independence, and also spent two months in Japan.

Doubtless this extended tour and the unique opportunities it afforded him of studying labour movements abroad and coming into contact with workers of many nationalities, better equipped Walter Reuther for the task of organizing workers in the American automobile industry. It also gave his philosophy of economic and political forces a world dimension. On his return to the United States in 1935, he got a job in a Detroit auto plant and dedicated himself the task of effective union organization.

Although AFL (American Federation of Labour ) had been formed many years earlier, its half-hearted attempts

to organize auto workers were not successful. After some unfortunate experiences in the handling of strikes

by AFL leaders, the auto men decided to form an independent, consolidated union. This union, known as the United Automobile Workers, was established in 1935. It was followed two years later by the creation of the Committee of Industrial Organizations, which included workers from other mass production industries such as the clothing and garment industries. Walter Reuther, representing Detroit's West Side Local branch of the auto union, was elected a member ofUAW's international executive board. (He has been re-elected to the board every year since, becoming vice-president in 1942 and president in 1946. In 1952 he was elected president of the CIO, and when the AFL-CIO merger was effected in 1955, he displayed rare highmindedness by stepping aside, in the interests of labour solidarity, in favour of George Meany, president of AFL, and accepting a vice-presidency in the new organization.)

So energetically did Reuther carry out his duties as a union organizer that within one year-by 1936-the membership of the West Side Local rose from seventy-eight workers to thirty thousand. He played the leading role not only in promoting unity and solidarity in UA W but also-and this was perhaps more important at the time-in devising and carrying through to success the strategy of sitdown and walkout strikes at various automobile plants.

The toughest resistance the UA W and Reuther met was from the management of Ford plants. Henry Ford steadfastly refused to recognize the union and when the UA W announced in May 1937 that it would distribute leaflets at his Rouge plant, he had his countermeasures ready.

The sixty union distributors were set upon and severely beaten by Ford "Servicemen"-a private army and espionage organization containing thugs, many professional boxers, gangsters and ex-prisoners, which had been built up over the years and contained at one time as many as 3,000

of

progress

men. Among those who were singled out for attack were Walter Reuther and Richard Frankensteen, a coworker. One union member had his skull fractured and another had to be hospitalized for two weeks. This incident came to be known as "the battle of the overpass."

But this temporary reverse did not deflect the UA W from its path and merely strengthened its resolve to carryon the struggle. The next three or four years witnessed further incidents, often involving violence and arrest of workers. In 1940, however, the National Labour Relations Board ruled that the Ford management was guilty of unfair labour practices, and this decision was upheld by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Although Ford continued to fight organization of its workers, the union inevitably made headway and after a final trial of strength and a ten-day, widespread strike in April 1941, the Ford Company capitulated and came to terms with the UAW, according it recognition and accepting many of its demands. The wage agreements which the UAW subsequently negotiated, through Walter Reuther and other leaders, gave Ford employees an extra fifty-two million dollars in wages within a year.

During the Second World War the UAW pledged full support to the war effort and voluntarily imposed upon itself a ban on strikes and suspension of premium pay for overtime. Reuther was anxious that labour should play a meaningful role in the nation's defence without sacrificing its vital interests. He also thought that the nation's war economy could provide labour with the opportunity to participate in economic planning and thus strengthen its bargaining potential.

He accordingly produced a plan to utilize idle capacity in the automobile plants for production of aircraft, and claimed that the surplus capacity was adequate to produce 500 planes a day. The plan envisaged the pooling of equipment and manpower and labour's participation, jointly with management and government, in the administration of the proposed set-

up. The figure of 500 planes a day may have been a little unrealistic but Reuther's plan was basically sound and a modified version of it was eventually adopted. Reuther himself served as labour representative with the Office of Production Management and the War Manpower Commission in Washington. His role was mainly advisory, however, as the industry leaders successfully resisted labour's attempt to win a decisive voice in deciding the nature and conditions of war production.

When the war ended and the American automobile industry started reconverting to civilian producfion, labour was faced with fresh problems.

While the cost ofliving continued to be high and was variously estimated as thirty to forty-five per cent higher than at the beginning of 1941, workers' wages were adversely affected by lowering of wage scales in some cases, downgrading of jobs in others and reduction of overtime work and bonuses.

At the same time, it was obvious that a rise in wages which was cancelled out by simultaneous price increases in an inflationary economy, brought no relief to the worker. Reuther was alive to the need for some imaginative action to tackle this problem effectively and to reorientate union policy which had hitherto been based on the rather narrow concepts of "give-and-take" bargaining. He came forward with the bold suggestion that industry could pay higher wages out of the high profits it was making, without any increase in prices.

When President Truman announced, in August 1945, that the U.S. Governmen t would relax wartime controls to permit wage increases, provided they did not result in price increases, Reuther saw his opportunity. He immediately wrote to General Motors asking for a thirty per cent wage increase for workers without any increase in the price of cars. This was followed by similar demands on Ford and Chrysler but the UAW decided to concentrate its energies on General Motors. Lengthy negotiations ensued and broke down when the corporation refused to submit the dispute to arbitration. Nor was General Motors prepared to concede that the union had any right to examine the corporation's books to support its contention that wages could be raised without increasing prices. Some 200,000 workers in General Motors' plants then laid down their tools to begin their historic II 3-day strike, the first major post-war strike in America. Forced to take action, the Federal Government appointed a fact-finding board and President Truman ruled that "ability to pay" was a legitimate matter for the board's investigation. This support for its point of view from the highest official quarter was naturally gratifying to the union, and when the board's finding was announced, it represented a clear victory for the workers. The board stated that General Motors could pay a 19t-cent hourly wage increase without raising the price of its cars.

The negotiations between General

Motors and the UA W involved issues which were hotly debated and which had a social and economic significance much greater than the immediate question of wage increases in a particular industry. By relating wages to profits and the ability to pay, Reuther was laying down a principle which may have been unpalatable to industrial managements at the time but which has gained increasing acceptance in recent years.

Reuther's staunch and consistent advocacy of this principle was rewarded more recently-and more conspicuously-when at the end of 1961 he persuaded American Motors Corporation to share its profits with workers.

Under this agreement, described by Reuther as "the most significant and historic collective bargaining agreement ever signed in the United States," the corporation sets aside an agreed percentage of its earnings every year to liberalize pensions and give full medical insurance and other benefits to workers. A part of the shared profits is also used to buy company stock for employees. Referring to the agreement in a recent address he delivered before the Economic Club of Detroit, Reuther remarked: "The American Motors profit-sharing concept has added a new dimension to the equity of workers at the bargaining table."

In the same address Reuther commented that collective bargaining today was not as simple as it was in 1936 when labour and management in the United States first faced each

other at the bargaining table. It had taken on new dimensions and new responsibilities and he believed that it would meet those new responsibilities only if all concerned worked together to raise collective bargaining above the level of a struggle between competing economic pressure groups.

REUTHER TOOK an active part in the founding of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.

As one of American labour's foremost representatives, he has continuously taken an earnest interest in labour problems and trends in other countries. At the end of 1962 he visited Japan at the invitation of four major Japanese labour federations. He also made a ten-day tour of India in April 1956in response to the invitation of the Indian National Trade Union Congress. Besides attending a mass rally of workers at J amshedpur and seeing some development projects, he met Prime Minister Nehru and several other Indian leaders and addressed the Indian Council of World Affairs. In that address he made a powerful plea for freedom and social and economic justice everywhere in the world and referred to India's democratic and moral traditions. He said: "In the great task of mobilizing the spiritual resources of the world for peace, India has made and can continue to make an important contribution and provide

a powerful inspiration because of the great tradition of Gandhi and the consuming passion and determination of the Indian people for freedom and independence."

When Chairman Khrushchev visited the United States in 1959, Reuther and other American labour leaders had a lengthy, candid discussion with him about international problems including those of labour. Referring to the Communist charge of exploitation of the working class in so-called capitalist countries, Reuther passed across the table to Chairman Khrushchev a list of U.S. wage rates and said: "How can we say these people are wage slaves exploited by capitalism, making these kinds of wages in America?

How can he (Mr. Khrushchev) say that they have nothing to lose but their chains!"

Now fifty-six, Walter Reuther continues to be extraordinarily active, dynamic and genuinely ascetic. He does not drink alcoholic beverages or smoke, and often a sandwich and a glass of milk suffice for his lunch.

In April 1948, shortly after he returned from a union meeting, he was shot at through a window of his Detroit home by an unknown assailant, and was badly wounded in his right arm and chest.

A voracious reader of books on economics, Reuther is well informed on most subjects and can discuss the migratory habits of birds with as much ease as he can talk about the emoluments of auto executives. Several colleges and universities-St. Mary's

College of Oakland, California; Boston College; the University of West Virginia; Wayne University, Detroithave honoured Reuther with honorary degrees. He is a member of the Executive Board of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People and has played a prominent part in eliminating racial discrimination in employment and within the unions.

At a recent convention of the UAW, President Kennedy praised the sense of public responsibility shown by its members "under the leadership of your distinguished president, Walter P. Reuther." It was a well-deserved tribute to one of America's leading labour unions and to the man whose devotion and dedication are mainly responsible for its present strength and status. Today the UA W, with a membership of over 1,500,000, can claim to be one of the best organized labour unions in the world. Its members not only enjoy a large measure of job security but also such benefits as automatic acUustment of wages to cost of living and productivity, and employerfinanced pensions and health insurance. Their earnings, in common with those of American labour in other manufacturing industries, have increased almost three times as much as the increase in the cost of living in the last twenty-five years, resulting in a substantial rise in the workers' purchasing power and living standards.

For this gratifying picture, major credit must go to Walter Reuther's vigorous and enlightened leadership .•

with Tagore and Gandhi

towards

the

same end by different

tomatoes and rice alone without it's being noticed! And if I wanted tea when tea wasn't served, I only had to speak to the servant.

"No, our fellowship was not at meals. We drifted into Gurudev's open room, I in my socks, the three others barefooted, and all sat on cushions, talking for hours on end.

"Saturday," said Fred, "we discussed the relation of India to the Empire and the problems of Indians domiciled or indentured in British dominions overseas, in South Africa, the Fiji Islands and other places.

"This whole matter of treatment of Indians overseas centers round the question of whether or not the British Empire intends to recognize Indians as citizens of the British Commonwealth. Does citizenship in the Empire mean what Roman citizenship did to Paul in the beginning of the Christian era? Does it mean anything at all? And if not, why not?

"At the sunset hour we took our several walking sticks and walked cross-country towards the sunset.

Gandhi's staff was almost twice his height and was nothing but a rough branch of a tree. The poet carried a product of his own handicraft shop, the handle carved with the head of a peasant. Charlie's was a black ebony cane inlaid with ivory given him by a wealthy Indian friend. 'Too good for me,' he would say, but he liked it just the same.

I had the stick that Lord Reading gave me when I visited him in Simla. "vVe made an odd assortment-legs and sticks, striding off towards the sunset. I believe Gandhi could beat us all-if we had been in a walking race. That little giant's ninety pounds has every muscle counted and at work. He likes to talk while he walks and he gets into the rhythm of it, but the poet likes to stride on alone, so I walked with Gandhi. He sent his love to you and hoped your ankle would soon be strong enough to keep up with me!"

That was like Gandhi. He never forgets people.

In the midst of great political stakes, he remembers people and with love! I don't know why that should surprise us, but it does. Gandhi had also a greater sense of humor than most people suspect. At the Round Table Conference in London, Gandhi was expected to be a typical oriental with no sense of time and a large idea of his own importance.

He was as punctual as a time clock. Often he had to wait for the English members of the committee. One day while waiting a newspaper artist asked the privilege of sketching him.

"How long do you think it will be," asked the newspaper man, busily drawing, "before you can convince

paths

England that India should have her freedom?"

Gandhi reached over for the crayon and gravely added to the half finished sketch of his own shaven chin a long whiskered beard: "That long," said Gandhi with a twinkle in his eye.

Fred went on, in a lighter vein, telling me intimate things, about Gandhi. "He sleeps on Thoreau's Civil Disobedience-'makes an excellent pillow,' " Gandhi laughed.

"We passed one of Tagore's cows from his new agricultural experiment station for the villages. It was a soft-eyed, well-fed, high-bred bossy, and somehow it winked at us almost humanly. Gandhi pulled up some grass and fed it. " 'Isn't she the best friend of man on earth?' asked Gandhi, patting her. 'Of course, I believe in reverence for the cow,' he went on. 'To me she symbolizes the basic teaching of our Hinduism-that all life is part of God.' " "Gandhi and I talked of the Ahimsa philosophy," Fred continued, "and how it happened that he could popularize that doctrine into an effective weapon for India.

We decided it was because Buddhistic attitudes had so deeply permeated the Indian background, although Buddhism, as a religion, had almost disappeared.

"Sunday was the great day of our week end. In the morning after our solitary meditations we casually drifted over to the poet's doorway."

"Just a moment, Fred," I interrupted mischievously.

"I want to know truthfully how many of your odd assortment at the house party got up to pray with Gandhi at 4:20 A.M.?" Fred grinned at me sheepishly. I did not have to be told that Gandhi had prayed alone!

"It was Sunday," Fred repeated, "and we all felt like Sunday. The sky was a clear, hot blue. The locusts shrilled to announce more heat, but a reverent spirit brooded over us as Gandhi talked of God. Tagore talked of the Formless, lifting us as always to the Infinite. Charlie talked of the mystical Presence and I talked of the Living Ghrist in this modern world.

"As we entered we had noted the two bas-relief figures of the Indian villagers, male and female, on the gate pillars. These dark silent figures brought all of us, without premeditation, to the discussion of the outcaste.

"Gandhi has given the outcaste a new name, Harijan, son of God," Fred reminded me. "We all wondered whether the Harijan himself liked the name. Gandhi and Charlie both declared the outcaste did like it, but Tagore, equally concerned, wasn't sure they wanted to be named at all. I thought the new name was a good thing for out-of-the-country consumption and so I hoped it would take on. However, I appreciated the point Tagore made

The

Sannyasin

SWAMI

in Chicago

VIVEKANANDA,

portrait by B. Roy Chowdhury based on photograph made circa 1893.

his victory, distinguished speakers was impressive. Vivekananda felt caught in a snare of his own making. He postponed his ordeal until the day's session was about to close, and the feeling had grown that the strangely garbed Hindu was not going to speak at all.

At last he was on his feet. It is well known how his first words, the impulsive way he addressed the audience ("Sisters and Brothers of America") created a tremendous reaction, thousands of men and women rising spontaneously to their feet and cheering hard for several minutes. In those few minutes Vivekananda found himself. The immense self-assurance, the sense of power that was intrinsic in his being, could not falter ever again.

That dramatic overtone was only a prelude for what was to develop later. Perhaps it can be said that there is no other instance in history when a single short speech lifted a man from complete obscurity to world acclaim. It should, of course, be remembered that the much publicized Parliament of Religions had the best of coverage from the American as well as European press.

T

HE "CHICAGO address" was barely 500 words in length. Vivekananda thanked the assembly "in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; in the name of the mother of religions." He said that he was proud to belong to a faith that had always preached tolerance and universal acceptance. "Vve believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true." He belonged to a people who had given shelter to the persecuted and the refugees of many nationsIsraelites, who came to India when the Romans destroyed their holy temple; Zoroastrians from Persia; and others.

Bigotry and fanaticism had long filled the earth with violence and drenched it often with human blood. Except for such things human society would be far more advanced.

He hoped, however, that the death knell of all fanaticism had sounded, and all persecutions "with the sword or with the pen" were about to cease.

He translated lines from a Vedic hymn, 3000 years old, which he had repeated often since his early boyhood: "As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, o Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, varied though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee."

He also cited words from the Gita: "Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to Me." Four days later he addressed the Parliament once more, but again briefly. "Why We Disagree," was his theme: like the proverbial frog, men of every religion were convinced that their little well was the whole world.

On September 19 he read a long paper on Hinduism, a brilliant exposition. This was followed the next day by an appeal. His theme, unexpectedly, was: "Religion Not the Crying Need of India." The desperate need was for bread. "It is an insult to a starving people to offer them religion."

During the seventeen-day session he spoke twelve times. In his address on the last day of the assembly he summed up the points he had been stressing all along.

The Christian was not to become a Hindu or Buddhist, nor was a Hindu or a Buddhist to become a Christian.

"Each must assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth."

Vincent Sheean has aptly commented: "Essentially

a calm universalism

what constituted his amazing victory over all the religious nabobs of the hour was the calm universalism of what he had to say."

The days of crisis in the alien land had become a far-off memory. Henceforth the menace was to be fame, which came heaping upon him as he went on a lecture tour of the United States. In about twelve months of dynamic activity he visited almost every important city in the States. Then he grew weary of the drum-beat of publicity and decided on quiet, intensive work. A group of men and women had already gathered around him, anxious to grasp the essentials of his message. They urged him to start regular classes of instruction in New York.

So, for the first time, Vedanta came to the United States as a living force.

Not that the Swami could give all of himself to these private classes. He could not escape from the compulsive demand for public lectures-these were often twelve or more in a week. ("Every thought was passion, every word was faith. Every lecture was a torrential improvisation.")

In the summer of 1895 a devotee placed at his disposal a large cottage on Thousand Island Park, the largest island in the St. Lawrence river. In this beautiful setting of water and woodlands, a centre modelled after an Indian ashrama was established. It attracted many renowned Americans, among them the philosopher William James. Several of the disciples who stayed in the ashrama have left records of their experiences; Vivekananda's informal teachings at this place appeared later in book form, under the title Inspired Talks.

Then he left the United States for a visit in England.

During his absence American disciples continued the work of Vedantic study. Back after three months, he gave himself to the task of consolidation. The group of disciples was expanding fast. But the Swami's influence spread far beyond the circle of devotees. "We went out of curiosity and before we had been ten minutes in the audience we felt ourselves lifted up into an atmosphere so rarefied, so vital, so wonderful, that we sat spell-bound and almost breathless, to the end of the lecture .... When it was over we went out with new courage, new hope, new strength, new faith." This, from the poetess Ella Wheeler Wilcox, was a typical reaction.

One of Vivekananda's most significant addresses was delivered before the graduate students of the Philosophy Department of Harvard University, the theme being "Philosophy of the Vedanta." The available report of the questions and answers that followed the address reflects the listeners' level of interest. Questions like the following were asked by students and faculty members: "What influence did your Hindu philosophy have on the Stoic philosophy of the Greeks? ...

What is the antagonism of this thought with Western science?"

"What does the Advaitist think of cosmology? Is the Advaita antagonistic to Dualism? ...

How does the Vedanta explain individuality and ethics?"

"Would you say there is an unsocial principle in our Western people, which makes us pluralistic, and that Eastern people are more sympathetic than we are?"

"Does the Personal God belong to Maya? ... What is the special process by which one will come to know the Absolute?"

The Swami's impact on Harvard can be measured from the fact that soon after he gave his address the university offered him a Chair in Eastern Philosophy. This, of course, he had to decline.

Vivekananda's first visit in the United States covered a period of about three and a half years. Later, after stamping himself on Indian history as one of its great national figures, he visited America again. It is noteworthy that more than a quarter of his span of life as a sannyasin was spent in that country .•

AT FIRST

glance there seems nothing remarkable about this woman. Her name is Judith Hollister, she is forty-six years old and ordinary in appearance, scarcely a gallant statement but relevant in that nothing she has accomplished can be credited to an arresting presence. She has been married for twenty-three years and has three children, boys twenty-one and fourteen and a daughter seventeen. She lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, a suburban town thirty miles from New York City. The community is wealthy and "social" but Mrs. Hollister is not rich and has no particularly influential connections. Money and status have nothing to do with this affair.

Mrs. Hollister is well educated, widely read but not a college graduate. She has had for many years a persistent interest in religion; in her early twenties she took courses in comparative religion at Columbia University and at the Union Theological Seminary, seeking some grasp of basic beliefs and forms. Today, however, she is not a consistent churchgoer. This is not to say that she lacks a sustaining faith; she merely cares more about substance

than ritual. Religious fanatics appal her and radio television evangelists amuse her.

Some years ago she noted, as does even a casual student of the subject, that at the core of each of the world's great religions there is one common principle.

Some state it positively, others negatively, but in the end it comes to the same thing: HINDUISM: «This is the sum of duty: do naught unto others that would cause you pain if done to you," -Mahabharata 5:1517 JUDAISM: « What is hateful toyou, do not toyour fellow man. That is the entire Law: all the rest is commentary."

-Talmud, Shabbat 3Ia BUD D HISM: «Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find huriful." -U danavarga 5: I8 CONFUCIANISM: «Do not unto others what you would not have them do unto you," -Analects, 15=23 CHRISTIANITY: «All things whatsoeverye would that men should do to you, doye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets."-Matthew 7:12, The Bible

ISLAM: ÂŤNo one oj you is a believer, until he desires jor his brother that which he desiresjar himself."-Sunan There are a few other facts concerning Mrs. Hollister worth bearing in mind. She has extraordinary energy and is direct in action, to a point which some of her friends consider foolhardy. If she felt that. it might be a good idea to talk to the Pope, she might well try to reach him on the telephone. When she is swept by enthusiasm, she often exaggerates-but not to the point of falsehood.

She has a good deal of courage yet there is no real hardness in her; she weeps as often as any woman. Save for the qualities mentioned, she seems in other respects a typical wife and mother in a fashionable suburb-the ParentTeacher Association, the Community Chest and all of that.

"I am a typical suburban housewife," she says. "If anything horrifies me, it's the idea that some idiot will think I am Aimee Semple McPherson." (Mrs. McPherson was a famous, and somewhat scandalous, evangelist of the 1920S.) In the fall of 1959 Mrs. Hollister had reached this stage in life: children in school, husband in the office, and

time in the clock tolling the arrival of middle age. She was quite receptive to ideas or causes that might occupy her days, and at precisely the right moment, on a sun-bright morning in November, a cause arrived.

Mrs. Hollister was drinking coffee with a friend, Virginia Prout, also of Greenwich and a thoughtful woman indeed. For a time the two discussed the deplorable state of the world and the even more deplorable world to be faced by their children. It was a conversation that might have taken place between any two women anywhere on 0 matter; suddenly Mrs. Prout advanced an idea earth. that had been developing in her mind for years. Mrs. Prout, too, had been a student of comparative religion, and it had occurred to her that it might be an excellent thing if somewhere on this sad planet a great building might be constructed in which all of the major religions might be represented. Mrs. Prout did not think of it as a place of worship; she well understood the impossibility of that.

She thought of it merely as a place of education, where anyone might enter and in a short period of time-perhaps

through films or recorded lectures, and by visiting representative chapels within the building-pick up some knowledge of the faiths of men and thereby some understanding of the spiritual kinship of men.

Mrs. Prout believed it might take years of the most careful negotiation to persuade the religious leaders of the world to co-operate in such a venture, even though it was to be purely educational. But she felt that ultimately it might be done.

Mrs. Hollister seized the idea with all of her enthusiasm. She could not understand Mrs. Prout's insistence on caution and slow negotiation. "Years?" she said. "But there may not be a world in two years, or even one."

For over a month Mrs. Hollister turned and tested the idea in her brain, and the more she thought of it the more urgent it became. "I didn't dare mention it to my husband," she says. "I love him dearly, but he's a lawyer.

Very practical." At length she could contain the idea no longer, and on a winter evening when he came home office-weary and eager for a drink she smote him with her building project. He flinched but listened. Occasionally he mentioned "money," "religious prejudice" and other matters that struck him as relevant. His wife did not appear to hear him. Finally-he is a shrewd lawyer-he suggested that she would certainly require some very high-powered assistance in such a project. "Why don't you see Mrs. Roosevelt?" he said. "She's the one person who has the influence and the connections you need."

"But I don't know Mrs. Roosevelt," said Mrs. Hollister.

"I know that."

"But I don't even know anyone who does know her."

"I know that."

"Then how do you expect-?"

Mr. Hollister smiled and had his evening cocktail.

Two months passed, during which Mr. Hollister waited for the idea to die a natural death. But it did not. Mrs. Hollister became increasingly enwrapped in it, and was less and less inclined to accept any cautionary words from him or from her friend Mrs. Prout. "Look," said Mr. Hollister, who had begun to worry about his wife's health. "\t\Then I have some difficult problem, you always advise me to pray. I think the time has come for you to take your own advice."

Mrs. Hollister is direct in prayer as in all else. She went to bed, closed her eyes and said, approximately, "Lord, I'm not certain that I know what I am doing, but I believe I have a good idea. If you agree, please help.

If not, I won't bother you with it again."

A few days after the prayer the Hollisters found themselves at a dinner party in New York. Seated near Mrs. Hollister was a young man she did not know whose conversation, she was suddenly aware, revealed a close association with Mrs. Roosevelt.

"Do you really know her?" Mrs. Hollister asked.

"Yes," said the young man. "I do, and I see her often."

"I'd like very much to meet her."

"That's not difficult," said the young man. "I'm going to her apartment for tea quite soon, and I'll ask her if I may bring you along. I'm sure she won't mind."

There was a two-week interval between the dinner party and the appointment for tea. It seemed to Mrs. Hollister that she would have to bring with her an architectural drawing, some definite plan to indicate to Mrs. Roosevelt that the project had at least a trifle of organization. But when she examined her purse to see what might be available in the way of an 'architect's fee she found, she says, "approximately $2. I 5." Nonetheless she telephoned a prominent architect who lives in Greenwich, stated her case and asked him to produce, without charge, a rendering of the building she had in mind.

The architect is Lathrop Douglass, who is chiefly known in the U.S. for his design of enormous shopping centres, but who has excellent repute elsewhere for his office buildings in Caracas, Antwerp and Paris. Mr. Douglass today does not recall precisely what went through his mind at the time of the telephone call, although he does remember telling Mrs. Hollister early in the conversation that his commitments were so heavy he would require six months to produce a rendering. "But for some reason," he says, "I wound up doing the work in ten days, and stayed up all one night to finish it." (The proposed building, which incorporates some of Mrs. Hollister's suggestions, is circular in shape with six radiating wings.)

When Mrs. Hollister arrived at Mrs. Roosevelt's tea, the drawing rolled up under her arm, she expected to find only the young man who had invited her and Mrs. Roosevelt. But a number of others were present, busily discussing world affairs. After the initial introduction Mrs. Hollister found herself on the perimeter of the group, with no reasonable means of interrupting the conversation to present her project. "I had one cup of tea. I had a second cup of tea. I could feel the drawing going limp under my arm. I have seldom felt like such an idiot, or so helpless. I could think of nothing else to do, so I I am again. lowered my eyes and silently said, 'Lord-here I need help.' " In a few moments Mrs. Roosevelt glanced up from her place at the tea table, smiled at Mrs. Hollister and said, "Was there something in particular you wished to talk to me about?"

Uneasily Mrs. Hollister sat down beside Mrs. Roosevelt, unrolled the drawing and described the idea. "Why,

"take a trip around the world" this is an extremely fine thing," said Mrs. Roosevelt.

"It is exactly what we are trying to accomplish at the United Nations-understanding.

What can I do to help?"

"1-1-" Mrs. Hollister stammered.

"I would suggest that you see Ambassador Lodge at the United Nations," said Mrs. Roosevelt. "Then I would advise you to go to Washington and see some people there, and later perhaps take a trip around the world."

"Around the world?" said Mrs. Hollister.

"Yes. It seems to me it would be wise and interesting to visit the various leaders of the world's religions and the heads of state, and discover whether they are interested and will stand behind you. This should be an international project, not merely a national one. If the people of the world build this building, become part of its creation, it will belong to them. That's what you intend, isn't it?"

"Yes, but 1-."

"I will help you with letters of introduction," Mrs. Roosevelt said, "and there are others who will help as well."

Within a few days Mrs. Roosevelt wrote perhaps a dozen letters of introduction, to then Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, then Senator Lyndon Johnson, and to various foreign ambassadors at the U.N. Somewhat later, Mrs. Roosevelt went to Greenwich and had dinner in Mrs. Hollister's small house. She was much interested in the launching of the project but never became a sponsor of it and had no connection with it at the time of her death.

T

HE DATE of the tea was February 7, 1960. Six weeks later Mrs. Hollister was on her way around the world.

To finance her trip she had $ 1,800 with which she had hoped to remodel her kitchen and she had borrowed an additional $3,500 from a bank. Because her husband could not leave his law practice to accompany her, she took along one of her children, a red-haired boy named Dickon, then eleven years old.

In Rome, Mrs. Hollister presented the first of her letters of introduction, addressed to a monsignor in the American College of the Vatican. The proper way to proceed, the monsignor told her, somewhat frostily, was to communicate with Archbishop Patrick A. O'Boyle in Washington, D.C., where the building-hopefully-was to be erected; if the archbishop found the idea worth considering, he would pass it upward through the hierarchy until it reached someone who had authority to make a decision.

Mrs. Hollister was permitted to attend a group audience with the Pope, but was cautioned not to speak to him or even to approach him closely; the monsignor feared someone might take a photograph of the two together, and that the photograph might be gravely misinterpreted. It was a bleak beginning but not a hopeless one.

In Cairo, through her letters, Mrs. Hollister was introduced to Sheik Mahmoud Shaltout, the rector of Al-Azhar University, which is the centre ofIslamic learning.

Although the holy places of Islam are located elsewhere -in Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem-it is in AI-Azhar that matters of dogma are expounded and settled, in particular by the rector.

Sheik Mahmoud Shaltout is an august figure, his turban, beard and robe all of white. His very appearance intimidated Mrs. Hollister, who became even more apprehensive when she discovered that he speaks no English and that her project would have to be explained by an interpreter. Nonetheless, with her red-haired son fidgeting at her side, she began to talk. A flicker of interest came into the eyes of Sheik Mahmoud Shaltout, then slowly he began to smile and at length to nod his head vigorously up and down.

Mahmoud Shaltout agreed not only to become a sponsor of the project, but gave Mrs. Hollister a statement

to carry with her. It was brief, but in the Islamic world it had the weight of a mountain. "My heart was delighted by the visit of this lady and her small son in this Ramadan day. She has explained to me her idea and her hopes for a common building where all religions will be represented side by side. I pray that her endeavors will meet with success and I pray God may unite all mankind and direct them together in the service of humanity."

It was done. The support of the rector of AI-Azhar alone would have sufficed, but Mrs. Hollister also secured the sponsorship of Mohammed Abdullab el Araby, a revered professor of law at Cairo University, and of Anwar el-Sadat, Secretary General of the Islamic Congress.

Mrs. Hollister and her son boarded a night tourist flight to New Delhi where she hoped to see Prime Minister Nehru and Vice President (now President) Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, who is perhaps the world's foremost Hindu scholar. But to these gentlemen she had no letters of introduction. Before leaving the U.S., she had merely written them personal notes mentioning her idea and saying that on a certain date she would be in the Ashoka Hotel, where they might send word if they were willing to see her.

The room clerk in the Ashoka Hotel was no different from room clerks in all hotels on earth. "You say you telegraphed for a reservation, madam? I am sorry. We have no record of it. Also we have no rooms."

"But I really did," said Mrs. Hollister. She and her son had not slept for twenty-four hours.

"I am sorry," said the clerk. "There is absolutely no space."

Mrs. Hollister was close to tears. "But-are there any letters for me? I gave this hotel as my address-to some people here in India."

The clerk bent over to rummage under his desk, a weary smile on' his face, and then straightened up as though stung by a wasp. In his hand he held an envelope bearing an armorial device, three lions: it was from the Prime Minister.

"We do have a small suite available, madam," he said, "if that will be satisfactory."

The letter from Mr. Nehru said that he would be pleased to see Mrs. Hollister at 7 o'clock on the following evening, for fifteen minutes.

Next morning Mrs. Hollister and her son wandered through the arcades of the Ashoka, where there are several shops which cater to the tourist trade. She went into one of these, hoping to buy an inexpensive sari to take home, and fell into conversation with the proprietor. Within moments she blurted out the name of Mr. Nehru, and explained her errand.

The shop owner was impressed, as much with Mrs. Hollister's project as with the fact that the Prime Minister had consented to see her. He looked at her thoughtfully and said, "Let me tell you something about Mr. Nehru, madam. He is an extremely busy man. If he says he will receive you at 7 for fifteen minutes, you must arrive at one minute before the hour and leave promptly at fourteen minutes past. It may be that he will not be interested in what you have to say, that he will not answer you but will stare out the window. If that happens, you must leave at once."

Mrs. Hollister nodded, feeling the knot of apprehension tightening in her stomach.

"I would think," went on the shop owner, as though talking to himself, "it might be helpful if you were to do something-something dignified-to catch his attention.

Perhaps you might wear Indian dress. Your son might wear clothing such as Mr. Nehru himself wears-the cap, the jacket and jodhpurs. The Prime Minister might find it amusing."

There are those who would have considered this

advice to be rash, almost grotesque; but not Mrs. Hollister.

Her only objection was that she had no money to pay for such things.

"I will give them to you," said the shop owner, "because I believe in your idea. A sari does not require alteration, but in your son's case a tailor must take measurements and make the clothing."

"In eight hours!" exclaimed Mrs. Hollister.

"Of course. I shall deliver the clothing to your room this evening at six. You will have time to dress and be at the place at one minute before seven."

But the shop owner and the tailor were late. They did not arrive until 6:30.

It was 7 o'clock before Mrs. Hollister and her son left the hotel. They sat silently in the taxi, uncomfortable in their Indian clothes, miserably aware that they would be so late for their appointment that Mr. Nehru might not receive them at all. Attached to the back of the seat in front of them, like the advertisements one sees in American cabs, was a small card bearing a printed message. It appears all over India-in the elevators of hotels, in restaurants, wherever the eye of a tourist may light on it. As nearly as Mrs. Hollister can recall, it reads, "We welcome the visitor from abroad, not merely for economic reasons ... but because we believe in the brotherhood of man." It is signed by Prime Minister Nehru. Mrs. Hollister's son stared at it and, having nothing else to do, memorized it.

They arrived at the Prime Minister's House at 7:20.

Inside they presented Mr. Nehru's letter to a secretary, who nodded, ushered them into a large reception room and withdrew, leaving them alone. They waited ten minutes, talking in whispers, and then suddenly the door at the far end of the room flew open and Mr. Nehru himself burst in, his face taut.

"Do you realize that you have kept me waiting almost half an hour?" he said. He glowered at Mrs. Hollister, paying no attention to the boy. Mrs. Hollister, trembling, gestured vaguely at her sari. "We wanted to dress properly, and the tailor was late."

"Anyone," said the Prime Minister, "knows it does not require a tailor to adjust a sari."

Mrs. Hollister could think of nothing to say. In the grim silence her young son cleared his throat and, his reedy voice shaking, repeated the message he had memorized in the taxi, ending with "the brotherhood of man."

Mr. Nehru whirled. Into his face came a look of puzzlement, then of remembrance and finally of delight.

Quickly he walked towards the boy, put his arm around his shoulders and drew him towards a couch. There the two sat down and talked of school and youthful things though half a world and more than half a century stood between them. In the end it was the boy who explained his mother's project. Mr. Nehru listened, smiling in approval.

"Yes, it is an excellent idea," he said to Mrs. Hollister, "and I wish you success. But as the head of a state, I feel it would be inappropriate for me to become a sponsor.

You must talk to the religious scholars." Then, still smiling, he led them to the door.

A few days later Dr. Radhakrishnan invited Mrs. Hollister and her son to have tea at his home. He was immediately receptive to the idea and agreed to become a sponsor. Then, during the small talk that ensued, the eminent Hindu scholar asked a question. "I have been in your country several times," said Dr. Radhakrishnan, "and I am very fond of Negro spirituals. Do you know any?"

Mrs. Hollister conferred with her son. They were again dressed in Indian clothes, the boy wearing on this occasion an orange turban. They did not know the words of any spirituals but did know some songs associated with the South. "Well-yes, in a way," said Mrs. Hollister.

"Fine!" said Dr. Radhakrishnan. "Please sing them!"

Thereupon mother and son sang Dixie while the Vice

President of India delightedly tapped his foot and swung his head in time to the music.

In Thailand, in the city of Bangkok, Mrs. Hollister's letters of introduction led her to a small house which stood on stilts above the mud of the street. In a sparsely furnished room of this house, seated on the floor, was a small, smiling man who offered her a glass of Coca-Cola.

There was a gentle dignity in his manner and he wore a robe of saffron yellow, but had she not known who he was, she might have taken him for the most obscure of men-a petty clerk, perhaps. He listened to her and gravely gave his assent, inscribing his name in her book of sponsors-Somdej Pramaha Veerawong, Supreme Patriarch of Thailand.

Flying eastward to Hong Kong, Mrs. Hollister went to New Asia College to present the idea to the colony of Confucian scholars there. Within a few days she enlisted as sponsors four of the most prominent members of the faculty.

The Hollisters then moved on to Kyoto in Japan, where the principal religion is Buddhism. The endorsement of Buddhist leaders in Thailand, which Mrs. Hollister had already gained, does not necessarily carry great weight among the Japanese. Buddhism, like Hinduism, is highly eclectic and fragmented, differing from region to region and even within regions. Thus Mrs. Hollister was pleased to secure the sponsorship of a Zen Buddhist leader, H. S. Hisamatsu, and a half-dozen other Buddhists of the Japanese school.

When Mrs. Hollister, the Connecticut housewife, returned from her seven-week journey around the world she had assurances from men of prominence in four of the great religions-Islam, Hinduism, Confucianism and Buddhism-that they would sponsor the Temple of Understanding. The obligations of the sponsors are small; they lend their names and the weight of their offices, and speak or write 'in behalf of the project as appropriate opportunities arise; but beyond that, nothing.

There remained the Christians and the Jews. In New York, Mrs. Hollister, still carrying her now bedraggled architectural drawing, went to see Rabbi Israel Goldstein, honorary vice chairman of the World Jewish Congress. Rabbi Goldstein accepted the idea at once, with such sympathy that Mrs. Hollister dared to make a further request. It is one thing to be a sponsor, but quite another to serve on the board of directors of the project.

A director must become actively involved, expending a good deal of time and effort. Mrs. Hollister had not asked anyone overseas to serve on her board; attendance at meetings in New York would have been impractical. But she put the question to Rabbi Goldstein, who agreed to serve. At this Mrs. Hollister began to sniffle.

"What on -earth is the matter?" the rabbi asked.

Mrs. Hollister, still sniffling, explained that Rabbi Goldstein was the first man she had asked to serve on the board and that she had not expected him to accept.

"My dear lady," said the rabbi, "it is I who should be overcome. You have done me an honor. You must never apologize to any man for offering him an opportunity to become a part of this."

Mrs. Hollister turned at last to the Protestant Christians. Her visit to the Vatican had left her with the impression that to obtain Catholic support would not be impossible, but it would be very difficult and achieved only after prolonged and delicate negotiation. (She has already secured the sponsorship of many Catholiclaymen.) The Protestants, she thought, might accept the idea more quickly.

She first approached a high official of the World Council of Churches, in which most Protestant sects as well as the Eastern Orthodox Church are represented. The reaction of the official was unfavourable. He felt that the project was dangerously syncretic (i.e., it involved a union offaiths to the detriment of Christianity). He also objected

millions to the round design of the building and suggested that the Christian wing should be larger than the others.

"I understand his viewpoint," says Mrs. Hollister, "but I can't agree. It's true that Christianity with all its branches is by far the greatest religion in the world, numerically. There are nearly seventy times as many Christians as there are Jews-almost 900 million to only twelve million. But I don't have numbers in mind, or worship; only education and understanding."

Failing at the World Council, Mrs. Hollister set out to enlist individual Protestant clergymen. Today she has perhaps fifty of them as sponsors, including three men of national repute: Dr. Henry P. Van Dusen, president of the Union Theological Seminary, Episcopal Bishop James A. Pike of San Francisco and Episcopal Bishop Horace W. B. Donegan of New York.

Leaving the problem of reconciling the Christians in other hands, Mrs. Hollister concentrated on increasing her array of sponsors. Some she signed up in person, during trips to the U.N., to the District of Columbia and across the country; others she contacted by mail.

Today the list includes more than 2,200 individuals; a glance at it reveals the most startling diversity. It is difficult to imagine any other cause which might enlist the cooperation of Thomas J. Watson Jr., president of IBM, and Norman Thomas, former leader of the Socialist party; the authors Max Lerner and Faith Baldwin; His Excellency Kamil A. Rahim, Ambassador, Permanent Representative of Yemen to the U.N., and Rabbi Irving Miller, chairman of the American Zionist Council; Jackie Robinson (the first Negro player in America's major baseball leagues) and Harlee BranchJr., president of the Southern Company, Atlanta, Ga.; John Sherman Cooper, Republican senator from Kentucky, and Chester Bowles, then special assistant to the President and now U.S. Ambassador to India.

All the foregoing names are fairly well known. A random reading of the sponsor list, however, turns up the obscure as well as the famous: Samuel Cozier, a plantation worker of Trinidad; His Excellency Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, Shah ofIran; Mary King, a nurse; Her Excellency Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Prime Minister of Ceylon; Helen Carr, a hairdresser; the Right Honourable Philip Noel-Baker of Great Britain, winner of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1959; Ottilie Lentes, a housekeeper; His Excellency Yitzchak Ben-Zvi, President of Israel; Willis G. Kirkland, a cabdriver; John D. Rockefeller IV; Dr. F. S. C. Northrop, Sterling Professor of Philosophy and Law, Yale University; Irene Burrell, a sewing-machine operator.

If there is one sponsor who might be singled out it is Sir Muhammed Zafrulla Khan, President of the General Assembly of the United Nations. Mrs. Hollister first enlisted him by mail in 1960 when he was a member of the International Court of Justice at The Hague. Later, when he came to the United Nations as Ambassador from Pakistan, she met him personally, sensed his deep interest in the project, and asked him if he would become a director. He accepted and, despite the demands of the high office he holds today, he attends board meetings whenever they are called.

In some areas, Mrs. Hollister has all the professional help she requires. Lathrop Douglass, the architect who drew the original plan, has become a board member and is eminently qualified to design and supervise the construction of the building.

Mrs. Hollister's husband, an able lawyer, can handle such legal problems as may arise. Thus far he has had little to do, but has negotiated an option to buy fifty acres of land in the District of Columbia, on a hill overlooking the Potomac, where the Temple of Understanding may someday stand.

The temple's present modest treasury is in professional hands. "We will need about $5 million, perhaps

of

people who understand

more, to erect the building and set up an endowment to keep it operating," says Mrs. Hollister. "We hope to raise the money in small contributions from millions of contributors all over the world. Then the temple would truly be created by mankind in general. If we can't raise the money in that way, we'll have to turn to wealthy individuals or to the foundations."

Thus far, although the temple has had little notice in the press, about $80,000 has trickled in, part of it from overseas, in francs and yen, pounds and rupees. The treasurer of the temple is Mr. C. Martin ''\Tood Jr. of the Wall Street investment house of Bache & Co., and his procedures seem foolproof. All mail addressed to the

Temple of Understanding, Greenwich, Connecticut, U.S.A., goes directly from the post office to a bank where it is opened in the presence of witnesses and a record made of every contribution. The money is then deposited in the bank and can only be withdrawn by cheques with Mr. Wood's signature.

"It's been a long time," says Mrs. Hollister. "Three years of my life. But I'm sure it will work. I know there are millions of people in this world who understand.

"When I was in Japan, in Kyoto, I visited a little monastery where the monks are so poor they seem starving.

They have no possessions of their own-nothing.

They work only for others. The only thing of any value in their monastery is a great bronze bell. They told me that they would toll that bell each night at 9 o'clock and pray for understanding among men, and that the temple would be built. Sometimes I think I hear it tolling and echoing and re-echoing around the earth.".

Š

1962 TIME Inc. Reprinted by courtesy of LIFE International.

Freedom

of

Worship

by Surya Sen

RELIGIOUS FREEDOM in the United States asserts itself in a dramatic diversity.

There are now in America more than sixty-two million Protestants, some forty-one million Roman Catholics, about five million members of the Jewish congregations, and almost three million adherents to the Eastern Orthodox Churches. Apart from these principal religious groups, the various other faiths represented include Buddhists, Moslems, Sikhs, Theosophists and Vedantists. Approximately one hundred million Americans are members of some three hundred thousand religious congregations, comprising more than two hundred and fifty religious bodies, denominations or sects, all completely self-governing and independent.

If diversity emerges as the most striking feature of these statistics, underlying it also is a basic attitude common to all faiths. That attitude consists of a deeply rooted conviction among Americans that religion and democracy are not two separate entities, but sustain each other. Arising

MASS AT the Roman Catholic Church of Our Lady of Good Voyage in Gloucester, Massachusetts, a town with historical sea-faring traditions.

Freedom

of Worship

from this conviction is the belief that individual rights and freedoms are sacred and inviolable.

I t would be incorrect to infer from this that every American citizen must identify himself with some religious body. There is, on the contrary, no such compulsion or necessity. The government leaves everyone free to choose his own religion and faith and to worship according to his own conscience. If he so wishes, he may even be non-religious or anti-religious. The complete separation of Church and State being a cardinal American principle, no religious tests of any kind are imposed-in fact, such tests are forbidden by law-for public office

and employment, or for admission to an educational institution. The first Amendment to the American Constitution specifically states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

Originally, these constitutional provisions were inspired by the punishment and persecution often experienced in matters of religion by early settlers before they came to America and during the early years of some of the colonies. As most of these settlers in the seventeenth century were religious dissenters and left their homes in Europe in search of religious freedom, they were from the beginning

a dramatic

diversity

PRO T EST ANT Congregational Church in Maine (I) typifies traditional New England meeting-house architecture.

Buddha's Universal Church in San Francisco (2) was dedicated this year in ceremonies shown here. A young Jewish boy (3) reads the Torah in a Pennsylvania Synagogue. A Baha'i Temple (4) is located in Wilmette, Illinois, near Chicaga. The Old Temple of the Vedanta Society of Northern California in San Francisco (5) was built in 1905 by Swami Trigunatita. Its turrets and cupolas were intended to represent a harmany of Hindu, Muslim and Christian faiths.