Jean Jacques Rousseau; The UNESCO Courier: a window open on ...

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mMARCH 1963 (16TH YEAR) - PRICE 1/-STG. (U. K.) - 30 CENTS (U. S.) - 0,70 F (FRANCE)

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WORLD CAMPAIGN AGAINST ILLITERACY

Five hundred million adults in the world cannot read

or write. In vast areas the whole question of raisingliving standards is blocked by illiteracy. This is. whyUnesco's recent General Conference gave top priorityto education in the programme of action it approved

for 1963 and 1964. (See page 31). While continuing its effortsto help the development of primary education, Unescowill during the next two years survey problems of illi¬teracy on a world scale and will prepare a campaign whoseinitial phase will aim to bring literacy to 350 million people.

Contents

No. 3

BOW OMN ON TNI W O * 1 0

nerMARCH

16TH

1963

YEAR

PUBLISHED IN

NINE EDITIONS

EnglishFrench

SpanishRussian

German

Arabic

U.S.A.

JapaneseItalian

This portrait of Jean-JacquesRousseau, a detail of whichappears on our cover, is acrayon drawing by the famousFrench pastelllst, MauriceQuentin de la Tour. " Mon¬sieur de la Tour, " declaredRousseau, " is the onlyartist who has ever produceda good likeness of me. "

Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris

Page

4 THE APOSTLE OF AFFLICTION

A portrait of Jean-Jacques RousseauBy Barbara Bray

10 ROUSSEAU, THE FATHER OF ANTHROPOLOGY

By Claude Lévi-Strauss

16 THE SOLITARY WANDERER

With Rousseau along the paths of reverieBy Anne-Marje Pfister

18 ST. PIERRE: ISLE OF BLISSFUL SOLITUDE

21 ROUSSEAU'S MESSAGE FOR OUR WORLD TODAY

The enduring validity of Rousseau's ideasBy Lourival Gomes Machado

23 THE ROAD FROM PERSECUTION TO APOTHEOSIS

The victory of ideals over despotism

24 ORIENTAL ECHOES OF THE «SOCIAL CONTRACT'

By Takeo Kuwabara

27 THE INDIVISIBILITY OF WORLD PROSPERITY

The anatomy of underdevelopment Pt. 4

31 A WORLD PROGRAMME FOR EDUCATION

SCIENCE & CULTURE

A look at Unesco's tasks in 1963-64

33 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

34 FROM THE UNESCO NEWSROOM

(M. C. 63.1 , 178 A)

Published monthly byThe United Nations Educational, Scientific and CulturalOrganization

Editorial Offices

Unesco, Place de Fontenoy, Paris 7; FranceEditor-in-Chief

Sandy KofflerAssistant Editor

René Caloz

Associate Editors

English Edition : Ronald FentonFrench Edition : Jane Albert HesseSpanish Edition í Arturo DespoueyRussian Edition : Veniamln Matchavariani (Moscow)German Edition : Hans Rieben (Berne)Arabic Edition : Abdel Moneim El Sawi (Cairo)Japanese- Edition : Shin-lchi Hasegawa (Tokyo)Italian- Edition : Maria Remiddi (Rome)Layout & DesignRobert Jacquemin

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<&2¿¿s

THE APOSTLE

OF AFFLICTIONby Barbara Bray

From July 1962 to July 1963 the world is celebrating the250th anniversary of the birth of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.During this Rousseau Anniversary Year innumerable tributesare being paid in all parts of the world : lectures, exhibitions,ceremonies, films and radio broadcasts. The event has been

accorded a place of honour In Unesco's calendar of an¬niversaries of great men and events. The Unesco Couriernow offers its tribute to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and devotesa large part of this issue to the 18th-century philosopher,social reformer and educationalist, whose doctrines and

ideas are as modern today as when they were first expressed.Blibiothèque Nationale, Paris

lean-Jacques Rousseau was born in Geneva of

French stock on June- 28, 1712. His motherdied nine days afterwards. "My birth," he said, "was thefirst of my misfortunes."

The apostle of affliction, Byron called him..."The apostle of affliction, he who threwEnchantment over passion, and from woeWrung overwhelming eloquence..."

Dr. Johnson, speaking to Boswell, was more severe."Rousseau, Sir, is a very bad man. I would sooner sign asentence for his transportation, than that of any felonwho has gone from the Old Bailey these many years.Yes, I should like to have him work in the plantations."

Was Rousseau "a very bad man"? A lot of peoplethought so, many still do, and certainly, considered as anindividual he was not a conspicuously good one, with suchpeccadilloes as lying, stealing, and untiring if unsuccessfulamorousness.

He sent all his five children to the Foundling Hospitalalmost as soon as they were born, and thought up whatseemed to him good reasons for it; he was always difficultand vain, and ended up such a prey to persecution maniathat when he died he had hardly a friend left in theworld. Yet his real crime in the eyes of his contem¬poraries was not personal: it consisted rather in being oneof those great rare originals who have the effrontery andbad taste to change the course of history.

Rousseau furnished a blue-print for the French Revolu¬tion, his ideas were written into the American Constitu¬

tion, his teachings on education are still heard indirectlyin almost every classroom in the world, and his influenceon literature is not yet spent.

Europe in the middle of the eighteenth century wasripe for change. France in particular was a powder-barrel

That spark was Jean-Jacqueswaiting for a spark.Rousseau.

One day in the summer of 1749, When he was stillunsuccessful and unknown, he set out from Paris, wherehe had settled, to visit his friend Diderot, the editor ofthe great Encyclopedia, who had been imprisoned in theChateau of Vincennes for reasons not unconnected withthe atheistic and materialistic tendencies of his writings.

"The state of my finances not permitting me to pay forhackney coaches," relates Rousseau, "I went on foot.I thought a book in my hand might make me moderatemy pace. I took the Mercure de France, and as I walkedand read, I came to the following question proposed bythe academy of Dijon, for the premium of the ensuingyear: Has the progress of sciences and arts helped tocorrupt or to purify morals?

"The moment I read this, I seemed to behold anotherworld, and became a different man... On my arrival atVincennes, I was in an agitation which approached deli¬rium. Diderot perceived it; I told him the cause, and readhim what I had written with a pencil under a tree. Heencouraged me to pursue my ideas, and to become a com¬petitor for the premium. I did so, and from that momentI was ruined.

"All the rest of my misfortunes during my life were theinevitable result of this moment of error... All my littlepassions were stifled with the enthusiasm of truth, liberty,and virtue; and this effervescence continued In my mindupwards of five years..."

Rousseau, maintaining the then paradoxical view thatthe cultivation of the arts and sciences always generatesmoral corruption, won the prize. He immediately became

CONT'D ON PAGE 6

R.M. Clermont-Ciné Club du Val de Bièvre

ibliothèque Nationale, Paris

A PLACE OF PILGRIMAGE

Tall poplar trees which give their name to this tiny island in a lake at Ermenonville,near Paris, surround the tomb where Jean-Jacques Rousseau was buried on July 4,1778. The island soon became a place of pilgrimage and people flocked there insuch numbers that for a time permission for visits had to be curtailed. The visitorsvented their enthusiasm on the trees in the park which were soon covered with ins¬criptions carved in many languages. The Swiss artist Geissler evoked this wave ofenthusiasm in "Resurrection of Jean-Jacques Rousseau" (left) in 1794, whenRousseau's remains were transferred with great ceremony to the Panthéon in Paris.

Turning point in a vagrant lifeAt the age of 1 6 Rousseauran away from Geneva.Then began an extraor¬dinary series of wander¬ings and adventures,At Annecy came oneof the turning pointsof his life; his meetingwith Madame de Warens

(far left) who took himinto her home. Later,

she gave him affection,good advice and a stu¬dious atmosphere inwhich to work. It was

in her house at Char-

mettes (left) from 1738to 1 740 that he expe¬rienced " the short-lived

happiness in my life ".

ROUSSEAU (Cont'd;

The boy who learnedto hate oppression

involved in a series of controversies which brought himmore and more into the public arena, and led him to deve¬lop his political ideas over the years that followed in anumber of works that culminated in 1762, two hundredyears ago, in his treatise concerning "The SocialContract."

"Man is born free, yet everywhere he is found inchains." These, the opening words of Chapter One,echoed round the world. Basic to The. Social Contract asto all Rousseau's writings is the belief than man is natu¬rally good, and that society is something artificial andnecessarily corrupting. At the origin of civilized society,he imagines, was some act of political association, unde¬sirable but necessary for survival, which has led to thepresent discontents. What would be the best form ofsocial contract?

For Rousseau individual sovereignty should be surren¬dered voluntarily in favour of the State a political entitywhich acts through laws. These laws must express thecollective sovereign will of the people, by means of arepresentational system free from influence or corruption.The object of all legislation must be liberty and equality.

In his Social Contract the implied criticism of the actualstate of France was of course devastating, and was one ofthe most powerful elements that, working in the mind ofthe revolutionaries, led ultimately to the destruction ofthe old order.

How did Rousseau come by the passions which animateThe Social Contract? He gives us some clues in theConfessions, his autobiography. After telling of a childishinjustice suffered at the age of about twelve, he goes on:

"Even while I write this I feel my pulse quicken, andshould I live a hundred thousand years, the agitation ofthat moment would still be fresh in my memory. Thefirst instance of violence and oppression is so deeplyengraven on my soul, that every relative idea renews myemotion. When I read the history of a merciless tyrant,or the dark and subtle machination of a knavish designingpriest, I could on the instant set off to stab the miscreants,though I was certain to perish in' the attempt."

He also gives us a picture of one of the origins of hishorror of oppression. Wandering as a young man inFrance, he approached a peasant's hut in a particularlypleasant and prosperous-looking part of the country, andasked if he could have a meal, which he would pay for.

One day In 1749 Rousseau went to visit thephilosopher, Denis Diderot, imprisoned in theChateau of Vincennes. On the way (below) hedecided to compete for the Dijon Academy prizeoffered for an essay on the effect of the progressof civilization on morals. " All the rest of mymisfortunes during my life were the inevitableresult of this moment of error... " he wrote.

Photos Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris Music meant much to Rousseau. He taught and composed it and actually invented a new system ofmusical notation. For long periods he lived by copying musical scores. This engraving shows him singingverses which he composed to show his thanks to the family with whom he lived on the island of Saint-Pierre.

At first the most meagre fare was provided, and then, asthe countryman's suspicions were lulled, he brought someham and some wine and some eggs out of hiding.Refusing payment, he pronounced tremblingly the terri¬ble words "Commissioners" and "Cellar-Rats."

"He explained," wrote Rousseau, "by giving me to under¬stand that he concealed his wine because of the excise,and his bread on account of the tax imposed on it; andhe would be undone if it were suspected he was notalmost perishing with want.

"What he said to me made an impression that cannever be effaced, sowing seeds of that inextinguishablehatred which has since grown up in my heart against thevexations these unhappy people suffer, and against theiroppressors... I left his cottage deploring the fate of thosebeautiful countries where nature has been prodigal of hergifts only that they may become the prey of barbarousexactors."

A point that Rousseau Insists on in The Social Contract,and one that is perhaps his most important contributionto the safeguarding of all the principles he cared for, isthat the government that executes the laws is composedmerely of officials paid to carry out the general will, butall governments will tend to usurp power if not carefullywatched and held in check. The precious and enduringtruth of his great work is that sovereignty belongs to thepeople, and must never under any pretext be transferredto any individual or group of individuals.

Some details of The Social Contract have been distorted

or exaggerated to justify totalitarian practices, but thisis in direct contradiction of the author's spirit.

As Viscount Morley, Rousseau's greatest biographer,said: "It was in Rousseau that polite Europe firsthearkened to the strange voices and faint reverberationsfrom out of the vague and cavernous shadows in whichthe common people move." And polite Europe hearkenednot because Rousseau was a model of correct thought ora brillant exponent of practical organization, but becausehis Ideas were what they had been waiting for, andbecause they were proclaimed with depth and fervour.

Needless to say it was not in Rousseau's lifetime thathe was acclaimed. While he lived he was persecuted, andhounded out of France and Switzerland. In an age whichstill bowed to the divine right of kings Rousseau was arepublican and believed in the divine right of the people.When the faculty of reason was held- to be man's highestattribute, Rousseau abandoned its cool systems in favourof the flushed and unpredictable promptings of the heart.And when the churches were shoring themselves up withdogma against the storms to come, Rousseau was theadvocate of "natural religion," which required no inter¬mediary between man and God.

But in spite of the unpopularity and even personal dan¬ger to which his writings exposed him, Rousseau scornedto take the usual course of seeking refuge in anonymity,nor would he obliterate a word of what he had written.

It was Emile, his treatise on education, published likeThe Social Contract in 1762, that really got Rousseau intohot water. For in Emile, occurs the digression on religionknown as the Profession of Faith of the Savoyard Vicar.

This a composite portrait of two priests whom Rousseauhad known and revered. He Is a man who seeks God not

by reason, as every previous philosopher from Platoonwards had done, but by introspection.

Rousseau's Vicar interests himself not at all in dogmas,does not, it goes without saying, believe in original sin, andin discussing the after-life never once mentions the Christ¬ian doctrine of Redemption. If interpretations and formsof worship vary, no matter. The book of nature is openfor all to read: "The essential worship, Is of the heart."

Rousseau thus brought about a simplification of beliefa simplification that seems cautious rather than con¬

troversial nowadays, when his views have become part ofthe general atmosphere. But in 1762 his was a highlydangerous doctrine. To his Dutch publisher, who seeingthe book seized in France, begged him to cut the offendingpassage, he wrote: "There is no reproach or danger orviolence or power on earth that will make me ever retracta syllable."

CONT'D ON NEXT PAGE

ROUSSEAU (Cont'd)

Tamile' a bold new concept of educationEmile has been called a sentimental manifesto where

we must not look for too much intellectual cohesion. Yetthe idea that there is a kind of instinct in human beingsthat provides the deepest sanction of right and wrong isone of the many flashes of Insight in Rousseau which tothis day have not been made to yield their full signifi¬cance.

Besides being an advocate of natural religion Rousseauwas the prophet of a revolution in education no less cata¬clysmic and far-reaching than the revolution in politics.His qualifications as an authority on education werestrange indeed.

His father had introduced him to literature at an earlyage by reading inflammatory French romances with him,afterwards progressing at random to a few more solidworks that happened to be lying about. Later Rousseauwas sent with his cousin to board in the country with atutor for a couple of years "to learn Latin, with all theinsignificant trash that has obtained the .name ofeducation."

Up till now, according to Rousseau himself, he hadalways been surrounded with the tenderest and mosthealthful care although some of the details he mentionsin passing may seem to us to bode no good at all to theinfant that was exposed to them. At the age of thirteenhe was apprenticed first to a notary, then to an engraver,but he hated all restraint and after three years ran away.The next few years were spent in a vagabond sort ofexistence, wandering about the country and from time totime taking jobs of a more or less menial kind.

The main formative influence during these yearswas Madame de Warens, an attractive Catholic

proselytiser older than himself, whom he long loved in hisown peculiar way and who did a great deal to civilise him.

It was not until he was about twenty-six, when he wasinstalled with Madame de Warens in the beloved rural

retreat of Les Charmettes, near Chambéry, that Rousseauset about educating himself systematically. He was han¬dicapped by a very poor memory: "I must have learnedand relearned the Eclogues of Virgil twenty times over,and I cannot recollect a single line of them."

Although by this time he was convinced that his talentlay in music, he took a job for a time as a tutor, withfarcical results. In Book VI of his Confessions he tells us :"The natural gentleness of my disposition seemed calcu¬lated for the employment, if hastiness had not beenmingled with it. While things went favorably, and I sawthe pains (which I did not spare) succeed, I was an angel;but a devil when they went contrary.

"If my pupils did not understand me, I was hasty, andwhen they showed any symptoms of untoward disposition,I was so provoked that I could have killed them... I couldonly make use of three means, which are very weak, andoften pernicious with children; namely, sentiment, reason¬ing, passion... Everything I undertook failed, becauseall I did to effect my designs was precisely what I oughtnot to have done."

What Rousseau ought to have done we find in Emile.Here again we are offered not so much a practical plan asa sort of ideal embodying the principles to be observed.Emile, the pupil, is to be given a "natural education"; thatis to say, one that preserves as long as possible againstthe corruption of the world that original goodness, happi¬ness and innocence Rousseau believed to be born in everyhuman being.

The method Rousseau prescribes means interfering aslittle as possible with the free development of the child'smind and body, and making the unavoidable adaptationto society so careful and so gradual that the pupil suffersthe least possible harm in the process.

Emile is to be brought up alone by a tutor, away fromhis parents, in an environment scientifically calculated toproduce the best conditions for free development. He isto be treated not as a miniature adult, but as a naturalbeing whose virtues as such must be preserved and culti

vated. The influence of Emile was electric and is still

reflected today in almost every modern school.

A point that is not sufficiently remembered is that Rous¬seau founded his educational method on the cultivation of

the sensibilities above all things. Right feeling is an indis¬pensable preliminary to right thinking and acting, andany educational system that neglects or blunts the sensi¬bilities of children in order to concentrate on intellectual

or technical achievement has left out the whole essenceof the matter. Here is another idea of Rousseau's that

has not yet been made full use of.

It was also as a man of feeling that Rousseau made hisgreat contribution to literature. Everything he did wasoriginal in some way. His Confessions, which were notpublished until after his death, are the first example ofwhat is now one of the most characteristic elements in

Western literature the completely unashamed exposureof all an author's most intimate thoughts, experiences anddesires. And the Confessions, like his work Reveries of aSolitary Wanderer, introduce a new attitude to nature,though it is the pleasurable and more mildly sympatheticaspects of the landscape that please him and not the fullromantic diapason.

From his sensibility, then, all Rousseau's virtues, likeall his vices, sprang. The Scottish philosopher Hume, whowas his friend until Rousseau quarrelled with him as hedid with everyone else, and with as little reason, describedhim thus: "He only felt during the whole course of hislife, and in this respect his sensibility rises to a pitchbeyond what I have seen any example of; but it stillgives him a more acute feeling of pain than of pleasure.He is like a man who is stripped not only of his clothes,but of his skin, and turned out in this situation to combatwith the rude and boisterous elements."

On July 2, 1778, at Ermenonville, after years of wander¬ing and quarrelling and of illness that does much toexplain some of his behaviour, Rousseau died of uraemia.His main source of income for many years had been musiccopying: he had scorned to set up as a professional writer.His companion was a coarse illiterate servant-woman whohad been with him for more than thirty years. Thisrelationship has been very roughly handled by manycritics, but in fact, as Morley with great magnanimitypoints out, it shows that Rousseau for all his faults wascapable of almost heroic loyalty and forbearance. Somehave called his life deplorable, but the man whose namestands for liberty and equality, for the beginning ofreasonableness and sympathy in education, and for a newkind of poetic beauty, is one who deserves to have his sinsremembered kindly. Many of his ideas were golden, and ifthey are still as powerful now as they were in his own day,it is because he had also the gift of a golden tongue.

Barbara Bray is a regular participant on the BBC programme,"The Critics", and literary contributor to British newspapers andperiodicals. She has translated various works of I8//1 centuryFrench authors. This article is adapted from the radio programmeshe wrote for Unesco in honour of Rousseau.

Publications Filmées d'Art et d'Histoire.

Portrait of

Madame

d'Epinay

BROKEN FRIENDSHIPS & A LITERARY TRIUMPH

By nature Rousseau was sensitive and quick to take offence andeventually quarrelled with many of his friends. He fell out with Madamed'Epinay (portrait on opposite page, by the Swiss painter Jean-EtienneLlotard) who for long had been his protectress and confidante. Shegave him the use of her house, "L'Hermitage", in the valley of

Montmorency, near Paris, and he lived there from April 1756 toDecember 1757. After their friendship ended, Rousseau moved to"Mont-Louis" (above), another house in the same valley. There hefinished The New Eloísa, whose success was great and immediate. In 1778,he returned to the valley of Montmorency shortly before his death.

ROUSSEAU, FATHERby Claude Lévi-Strauss

The Invitation you have extended to an anthro¬pologist to take part in this commemorative

occasion offers an opportunity to a young science to pay

homage to the genius of a man who, it might well seem,had been fully honoured in every possible facet of hislife work which included such fields as literature, poetry,

philosophy, history, ethics, political science, education,linguistics, music and botany to mention only a few.

In addition to this, though, Rousseau was more than

just a keen and subtle observer of peasant life, an im¬passioned reader of books on foreign travel, a skilfull and

accomplished investigator of exotic customs and beliefs.Without fear of contradiction it can be stated that a full

century before anthropology was actually born he con¬ceived, desired and foretold it, placing it directly in theranks of the natural and human sciences then in

existence. He even guessed correctly the practical wayin which it would later begin to function, namely, by

individual or collective patronage.

This prophetic conception, which he formulated bothas a plea and as a programme of action, appears in along footnote to the Discourse on the Origin of Inequa¬lity. "I have difficulty in comprehending," Rousseauwrote, "why in an age that prides itself on learning, twomen cannot be found, one of whom would sacrificetwenty thousand crowns of his wealth and the other ten

years of his life, to make a historic journey round the

world, studying not only the inevitable stones and plants,but for once men and customs."

And a little further on he exclaims: "The whole of the

world is a weave of nations of which we know only the

names. And we presume to judge mankind! Imaginea Montesquieu, a Buffon, a Diderot, a d'Alembert, aCondillac, or men of that stamp, travelling to instructtheir fellow-countrymen, observing and describing asonly they know how, Turkey, Egypt, Barbary, the empireof Morocco, Guinea, the land of the Kaffirs, the interiorof Africa and its eastern coast, the Malabars, the Mogul,

the banks of the Ganges, the kingdoms of Siam, Peguand Ava, China, Tartary, and above all Japan; and inthe other hemisphere, Mexico, Peru, Chile, the Magellanlands, not forgetting the Patagonias real or imaginary,Tucuman, Paraguay, and if possible Brazil, the Caribbean,Florida and all the savage lands. Such a journey would

be of more importance than all others and would haveto be made with the greatest of care. Imagine thatthese new Hercules, on their return from those unfor¬

gettable travels, -were to write at their leisure a natural,moral and political history of what they had seen, thenwe would see for ourselves a new world arise from their

pens, and we would learn to know our own..." (Discourseon the Origin of Inequality, note 10.)

Is this not the very subject matter as well as the work¬

ing method of modern anthropology? And are not the

10

OF ANTHROPOLOGY

illustrious names cited by Rousseau the same ones that

present-day anthropologists still revere and seek to emu¬late in the firm conviction that only by following theirexample will their science continue to deserve the

respect so long denied it?

But Rousseau did not just foresee anthropology, heactually founded it. Firstly, he did so in practice by

writing the Discourse on the Origin and Foundations ofInequality Among Men which posed the question of therelationship between nature and culture, and is perhapsthe first treatise produced on general anthropology.Secondly, he founded the science in theory by setting

down with remarkable clarity and precision the aims ofthe anthropologist as distinguished from those of themoralist and the historian:

"When one wishes to study men, one must look closeat hand; but to study man, one must learn to look intothe distance; one must first observe the differences in

order to discern the properties." (Essay on the Origin ofLanguages, Chapter VIII.)

This method of approach which Rousseau assigned toanthropology marks the birth of the new science andhelps to clarify what at first may appear to be a doubleparadox: that Rousseau could at one and the same timeadvocate the study of men living in the most remotecorners of the earth, but in effect, devoted most of his

attention to the one man nearest to him, namely himself;

and that in all his writings his systematic desire for iden¬tification with others went hand in hand with his total

refusal of identification with himself.

Now every anthropologist at some time or other duringhis life work must resolve these same two seeming contra¬dictions which in reality are no more than the two inter¬changeable sides of one coin.

All anthropologists owe a special debt to Rousseau: forhe not only traced the precise course of their new sciencein the scheme of man's knowledge, but by his work andthe character and temperament it displayed, by the in¬tensity of his feeling, his nature and personality, heprovided anthropologists with the fraternal solace of animage in which they recognize their own image and arethus led to a deeper understanding of themselves notin the abstract sense of pure intellectual thought but asthe Involuntary agents of the profound transformation hehas wrought within them and which all mankind has

come to find in the person of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Each time that the anthropologist goes out into the fieldhe plunges into a world where everything around him isstrange and often hostile. He finds himself alone with

nothing but his own person, his subjective self, to helphim survive and carry on his work. Physically andmentally wracked as he is by fatigue, hunger andhardship, by the "disruption of his normal habits, and bythe sudden revelation of prejudices which he hadnever suspected to exist, his self reveals itself in theseunfamiliar surroundings as it really is battered andbuffeted by all the shocks and impacts of his personal life,which not only affected his choice of a career but wouldthereafter deeply mark its entire course.

I

'NOBLE

SAVAGES' OF

THE FRIENDLY

ISLES

Rousseau's idea of the "noble

savage" uncorrupted by civilizationcaught the imagination of 1 8th-century Europe and was oftendistorted Into a fairy-tale image,both in people's minds and in thepaintings and engravings of theperiod. Left, the artist showsCaptain Cook landing at Middel-burgh in 1778, one of the FriendlyIslands east of Australia, and depictsthe islanders dressed in the flowingrobes of ancient Greece or Rome.

Bibliothèque Nationale

N the work of anthropology, therefore, the» observer uses himself as his own instrument of

observation. As a result, he must learn to know himself,to look at himself objectively and at a distance as if he

were another person. And so the anthropologist turns tothis other person within him, which is different from hisself, in order to arrive at an evaluation. And this -then

becomes an integral part of all the observations he carriesout in the field on groups and individuals and the otherwithin them. The principle of "confessions," written orunacknowledged, is thus basic to the work of everyanthropologist.

But if Rousseau's experience helps us to see that ofanthropology in a clearer light, it is becauseRousseau's temperament, his personal history and cir¬cumstances spontaneously placed him in a situationwhich is precisely that of the anthropologist. And likethe anthropologist, Rousseau did not fail to note at oncethe consequences that this situation had on him per¬sonally:

"So there they are," -he wrote of his contemporaries,"foreign, unknown, nothing to me, since they wished itso! But I, detached as I am from them and from all else,what am I? That is what it remains for me to discover."

(First Promenade)

And the anthropologist contemplating for the first timethe savages he has chosen to study might indeed almost

echo Rousseau's words and exclaim: "So there they are,foreign, unknown, nothing to me, since I myself wished

CONT'D ON NEXT PAGE

11

FATHER OF ANTHROPOLOGY (Cont'd)

The key question: 'what am I?'it so! But I, detached as I am from them and from allelse, what am I? That is what / must first discover."

For in order to rediscover one's own image as reflected

in others, which is anthropology's single purpose in study¬ing man, one should first reject one's image of oneself.

It is to Rousseau that we owe the discovery of this pro¬found principle and the only one on which the sciencesof man could be founded. But it remained out of reach

and grasp and incomprehensible so long as the acceptedphilosophy was based on Descarte's doctrine of the Cogito(Cogito ergo sum) and was fettered to the alleged logicalproof of the ego upon which the edifice of physics wasconstructed though only by renouncing that of sociologyand even biology.

Descartes believed that he could pass directly from theinteriority of man to the external world, overlooking thatbetween these two extremes there existed societies and

civilizations, that Is, worlds made up of men.

Rousseau speaks eloquently of himself in the thirdperson as "he" (sometimes even splitting this "he" intotwo distinct parts as in the Dialogues) heralding thefamous formula "The me is another" (the anthro¬

pologist does the same thing before proceedingto show that other people are men like him

self, or in other words, the other is me.

Rousseau thus emerges as the greatInnovator of the concept of unconditionalobjectivity. In his first Promenade, he

defines his aim as "to study the modi¬

fications of my soul and their sequels,"and then adds: "In a sense, I shall

perform upon myself the same experi¬

ments that the physicist carries outon the atmosphere in order to dis¬

cover its daily condition."

What Rousseau reveals to us (and

though modern psychology and anthro¬pology have now made it more familiar,

it is nevertheless a most astonishing revel¬ation) is that there is a third person "he"that thinks within me, and at first leads me to

doubt that It is I who am thinking.

To Montaigne's question "What do I know?" (which

started the whole discussion) Descartes thought he couldprovide the reply with his "I think, therefore I am."To this Rousseau retorted with the query "Whatam I?" which cannot be answered until another, morefundamental, question has been resolved: "Am I?" And

the answer that personal experience has given is the "he"concept that Rousseau discovered and which he proceededat once to explore with consummate lucidity...

Now if we are to believe that when first human societies

appeared on earth man achieved a triple transformation,passing from a state of nature to culture, from sentimentto knowledge, and from an animal-like state to that ofhumanity (which is precisely what Rousseau set out to

prove in his Discourse on Inequality) we can do so onlyby attributing to man in his very earliest primitive condi¬tion some vital faculty or quality which impelled him tomake this threefold transition.

And we must consequently assume that from the verystart this quality latently possessed both contradictoryelements at least as attributes if not as intrinsic parts,so that it was at one and the same time both natural

and cultural, emotional and rational, animal and human.We must also assume that the transition could be made

from one to the other providing this quality becameconscious in man's mind.

j- This quality, as Rousseau repeatedly stated, is pitywhich issues from man's identification with another not

just a relative or a companion or a compatriot, but with

any man because he is a man; and indeed with any livingcreature because it is alive.

Early man thus began by intuitively feeling himselfidentical with all his fellow beings. And he never whollyforgot this feeling even when the rise of population forcedhim to migrate to new lands and to adapt himself to newmodes of living, and led him to the awakening of his ownpersonal identity.

But this awakening came only after he had slowlylearned to recognize the identity of others and to dis¬tinguish the various animals according to their species,the human state from the animal state, and his ownindividuality from the individuality of other men.

The recognition that all men and animals are feelingbeings (which is what identification signifies) long ante¬dated man's awareness of their differences: first with

regard to the characteristics common to all livingcreatures, and only later to the human as opposed to non-human attributes. It is with this bold conclusion that

Rousseau put an end to Descarte's doctrine of the Cogito.

If this interpretation is correct, if by the use of anthro¬pology Rousseau did indeed shatter the traditions of

philosophy as radically as I believe, then it

becomes simpler to grasp the fundamentalunity which marks Rousseau's varied and

heterogeneous works, and to understand

why subjects like linguistics, music andbotany held so preponderant a sway on

his thoughts even though they at first

appear to be somewhat remote from

his main work as a writer and philo¬sopher.

The evolution of language, as Rous¬seau described it in his Essay on theOrigin of Languages, can be seen tofollow almost an Identical path

(though on a different plane) with thatof the evolution of man.

In the first stage no distinction was made

between the strict and figurative meaning of

things, and only progressively did the strictmeaning detach itself from the original metaphor

(in which one object is contained in several others.)

With regard to music no form of expression seems to mebetter suited for refuting Descarte's theory of the oppo¬sition between the material and the spiritual, mind andmatter. For music is an abstract system of both contrasts

as well as relationships, and when performed elicits a dual

effect: First a transfer occurs in the relationship betweenthe self and the "he" in us, since when I listen to musicI hear myself through it; and second, a transfer occurs inthe relationship between mind and matter since the musicactually lives within me. "A chain of relationships andcombinations," Rousseau termed this in his Confessions(Book Twelve) but one which nature presents to us incar¬nate in "perceptible objects" (Reveries, Seventh Prome¬nade).

It is in these terms too that Rousseau defined his

approach to botany, thus proving that here again hehoped to find both sensitivity and intellect united as onebecause this constituted man's original estate and existedat the moment of the first awakening of the rationalmind, only to vanish thereafter except in rare and preciousinstances.

Rousseau's thought thus evolved from two principles:identification with another, even the most removed"other" of all others including creatures of the animalworld; and the rejection of identification with oneself,that is to say the rejection of everything which mightmake the self seem "worthy". These two attitudes are

complementary, the second actually being the springboard

I'"

Photos Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris

EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL"When one gazes on human society with detachment, it appears at first to reveal nothing but theviolence of the powerful and the oppression of the weak", wrote Rousseau in his Discourse on Ine¬quality. Rousseau's ideas helped to form The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen,in 1789, at the outset of the French Revolution. In this allegorical engraving of the period, a mothershows the Declaration to her son while nearby lightning strikes and shatters special privileges.

for the first: I am not "me" but the weakest and humblest

of "others". Herein lies the true originality of theConfessions.

As for the anthropologist, are his writings anythingelse but confessions? Confessions first about himself, for

as I have pointed out, the discovery of himself is thedriving force of the anthropologist's calling as well asof his work. And then in his work, confessions about his

own society which, through the medium of the anthro¬pologist, has chosen other civilizations and societiesdeliberately among those that appear to be the weakestand the most humble of all, so as to ascertain to what

extent it itself is "unworthy". By unworthy, I mean thatit is in no way a privileged form of society but only oneof countless "others" that have succeeded each other in

the course of millenia, and which because of their diversityand brief moment of duration offer added proof that asa collective entity too man must first come to knowhimself as "another" before he can hope to think interms of himself.

The Rousseauist revolution, as precursor and genesis ofthe anthropological revolution, lies in the repudiation ofcompulsory identifications either of a culture with itsown culture, or of an individual member of a culture witha public figure or rôle which that culture seeks to imposeupon him.

In both cases the culture and the individual assert

their right to free identification, and this can onlybe achieved beyond man, i.e. with all living and thereforesuffering creatures; and also before the public figure or

role, i.e. with a being as such and not one already shapedand classified.

In this way the "I" and the "he", freed from the dis¬tinction that only philosophy has sought to encourage, areonce again united and merged. With their original unitythus restored at last, they can forge together the usagainst the them, that is, against society antagonistic andinimical to man, and which man is the more easily pre¬pared to reject since Rousseau, by his own example, hastaught him how to escape the intolerable contradictions ofcivilized life.

For though it is true that man has been expelled bynature and that society continues to oppress him, he canat least reverse the extremes of the dilemma to his own

advantage by seeking the society of nature in order tomeditate on the nature of society. This, it seems to me,is the lasting message of the Social Contract, the Letterson Botany and the Reveries...

But it is today, for all of us who have come to experienceRousseau's prediction to his readers of "the terror of thoseunfortunates who will live after you," that his thoughtstower to their full height and reveal the broad sweep oftheir horizons..

In this world more cruel to man perhaps than it has

ever been, charged with extermination in every form,massacre and torture not always disavowed no doubt butcomfortably dismissed by us as no longer important sincethey were confined to far-off people who we were told -.o

CONT'D ON NEXT PAGE

FATHER OF ANTHROPOLOGY (Cont'd)

The deadly effects of an illusionsuffered for our good or at any rate in our name In thisuniverse of ours become smaller, more drawn together as

our members steadily augment and with no fragment ofhumanity left safe from insidious attack the anguish ofliving in society weighs on us all.

It' is today, I repeat, because he put civilization on trial,pointing a finger at its iniquities and abuses and deniedthat these could possibly lead to the exercise of virtue inman, that Rousseau can help us to shatter an illusion thedeadly effects of which we are now able alas to observe inourselves and on ourselves. For is it not because of the

myth of the exclusive dignity of human nature thatnature Itself suffered its first mutilation, to be followed

inevitably by other mutilations?

We began by severing man from nature and setting himup as a sovereign kingdom apart. With this we thoughtwe had done away with the one characteristic that cannever be denied, namely that man is first of all a beingthat is alive. And by closing our eyes to this commonfeature the door was opened wide to every outrage andabuse.

Never in the course of the past four centurieshas western man been in a better position to

realize that by arrogating to himself the right to raise awall dividing mankind from the beast in nature, andappropriating to himself all the qualities he denied thelatter, he was setting in motion an infernal cycle. Forthis same wall was to be pulled steadily tighter, serving toset some men apart from other men and to justify in theminds of an ever-shrinking minority their claim to beingthe only civilization of men. Such a civilization, basedas it was on the principle and notion of self-conceit, wascorrupt from the very start.

Only Rousseau raised his voice against this type ofegotism. In the footnote to the Discourse previouslyquoted Rousseau recounts that, from the clumsy descrip¬tions made by travellers, he preferred to recognize thegreat apes of Africa and Asia as men of an unknown racerather than run the risk of denying human nature to

creatures who might possess it.

And the first error would indeed have been less serious

than the second since respect for others springs spon¬taneously and naturally in man, long before reasoning andits sophistries come into play. Rousseau saw the proofof this native response in man's "innate abhorrence towitness the suffering of his fellows." From this we areInescapably led to look upon every creature that suffersas a fellow being and hence entitled to the inalienableright to pity.

For the only hope that each of us can have that weshall not be treated one day as beasts by our fellow menis for all our fellow men, we first amongst them, to lookupon ourselves at once as suffering beings, nurturingwithin us that faculty for pity which in nature replaces"laws, morals and virtue," and without which, as we arenow coming to realize, there can be no law, no morals andno virtue in society.

Thus, far from presenting itself to us as a nostalgicreturn to the past, identification with all forms of life,beginning with the most humble, proposes to humanitytoday through the voice of Rousseau the principle of allcollective wisdom and all collective action. This principle,in a world where overcrowding makes mutual respect moredifficult and therefore that much more necessary, Is the

only one which can permit men to live together and builda harmonious future.

14 It may well be that this teaching was already containedin the great religions of the Far East. But in the tra

ditions of the west where, ever since antiquity, it wasthought that one could play a double game and tamperwith the evidence that man was a living and a sufferingbeing, no different from all other beings before secondaryfactors distinguished him from them, who else but Jean-Jacques Rousseau has made this message available to us?

"I have a violent aversion," Rousseau wrote in hisfourth letter to Monsieur de Malesherbes, "to social

orders that dominate others. I hate the Great, I hate

their condition." Does not this assertion apply first toman who has sought to dominate other living creaturesand maintain a separate state, thereby giving the leasthonourable of men freedom to do the same to other men

and to take advantage of a notion as disgraceful in thislatter instance as it was in the earlier broad context.

In a cultivated society there can be no excuse for theonly really inexpiable crime of man, that of consideringhimself abidingly or momentarily superior, or treatingmen as objects, be it for reasons of race, culture, conquest,service, or merely expediency.

We know that in the life of Rousseau there was one

minute perhaps one second which, tenuous though itwas, he prized above any other. That is why towards theend of his life it was this moment which obsessed him

most and which he took pains to describe at length in hislast work, returning constantly to it in the course of hiscountry walks. Yet. it was no more than his simplyregaining consciousness after a fall which caused him tofaint. But the feeling of being alive is of all others a"priceless feeling" no doubt because it is so rare and souncertain:

"It seemed to me that I filled with my own slender

existence all the objects I perceived... I had no distinctnotion of my individuality... in all my being I felt adelightful calm to which, whenever I recall it, I can findnothing comparable in the full range of known pleasures."

This famous passage in the second Promenade wasechoed in the seventh with an added explanation of whatit meant to him: "I feel ecstasies, ineffable delights inlosing myself as it were, in the system of beings, in identi¬fying myself with the whole of nature."

TJL rhis primeval identification which is deniedman in the state of society and which, having

forgotten its essential virtue, man can no longer feelexcept by chance or by haphazard circumstance, takes usto the heart of Rousseau's work. And if we accord it a

place apart among the great creations of man's genius itis because Rousseau not only discovered in identification

the true principle of the sciences of man and the onlypossible foundation for morality, but because he alsorekindled in us Its ardent flame. For two centuries it has

burned and will continue to burn, firing the crucible in

which the union of beings is taking place notwithstandingthose sociologists and philosophers who in their pride areeverywhere intent on rendering Incompatible the self andthe other, my society and other societies, nature andculture, the emotional and the rational, humanity and life.

Claude Lévi-Strauss is professor of social anthropology at theCollege de France in Paris. The above article is an abridgedversion of his address last year to a commemorative gatheringorganized by the Workers' University and the Faculty of Letters ofthe University of Geneva in homage to Rousseau. The completetext has now appeared in "Jean-Jacques Rousseau" (CollectionLangages) published by Editions de la Baconnière, Neuchâtel,Switzerland.

All reproduction rights reserved.

TEACHING

BASED ON RESPECT

Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris

Rousseau's ideas on the education of children made a vivid impression on his contemporaries.Instead of the harsh, rigid education of the time which treated children like adults, Rousseauproposed a method of teaching based on respect for the child and an appreciation of his sensi¬tivities. In 1 779, one year after Rousseau's death, a monument to the author of Ém//e was erected 15in Geneva. It showed the new type of teacher guiding a child, and his former chains decked ina garland of roses. The evils of the old educational system are shown on a broken medallion.

THE

Rousseau chases his hat

blown off by a gust ofwind. This engraving basedon a painting by Jean-MichelMoreau dates from the

period when Rousseau wasa butt for ridicule and

hotly attacked by the philo¬sophers of his time. Right,Rousseau gathering flowersnear the house in which

he lived at Ermenonville.

R

16

ousseau's work and personality are so rich andvaried that it is not always easy to grasp their

deep-reaching unity and to see them as a whole. Whilewe should keep in mind the connexions between the diffe¬rent aspects of the man and the multiple facets of histalent, it is also rewarding to concentrate on one of theseand to try to walk with Rousseau along one of the pathshe followed, in this case, the path of reverie which, in hisown words, became for him "an intense passion."

Reverie for him effaces the misery of existence andleads to true happiness, such as he enjoyed during hisenchanted stay in the island of St. Pierre, in the autumnof 1765. To his experience there, he devoted some of thefinest pages of Book XII of his Confessions and, above all,the famous fifth walk in the Reveries of a Solitary Wan¬derer. This, his last work, left unfinished and publishedfour years after his death, had a considerable influence onso many of the greatest poets and prose-writers of the19th century, from Senancour to Baudelaire and Rimbaud,and, among many others, Novalis,." Nerval and Hölderlin.

To reach the heart of Rousseau's experience, we mustcast a glance at the part played in his life by solitude andthe contact with nature he found when walking alone.We shall then see how, to use Rousseau's own words (TheSecond Dialogue) "an active heart and a lazy tempera¬ment," aided by a lively imagination, found in day-dream¬ing the supreme form of bliss.

Although Rousseau was often alone, enjoyed solitudeand at certain periods lived very introspectively, he wasfar from being the sour recluse his enemies tried to makehim out. He was no egoist pent in an ivory tower, butan expansive and sensitive being who had, since youth,obviously had great difficulty in adapting himself tosociety, partly because of certain traits of character andpartly because of the circumstances of his life. In thefirst book of the Confessions, he speaks of the lastinginfluence of the novels he had read in his childhood.

They had given him "extravagent, romantic notions ofhuman life, which experience and reflection have neverbeen able to eradicate."

Self-adaptation means taking the rough with thesmooth; not accepting everything, but compromising toa certain extent; admitting the transition from theabsolute to the relative. Rousseau was not always ableor willing to make this effort. Disappointed in his humanloves and friendships, he sought refuge in a world ofreverie, peopled with beings after his own heart. He hadan innate tendency to prefer the immediate and readilyaccessible joys of the imagination to the struggles andsuffering involved in facing up to reality.

It was natural, then, that the persecution his bold ideasbrought upon him and the hatred he felt growing roundhim, magnified by his morbid and pessimistic imagination,should aggravate his love of solitude and his deep convic¬tion that he was different from other men. This persecu¬tion created an ever-widening gulf between him and hiscontemporaries, aggravating the differences between himand them at the expense of what they had in common.

Although he believes himself alone of his kind "I amnot made like anyone I have been acquainted with," hewrites in his preamble to the Confessions he does notyet, at the time of writing his great autobiographicalworks, the Confessions and the Dialogues, feel himself cutoff from the rest of humanity. By justifying himself tohis contemporaries, by leaving to posterity a portraitwhich he believes faithful and absolutely sincere, he istrying to establish contact with his reader.

t is only in the Reveries that he claims to bewriting for himself alone, so that in old age

he may recapture both the memory of the walks andthoughts that would otherwise vanish so swiftly fromhis failing memory, and the joy he feels at the momentof penning them. In his first walk, he describes hissituation as he sees it two years before his death.

"All that is external to me, is now strange henceforward.I have in this world, neither neighbour, nor kinsmen, norbrothers. I am upon this earth as upon a strange planet,whence I have fallen from that which I inhabited... Alone

for the rest of my life, because I cannot find except inmyself consolation, hope and peace, I ought not, and donot wish to occupy myself any longer save with myself...The leisures of my daily walks have often been filled withdelightful contemplations of which I regret having lost thememory. I shall set down in writing those which maystill come to me; each time that I reread them will giveme new pleasure.. I shall forget my sufferings, my perse¬cutors, my opprobrium, in dreaming of the reward whichmy heart has merited."

Rousseau had no expectation of the astonishing successthe book was to have or of the ever-growing public it hasattracted since its publication. We come closer to himin the Reveries than we have ever been, for he takes uswith him into the heart of his spiritual life. The title ofhis last meditations is revealing. Far from breakingwith his past, the Reveries of a Solitary Wanderer throw

SOLITARY

WANDERERby Anne-Marie Pfister


light on his whole life, for the enchantment of solitude,the love of walking and day-dreaming have been familiarto Rousseau since his youth. On one of the playing cardswhich he carried around in his pockets so that he couldjot down the ideas that flashed across his mind as hewalked, he wrote these revealing words:

"In order to justify the title of this collection, I shouldhave begun it sixty years ago, for my whole life hasscarcely been anything other than a long reverie dividedinto chapters by my daily walks."

Solitary life and social life are the two poles betweenwhich Rousseau's life oscillates, ¡as does that of each ofus. He knows, and he reminds us in the Dialogues, that"absolute- solitude is a lonely state and in contra¬diction with nature: affectionate feelings nourish thesoul, the communication of ideas quickens the mind.Life at its sweetest is relative and collective and our real

self is not entirely contained within us. Finally, man is soconstituted in this life that he can never really be hishappiest self without the aid of someone else."

But this aid, as Rousseau conceives it, pre-supposesthe establishment of a friendly relationship betweenpeople, a relationship entirely free of superficiality andbased on reciprocal confidence and equality. Because ofthe disappointment of his profound longing for a societyin which heart would speak Intimately to heart and men,instead of hiding behind the mask of conventional words,would spontaneously express their innermost thoughts;because this absolute transparency cannot be realized inpractice, Rousseau has gradually, "as he got to know menbetter," thrown himself back upon solitude.

He wrote this as early as January, 1762 in thefirst of his four great autobiographical letters to Monsieurde Malesherbes. The originality and the vigour of histhought, combined with extreme sensitivity, could not failto isolate Rousseau. Moreover, the ups and downs of astormy life prevented him from ever quite fitting intoa social group or community. Throughout his life, he wasnever in harmony with those about him and long beforehis exile and his years of wandering, this "citizen ofGeneva" who lived outside his own country, was alreadya person without roots.

Even among the Encyclopedists, the liveliest ofintellectual circles, where he met people of his own level,he did not feel entirely at his ease: their basic convictionsdiffered too widely. Everything conspired, then, tostrengthen his taste for solitude which set him free fromthe, to him, unbearable constraint of community andsocial life and enabled him to indulge his inclination for

sweet reverie, the source of certain and immediate joy.

The love of nature, dating from his childhood yearsat Bossey, at the foot of Mount Salève, was another,unchanging characteristic of Rousseau's life. The passionfor rustic scenery is not necessarily a concomitant of thelove of solitude, but they are often linked. Going for long,lonely walks through beautiful countryside filledRousseau's heart with bliss and gave him an exaltingsensation of freedom.

Recalling his departure from Geneva at the age ofsixteen, he describes the elation and the illuslonary joythat filled him: "Having attained my liberty, I thoughteverything attainable; I entered with confidence on thevast theatre of the world."

he wandering life he led in the prime of hisyouth was an essential experience which

should be kept in mind when one reads the followingadmirable page from the Confessions: "What I mostregret is not having kept a journal of my travels, beingconscious that a number of interesting details have slippedmy memory; for never did I exist so completely, never liveso thoroughly, never was so much myself, if I dare usethe expression, as in those journeys made on foot.Walking animates and enlivens my spirits; I can scarcelythink when in a state of Inactivity; my body must beexercised to make my judgement active.

"The view of a fine country, a succession of agréableprospects, a free air, a good appetite, and the health Igain by walking; the freedom of inns, and the distancefrom everything that can make me recollect the depen¬dence of my situation, conspire to free my soul, and giveboldness to my thoughts, throwing me, in a manner, intothe immensity of beings, where I combine, choose andappropriate them to my fancy, without constraint or fear.

"I dispose of all nature as I please ; my heart wanderingfrom object to object, approximates and unites with thosethat please it, is surrounded by charming Images, andbecomes intoxicated with delicious sensations... In stop¬ping, I thought of nothing but a hearty dinner; on part¬ing, of nothing but a charming walk: I felt a newparadise waiting for me at the door: my one object wasto go and find it."

The paradise opened to him by his imagination gives 17

CONT'D ON PAGE 20

Learning that a warrant had been issued for his arrest following thepublication of The Social Contract, and Emile, Rousseau fled to Swit¬zerland in June 1 762. After spending three often unhappy years atMotiers, he found a new refuge on the tiny island of Saint-Pierre inthe Lake of Bienne (above and below). Never before had he found'such complete and blissful solitude as during the six weeks he spentthere. He strolled about the island, examined herbs and plants andmeditated. He lived in its only house and the walls of the room heoccupied (right) are today covered with Inscriptions left by visitors.Far right, a pavilion where the solitary wanderer came to meditate.

18

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Saint-Pierre : Isle of

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-:

Blissful Solitude

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During his wanderings in exile, "The Citizen of Geneva" was harassed by thelack of understanding and hostility of his contemporaries. In 1962, two cen¬turies after Rousseau passed through their village, the people of Neuveville(above), opposite the island of Saint-Pierre, line their streets to acclaimthe memory of a great man during a re-enactment of Rousseau's visit.

Photos © A. Acquadro. La Neuveville

19

SOLITARY WANDERER (Cont'd)

A longing for closeness with Naturehim more real satisfaction than do worldly goods which,at any moment, may "escape in a thousand ways fromwhomsoever thinks he holds them." Rousseau givespride of place to the imagination which he describes as"the consoling faculty." It compensates him for hisdisappointments and agrees with his temperament. Hedescribes himself as being "lazy to act because of too mucheagerness to desire." In his second Dialogue, he stresseshis tendency to withhold: "contemplative life makes oneloth to act."

Occasionally, Rousseau succeeds in "soaring into ethe¬real regions and hovering there, sustained by sublimecontemplation." He then defies the "blows of fate andthe Insane opinions of men," but what efforts are requiredto reach such detachment! Often, he feels so overwhelm¬ed by his sorrows that his terrified imagination foresha¬dows only a dark and despairing future. At such times,nature, and plants in particular, help him to exorcise thegloomy aspect of his Imagination.

"In this state an instinct which is natural to me, makingme fly every saddening idea, imposed silence on my imagi¬nation, and, fixing my attention upon those objects whichsurrounded me, made me, for the first time, absorb indetail the spectacle of Nature, which I had scarcely con¬templated except in mass and in its whole."

Aj BANDONiNG himself to reverie, he "loses himselfwith a delicious intoxication in the immensity

of the splendid scheme with which he feels himselfidentified." But the moment comes when fusion with all

creation gives way to attentive and detailed observation,which likewise brings Rousseau release and calm. "Itcosts me nothing, nor need I take trouble in wanderingcarelessly from herb to herb, from plant to plant, in orderto examine them, to compare their divers characters, tomark their similarities and their differences... There is

in this leisurely occupation," says Rousseau, speaking ofbotany, in the 7th Reverie, "a charm which is only feltwhen the passions are calmed, but which alone suffices torender life happy and sweet."

Rousseau's imagination needs the support of perceptiblethings; when too abstract, meditation tires and wearieshim. The type of reverie, therefore, which recurs mostfrequently in his life is that which replaces disappointingand painful reality by an ideal company, consisting ofgood, enlightened men, charming and virtuous women,reliable and faithful friends.

In such reverie, life is enacted against a perfectly har¬monious natural background and the day dreaming isfruitful. It gives birth to The New Eloisa. Nevertheless,it Is only a first stage in Rousseau's experience. Not onlydoes the "nothingness of his chimera" sometimes cloudand obliterate the prestige of this enchanted world; hesometimes realizes that even if his dreams became reality,they could not satisfy him.

I felt in myself", he said, "an inexplicable voidwhich nothing could fill, a certain longing of

the heart for some other kind of happiness which I couldnot imagine, yet felt the need of." The thirst for theabsolute and for eternity that lies at the centre of ourbeing makes us crave for such happiness as can onlyrarely be enjoyed on earth, that "sufficing happiness,perfect and full" which the soul, free of all particularaffection, enjoys in the pure feeling of existence, whentime itself stands still and an unlimited present com¬prehends, without distinction, both past and future.

This purified reverie, lulled by the coming and going of20 the waves on the shore, when the imagination is silent

and thought inexistent, is the final achievement of Rous¬seau's inner experience. In this natural mystic ecstasy,

world and self lose themselves in one identity; all separa¬tion disappears; all desire fades; man suffices unto him¬self, as does God. Such was the happiness Rousseauenjoyed in the privileged moments of his stay in the islandof St. Pierre. The experience is described in the fifthReverie.

"The flux and reflux of this water, its continuous sound,swelling at intervals, struck ceaselessly my ears and eyes,responding to the internal movements which reverieextinguished in me, and sufficed to make me feel my exis¬tence with pleasure, without taking the trouble to think.

"From time to time was born some weak and brief

reflection on the instability of earthly things, of which thesurface of the water offered me the image; but soon theselight impressions effaced themselves in the uniformity ofcontinuous movement which rocked me, and which,without any active help from my soul, did not fail toattach me to such an extent that when summoned by thehour and the signal agreed upon, I could not tear awaywithout an effort."

Anne-Marie Pfister is curator of manuscripts at the libraryof the University of Geneva. The article above is taken from thetext of the address she delivered at a commemorative ceremonyhonouring Jean-Jacques Rousseau, held in Unesco House, Paris, onNovember 29, 1962.

SOUVENIRS OF REVERIES &

REVOLUTIONARY CHANGES

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ROUSSEAU'S

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mSk wt WORLD TODAY

Vj \ by Lourival Gomes Machado

1) y Director of Unesco's Dept. of Cultural Activities

:

A bust of Jean-Jacques Rousseauby the 18th-century Frenchsculptor, Jean-Antoine Houdon.

© A. Acquadro, La Neuveville

T:he commemoration of the 250th anniversaryof Jean-Jacques Rousseau's birth coincides

with the bicentenary of two of his major works, Emileand The Social Contract. It also has a special character¬istic rarely encountered in anniversary celebrations ofthis kind actuality.

Mr. René Maheu, Director-General of Unesco, had thisfact in mind when, addressing the world Round Tableorganized at Royaumont near Paris by the French Natio¬nal Commission for Unesco, he declared last year, "toreread Rousseau is to go directly to the heart of today'sproblems." By associating itself, both directly and in¬directly with this celebration and with several similarevents, Unesco has affirmed clearly and unequivocally itsbelief in the validity for our own time of the great themesdealt with by Rousseau.

These themes are strikingly up-to-date and are cer¬tainly destined to remain so until such time as man every¬where has fulfilled his multiple possibilities. This can onlybe accomplished by man through a better knowledge ofhimself.

However, we today should not be intimidated by sucha wealth of ideas. For Rousseau's works have a perfectunity, as surprising as this statement may seem regardingan author whose "lack of method" was so often evoked

by his contemporaries and by succeeding generations.

Modern critics, though, have come to see the unity ofRousseau's work only after long, patient study carried outwith sympathy and understanding, and unmindful of theconsequences which Rousseau's ideas at once carry withthem. These consequences are inescapable and compel usto abandon the misty, innocuous realms of purespeculation.

Fortunately, the reading of Rousseau can begin with anyone of his works without in any way interfering with anunderstanding of his philosophy. The reader can startwith Emile or the first Discourse or a Letter to Christophede Beaumont, The Social Contract, The New Eloisa or theEssay on the Origin of Languages. Each of these textsintroduces the reader to one of the main themes of Rous¬

seau's philosophical point of view. And all these works intheir sweep form part of one complete whole, for asRousseau said in defining the purpose of his meditations:"It is man that interests me." That is why most readersof Rousseau who want to find that aspect of his work

most significant to us today are inclined to choose firsthis treatment of the theme of equality.

For perhaps no one has given to the idea of equalitybetween men a greater world impetus than did Rousseauand the power to instil in every individual respect for allmen wherever they may live and whatever their status.

In Rousseau we find the first modern definition of man

in terms of his intrinsic worth, and henceforth the merefact of being a human being gave one the right to havean education and knowledge of others, human rights andthe esteem of one's fellow men, regardless of origin, raceor creed.

It is this message which explains why Rousseau's ideasswept across frontiers and why everywhere they kindledthe torch of new freedoms which though ever latent,nevertheless remained ignored and unfulfilled.

T:his great theme of the equality between thepeoples of one nation is still in many ways

more a hope than an accomplished fact; and it has foundits contemporary response in the deep preoccupation ofour day to put an end to the inequalities between nationsand people, as Unesco for example, is trying to do.

How many persons and even whole communities are stilldeprived today of certain fundamental human rights,have no opportunity for schooling and are constantlyexposed to disease and hunger. All those whom historyhas neglected in their chance for economic security anddevelopment; all those who, more than others, haveremained outside the pale of man's greatest scientific andintellectual conquests because of circumstances beyondtheir control or hapless chance.

Rousseau's revolutionary ideas will continue to live forso long as such inequalities have not been vanquished.And for those who finally achieve this position of equality,Rousseau's words will sound a note of caution to warn

them how fragile their victory can be.

Only the joint efforts of all nations can guarantee thatall men will be equal as they originally were as membersof the same species Homo Sapiens.

From here, the unity which binds the writings of Rous-CONT'D ON NEXT PAGE

21

MESSAGE FOR TODAY (Cont'd)

Jean-Jacques andUnesco's idealsseau leads us to a new theme on the problems of civiliza¬tions. This subject is as modern today as the previousone and its significance to man was also dealt with byRousseau with admirable depth.

Rousseau stressed the fundamental unity of all mendespite the different civilizations which society hasdeveloped on our planet down the ages. Above individualsocieties of men he saw a single, universal humanity thatis, simply humanity itself.

At a period in history when the foreigner from a far-offland was considered at best as a "noble savage", Rousseaurejected the idea that man could ever be foreign to hisfellow men and proclaimed that universal fraternity wastheir one common denominator.

This idea of fraternity which Rousseau inspired was tohave deep repercussions, not only in the emotionalupheavals of the Romantic Period, but in the struggle fordemocratic ideals which is still going on.

Perhaps the finest homage to Jean-Jacques Rousseauin the past year's commemorations was paid by ClaudeLévi-Strauss when he saluted Rousseau as the first to

realize that "in order to rediscover one's own image asreflected in others, one should first reject the image ofoneself".

For the only satisfactory foundation on which frater¬nity can rest is the world-wide recognition of the principleof equality. This is the ultimate purpose and goal of alltoday's efforts for greater international understanding,and to which Unesco has been unceasingly committed.

In celebrating the 250th anniversary of Rousseau's birth,we are also marking the 200th anniversary of both TheSocial Contract and Emile. It is difficult in this connexion

not to mention, even if only in passing, the importantplace (indeed now the first place) accorded to educationby Unesco as part ot its great cultural objective. For theprinciple of education as Rousseau conceived it has todayfound acceptance everywhere in our modern world.

R;

22

ousseau insisted that heart and mind, theirrational and rational, all played their part in

man's great urge to learn about himself and the world.He considered this urge ever-present, eternally reborn andrevitalized, and strengthened by man's unending searchfor the origin of things.

From the moment he won the essay prize offered by theDijon Academy, Rousseau was opposed to jurists andphilosophers, as Indeed he was to the wave of rationalistthinking in the 18th century. He attacked the jurists andphilosophers for making no distinction between man'sfundamental nature and the accidental existence he is

forced to lead twisted and contorted by a thousand andone forms of inequality.

Nor did Rousseau flinch from later attacking even theEncyclopedists, including those who sincerely liked andadmired him. For he felt they were little more than thestewards of an enlightened elite which regarded itself asthe sole guardian of the struggle against the injusticemaintained by the authorities in power.

And Rousseau realized that liberty and equality as wellas the enormous task of education could no more be left

in the hands of those who held power and denied justicethan in the hands of those who held the privileges ofrank or the monopoly of knowledge.

Today, once again, the peoples who have recentlyacceded to independence have awakened to the need foreducating their young as the very condition for theirsocial stability and their social progress. Thus, far frombeing outmoded, the tasks laid down by Rousseau stillloom large before us. The dream of the solitary dreamerhas become the fabric of our political and social structuresas it has that of our everyday action. For years to comeRousseau's ideas will continue to inspire all those whosetask it is, as he himself said, "to help men to establishtheir rights."

Writing of his exile in Motiers, Switzerland, Rousseau relatedin his Confessions : "I continued to walk quietly through thecountry wearing' my fur bonnet and long coat, surrounded bythe clamours of this scum of the earth and sometimes by theirstones." Engraving (right) shows Rousseau in the situation hedescribed. But history was to offer him a striking posthumousvictory over those who tried to stifle his words. From the timeof the French Revolution his influence was felt unceasingly andhis popularity became immense. Above, portraits of Rousseauand Voltaire used here to illustrate an 18th-century calendar.

* ,

M HIM1 I -.1 ."! 1 ;I-i I I I I

1 M 111

THE ROAD FROM

PERSECUTION

TO APOTHEOSISBelow, Rousseau's portrait flanked by those of Voltaire and BenjaminFranklin. Grouped under the title, "The Torch of the Universe", theywere used as a medallion decoration on a box made during the revolu¬tionary epoch. Left, The Apotheosis of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Sixteenyears after his death his remains are transferred in state to the Panthéon.


23

ORIENTAL ECHOES

OF THE

SOCIAL CONTRACT

There have been three thinkers

in the Far East whose ideas reveal

singular analogies with those ofJean-Jacques Rousseau. Chronologic¬ally they were Houang Tsong-Hiof China, who lived in the XVIIthcentury ; Shoeki Ando, a Japanesecountry doctor who was a contem¬porary of Rousseau ; and anotherJapanese, Chomin Nakae, a writerin the latter part of the XlXthcentury who translated the SocialContract, who was the first to ac¬quaint the Far East with Rousseau's

by Takeo Kuwabara

5 Werner Bischof-Magnum

theories and who was known asthe «Rousseau of the Orient".

Houang Tsong-Hi's period is acentury earlier than that of Rous¬seau ; but, two hundred years afterhis death, Houang's democratic idealwas to inspire the Chinese peopleduring the 1911 revolution, and hewas known to the revolutionariesas the "Chinese Rousseau".

Shoeki did not even know the

name of Jean-Jacques Rousseau but,for many reasons, he well deserved tobe called the "Japanese Rousseau".

A portrait of Houang Tsong-hi (1610-1695) known as"The Chinese Rousseau".

Iwanami Publishing Co

H| ouANG Tsong-Hi was born in 1610 in a repu¬table family of central China during the Ming

dynasty. His father, a learned and scholarly man, wasinvolved in plots against the Court eunuchs and was even¬tually sent to prison where he died. Houang too took upthe political struggle, often at the risk of his life, and onlydevoted himself finally to philosophy when he saw thatthe collapse of the Ming regime was complete.

In 1663 he published a work entitled Ming y tai fanlou. Though only fifty pages in length, it was nonethe¬less a work of prime importance which set out the basicprinciples of his political theory. The title literally means"Political Advice to an Ideal Future Head of State" andthe main chapters of the 13 which make up the prefaceare entitled "What is the Prince?" "What is the Subject?""What is the Law?" "The Prime Minister's Establish¬ment" and "Academy."

In the chapter entitled "What is the Prince?" Houangexplains that man has always looked after his owninterests and that though this may be a natural state ofaffairs, it also means that no one has the public interestat heart or tries to eradicate things which harm the com¬munity as a whole. As a result, it is hard to maintain the"T'ien hia" (a Chinese term meaning human society ascompared with "Kuo" which means the State or theKingdom).

Men thereupon step forward who are prepared tosacrifice their own interests on behalf of the T'len hia

men such as Yao and Chun, kings from a legendary pastwhom the Chinese regard as paragons of princes orsaints. But the kings of later times considered that theT'ien hia belonged to them and lived in luxury andidleness to the detriment of the people: they becamethieves preying on the T'ien hia.

Accordingly, the people regarded the reigning princesas enemies. "The people constitute the most preciousthing in the world," said Mencius, "then comes the Stateand the least precious is the Prince." The Chinese philo¬sopher recognized the .right to revolt, asserting that itwas proper to overthrow a government which harmed theinterests of the people.

The learned men who criticise Mencius, said Houang,are corrupt; and he adds that when an official has aposition in the government it is in order to, serve theT'ien hia (human society), and not the reigning Prince.The law existed in the Golden Age under upright princesbecause laws were established for the benefit of T'ien hia

whereas later on they were promulgated in the interestof the kings so that power, which the kings looked on astheir own property, was transmitted from father to son.They therefore do not deserve to be called Law.

As regards the academy, Houang's thought is entirelyoriginal. The academy was an institution which at one

time grouped the thinkers and scholars. Its principal andits professors were not solely concerned with teaching;they also undertook to raise, in the loftiest sense of thatterm, the political ideal of students. The revered kingsof antiquity invariably accepted the views of the academy.It was not for them to decide on their own account whatwas sound policy; they had to refer the question to theacademy.

Houang called for the revival of this system. The"assembly of Intellectuals" should meet once each monthwith the head of the academy in the place of honour andthe Prince listening among the students. The principal'stask would be to appraise the Prince's policy without fearor favour.

Certain Japanese scholars emphasise the fact thatHouang did not reject the monarchy (in which he differsfrom Rousseau whose ideals were republican and egalita¬rian) and remained a devotee of primitive Confucianismheaded by Mencius. However this may be, the revolution¬ary movement of the T'sing period called on Houang'stheories and when Rousseau's ideas began to be known inChina, via Japan, Houang became known as the ChineseRousseau. It was because of this kinship between theirideals that Rousseau's ideas, through those of Houang,came to play an important role in the modernization ofChina.

S. HOEKi Ando, on the other hand, exercised no' Influence whatsoever in his own country. Very

little is known of his life, not even the exact date of hisbirth and death. It is known that the was a doctor in

Northeastern Japan and that he travelled widely through¬out the country. His masterpiece is the Shizen Shi-neido (The True State of Nature) which was publishedin Kyoto in 1753 in an abridged form.

In the XVIIIth century, Japanese society which hadremained in a state of stability since 1639, when the coun¬try had been virtually prohibited to foreigners, began tosuffer from a disequilibrium which was to lead to revolu¬tion a century later. Capitalism did not yet exist but themerchant middle class was growing stronger. The biglandowners grew increasingly wealthy and the peasantsincreasingly poor. As from 1750, peasant revolts becamemore and more frequent. Such was the period in whichShoeki wrote.

His ideal was the "Chokko no Shinzin" ("The pure manwho cultivates the land with his own hands".) To workthe land with his own hands represents man's true con¬dition. As a result, all men should be free and equal.It is because the true state of nature has been lost and

CONT'D ON NEXT PAGE

25

ORIENTAL ECHOES (Cont'd)

Revelations of the son of a Samurai

26

replaced by an artificial state that classes have come intobeing with the rich exploiting the poor.

This brings us close to Rousseau. But Rousseau was agreat artist whereas Shoeki was little concerned withbeauty of expression. He Is sometimes held to be anatheist because he rejected Buddhist and Confucian doc¬trine, but although he criticized corruption among theShinto priests of his time, he remained in favour ofancient Shintoism.

Shoeki hoped to transform society by gradually return¬ing the Samurai to the land, since they produced nothing,and by turning the great lords into small land-holders orlocal magistrates. But he had no other clear plan for thefuture. He did not even envisage the concept of a "socialcontract" and, while his criticisms were harsh, he didnothing to overthrow the established order since heloathed violence. His philosophy was based on natureand he believed in a necessary co-operation between allthe component parts of society. Good and evil were notabsolute opposites; nature required their co-existence.

A century after Shoeki's death, the feudal system of theTokugawas was abolished, but Shoeki's theories played nomore part in this revolution than those of Rousseau, forthe very good reason that nothing was known of Rousseauin 1868 while Shoeki had been utterly forgotten. Japan'smajor need at that time was modernization, without whichthe country would have been entirely dependent on theWestern countries which had already achieved theirIndustrial revolution. And it was to bring about modern¬ization that the people overthrew the feudal government.Ten years later, a great anti-government movementdemanded liberty and equality, the "Jiyu-Minken-Undo"based on Rousseau's theories and with Chomin Nakae asits ideologist.

okusuke Nakae, the son of a Samurai ofShikoku Island, is better known by his pseu¬

donym of Chomin which means "people numbering athousand million." This name which he chose for himselfis indicative of the way his thoughts ran. Chomin learntDutch and French and spent two years in France. Onhis return, he founded a school where he lectured onFrench civilization (language, philosophy and politics).

In 1882, he completed his translation of The Social Con¬tract but as early as 1877 manuscript excerpts were cir¬culating in liberal circles. It is certain that this trans¬lation stimulated the spirit of resistance and the rebellionagainst the despotic government. In 1883, the translationof the Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts followedthat of The Social Contract.

Chomin subsequently contributed to various newspapersand periodicals and disseminated Rousseau's democraticideas so thoroughly that the government expelled himfrom the capital. When the first National Assembly wasconvened in 1890, he stood as a candidate and was electedbut resigned in order to protest against bribery whichoccurred when the government paid certain deputies, evenincluding liberal deputies, to ensure that the budget wasvoted.

Opposed by the government, the "Jiyu-Minken-Undo"the Democratic Liberal Movement had failed, but there

can be no doubt that it contributed to the formation ofthe constitutional government. The 1889 Constitution didnot recognise the supremacy of the people but it wouldhave been even more dictatorial in essence had the demo¬cratic movement never existed.

The ideologist Chomin felt responsible for the fate ofthe people. He did not become a statesman but remaineda thinker whose influence was considerable in China aswell as Japan. His main work, the San Suijn Keirinmondo (Political Discussion among Three Drinkers) pre¬sents the pro-Western "Yogaku-Shinshi" who urges theimmediate creation of a democratic republic; the nation¬alistic "Goketsu-Kun" who holds imperialist viewsregarding the continent of Asia and, finally, the moderate"Nakai-sensei" who seeks to reconcile the demands of hiscompanions by proposing gradual modernization.

This discussion among the three drinkers clearly sumsup the political problems of the period. Chomin himself

used the arguments of the "Yogaku-Shinshi" but with thereasoned qualifications of the "Nankai-sensel." He classi¬fied democratic systems in two categories: the first, thosewhich the people had obtained through force and thesecond, those consented by the Prince. The latter he con¬sidered the more estimable.

Like Rousseau in The Social Contract (Book 11, Chap¬ter 6), he believed that it was possible and necessary toestablish a republic in Japan while retaining the monarchin his position.

Chomin, however, believed more in evolution than inprogress and, in this sense, he divides with Rousseau. Inhis view, both nature and mankind evolve and men shouldassist that evolution. Again, his ideas were based onmaterialism and atheism reached via Buddhistic natura¬

lism. Confucianism had strongly Influenced him, too, and,while he may have rejected the Chinese philosopher's doc¬trine on the political level, he was nonetheless deeplyaffected by his thinking.

Thus we discover three Asians whose ideas were linked

with those of Rousseau. This strange homogeneity givesus much on which to ponder. Is it because the separa-

teness of urban existence and its associated wealth raisesa social problem in all societies based on peasant life andagriculture and because luxury engenders inequality? Inthat case, no matter what the country, liberal and sen¬sitive thinkers preoccupied with this contradiction followa revolutionary line of thought which precedes industrialrevolution. Since science and techniques have not yetsucceeded In radically transforming human society, suchthinkers evoke an ideal society which is supposed to haveexisted in the past. If they cannot unveil the structuresof the future, they infuse their analysis of reality withcertain idealistic elements which are to contribute to the

building of new social structures and thus play their partin the society of the future.

takeo kuwabara is director of the Institute of Cultural Sciencesand professor of French literature at the University of Kyoto,Japan. The article above is adapted from an address given byProfessor Kuwabara to the World Round Table on "Jean-JacquesRousseau and Modern Man" , held in Royaumont, near Paris, fromJune 28 to July 3, 1962.

'(

I 'r:'. '

" ü«*!2«

Mexican farmers learn some new agricultural methods thatimprove yield and quality of Indian corn crops. Combinedefforts of the Mexican government and international organi¬zations have been giving a large boost to Mexico's agriculturaloutput. Wheat harvests alone have doubled in the past decade.

:; *%£?& ¿«PR %^^^7i 5rm

wwm^î Paul Almasy, Paris

THE INDIVISIBILITY

OF WORLD PROSPERITY

THE ANATOMY

OF UNDERDEVELOPMENT

(Pt 4) *

In many of today's underdevelopedcountries, economic developmentinvolves the rapid and simulta¬neous carrying out of so manynation-wide activities that often

only governments are competentto provide the necessary initialimpulse and over-all supervision.Even governments, however, lacksome of the means required forthis immense task. Technical assis¬tance on a vast international scale

¡sthe subject of this, the concludingarticle in a series based on a new

study produced by the United Na¬tions under the title "Aspects ofEconomic Development: The Back¬ground to Freedom from Hunger."

(*) See The Unesco Courier, July-August, Sep¬tember and November 1962.

fOR the first time in history, men, wherever theylive, are learning to think of the resources and

welfare of the human race as something of concern toall. For the first time, the peoples of the world arebeginning to share their vast experience and accumulatedknowledge. The existence of the international secretariatsis itself evidence of a new outlook.

Here, a body of specialists in many fields, recruitedfrom the most diverse backgrounds and working underan oath of objectivity, is available to assist and advisegovernments in the formulation and execution of theireconomic and social policies. This change in human

attitudes is still no more than tentative, but the Englishhistorian, Sir Arnold Toynbee, has described it as perhapsthe most significant mark of our times.

Just as individual firms, industrialists and others in the

underdeveloped countries are turning to their governmentsfor help, so governments are turning to the worldcommunity of nations. There are many ways, direct andindirect, in which the international organizations canmake such help available to them. Certain forms

of direct assistance, namely technical and pre-investmentassistance and the financing of economic development mayfirst be briefly examined.

CONT'D ON NEXT PAGE

27

WORLD PROSPERITY (Cont'd)

Man's greatest common enterprise

The governments of countries undergoing economicdevelopment can seek technical assistance from a varietyof sources, such as the United States International Co¬operation Administration, the British CommonwealthColombo Plan, the U.S.S.R. foreign aid programme or thebilateral aid programmes of France, the Federal Republicof Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and other countries.

The larger foreign aid programmes operate on animpressive scale. Thus, the United States allocates foreconomic, as distinct from military, assistance over $2,000million per year. The British Commonwealth ColomboPlan disbursed approximately $3,500 million in the period1950-1957.

The equivalent of over $8,000 million is aid to be devotedeach year by the industrialized countries as a whole tovarious forms of economic assistance. This figure Includes

about US $1,600 million from private investment, of whichover $1,000 million comes from Western Europe.Substantial assistance Is given in various forms by suchcountries as the United Kingdom, France and theNetherlands to colonies or former colonies. The French

outlay on such assistance, not counting Algeria, is saidto amount to 1,2 percent of the national income, whichis claimed as a record.

The governments of underdeveloped countries also turnfor help to the United Nations and the related inter¬governmental agencies, for all of which technical assis¬tance has become an extremely important activity. It iswith technical assistance provided by the United Nationsand those agencies that we are concerned here, althoughits annual volume so far represents only a fraction of that

supplied bilaterally.

he U.N. Expanded Programme of TechnicalAssistance was launched in 1950, since the

assistance given by the United Nations and the SpecializedAgencies out of their regular budgets was proving muchtoo modest for the needs. This Expanded Programme is

paid for by voluntary contributions made annually bygovernments, members of the United Nations or Spe¬cialized Agencies. It is co-ordinated by the TechnicalAssistance Board (T.A.B.), which consists of representa¬

tives of the United Nations and of the eight intergovern¬

mental agencies which also participate in the programme.

The organizations participating in the Expanded Pro¬gramme are the United Nations, the International AtomicEnergy Agency, the International Labour Organization,the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Na¬tions, the United Nations Educational, Scientific andCultural Organization, the International Civil AviationOrganization, the World Health Organization, the Inter¬national' Telecommunications, Union and the World

Meteorological Organization.

Each of these participating organizations works withina specific field. Economic development as such is one ofthe responsibilities of the United Nations, although theterm is so broad that all the activities of the participatingagencies are in some degree associated with economicdevelopment programmes. United Nations technical

assistance is closely integrated with the work of theDepartment of Economic and Social Affairs.

Early each year, T.A.B. notifies governments of the

approximate sum which is expected to be available to eachunder the Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance

in all fields during the next year, and asks for an official

28 list of requests for experts and fellowships to be drawnup in order of priority. Technical assistance is given onthe basis of such requests. Each year, the report of T.A.B.

to the Technical Assistance Committee of the Economic

and Social Council reviews the work of the previous twelvemonths and critically appraises progress and trends.

Under the Expanded Programme, experts in a greatvariety of fields are made available to governments re¬questing their services, and fellowships are awarded fornationals of the economically underdeveloped countries tostudy the most recent techniques which have beendeveloped abroad. In certain cases, limited amounts of

equipment may be made available, primarily for demons¬tration purposes.

t any moment, there are over a thousand

k experts . serving on foreign missions for the

T.A.B. and other technical assistance programmes organ¬ized by the U.N. family. Since 1950, about 10,000 of themhave been sent out from 83 countries and territories and,in the same period, some 20,000 fellows from 149 countriesand territories, have studied abroad a multilateralpooling of skills such as has never before been attempted.

Every problem of economic development has at sometime been the subject of a request for expert advice orfor fellowship study. Technical assistance given underthe T.A.B. programme ranges from advice given directlyto a Prime Minister on long-range economic planning inall fields to technical guidance on some defect revealed in

the manufacture of a spare part. The advice of the

"older" countries is continually being placed at thedisposal of those with less experience.

Even countries which are comparatively new to indus¬trialization are often asked, under the United Nations

programme, to make some of their few experts availableto help others which are about to grapple with theobstacles we have been studying. It has been found thattheir special knowledge of the obstacles and difficultiesrenders their advice particularly valuable and makes themquickly able to assess needs.

At the 1958 General Assembly session, a United NationsSpecial Fund was established "as a constructive advance

in United Nations assistance to the less developedcountries." Special Fund assistance differs from tradi¬

tional U.N. technical assistance in several importantrespects. For one thing, it concentrates on relatively moreexpensive projects. The average gross cost of the first

205 projects approved was somewhat more than $2 million,with the Special Fund contributing $850,000 to each, andthe recipient Government the remainder.

hURTHER, the projects not only involve biggerteams of experts but also a much higher

equipment component. This ranges from the provisionof an airplane for forestry inventories to supplying rigsand diamond drills to find ground-water.

Finally, the projects are designed to have the widestpossible impact on the economic and social developmentof the countries, particularly by facilitating new capitalinvestment. Thus the Special Fund provides a kind oftechnical assistance in depth, assistance specially gearedto make substantial investment feasible and more effec¬tive.

This "pre-investment" assistance falls into fourprincipal categories: .

surveys of needs for skilled manpower and of naturalresources, for instance mineral and geological sur¬veys, water power, hydraulic and meteorological

Unesco-Almasy

In those tropical countries which are "sun-rich" but poorin conventional fuels like oil and coal, solar energymay one day become a widely-used source of power torun pumps, refrigerating plants and to purify brackishwater, for example. Research is now being stepped up.Above, a solarimeter at the Solar Energy Laboratory,University of Dakar, in the Senegal Republic, is usedto measure solar radiation that is diffused by the sky.

surveys, other land and water use surveys, and fishingsurveys ;

applied research, such as agricultural, fishery,veterinary, forestry and industrial research;training, especially of teachers and extension

workers, in such fields as agriculture, forestry, ani¬mal health and fishing, in industry, engineering,transport and communications and for secondaryschool teachers; and

training and advisory services in economic planningand public administration.

Mr. Paul G. Hoffman, formerly head of the United States"Marshall Plan" for European post-war recovery, isManaging Director of the Special Fund. He is responsibleto a Governing Council of eighteen States elected by theEconomic and Social Council. Half of the members are

industrially advanced nations, and half low-income

countries. Requests for Special Fund assistance aresubmitted by governments to the Managing Director, whorecommends to the Governing Council for its approvalonly those considered to meet the criteria of the SpecialFund and to offer promise of early results.

The objective is always to speed up the integratedtechnical, economic and social development of the lessdeveloped countries. The implementation of each projectthus far approved has been entrusted to the services of the

United Nations or one of its specialized agencies.

Today's underdeveloped countries face formidableobstacles in the struggle to increase the earning power oftheir people. Often there is no mercantile class ready tobecome the entrepreneurs of a new historical phase, and

in many lands the educated classes show active distaste

for the industrial or commercial life. Inadequate know¬ledge of the prospects before a new industry is an addeddeterrent to those who have capital. The mass of thepeople is far too poor to have money for investment orfor the purchase of manufactured goods.

Land reform and other social changes may be an essen¬tial preliminaty to any substantial increase In theearnings of the people. New attitudes of mind which

machinery and industrialization require on the part ofmasses of men are also a conspicuous need. At the sametime, care must be taken to preserve, as far as possible,those social and other values of the non-industrialized

culture which might otherwise be needlessly sacrificed inthe helter-skelter of change.

In these circumstances, governments have come to playan important role in economic development, for In all thecountries concerned, development involves tasksecono¬mic, educational and social of a magnitude which callsfor some degree of central planning and co-ordination.But, while the role of national governments may be vital,governments themselves require international help incarrying out these huge tasks.

H ELP is given by the United Nations, the spe-l cialized agencies and the International Bank

through technical and pre-investment assistance, throughinternational loans and through the machinery for regularconsultation and for specialized publications provided bythe international organizations. These publications haveestablished themselves as a unique source of informationon economic and social development.

Side by side with numerous bilateral programmes oftechnical aid, the United Nations and the specializedagencies are assisting governments on request by providingthem with internationally recruited experts and withfellowships for their own nationals to study abroad.

Not the least important aspect of economic developmentis the remarkable opportunity it is giving for International

discussion and exchange of knowledge. For the first time,technical assistance and related activities are making itpossible to bring the entire world's experience and skillsto bear upon each individual country's problems. Whilethe international organizations are using economic deve¬lopment, as the Charter requires, to help raise livingstandards, they are also finding In it a means to further

world co-operation and to promote the friendship ofnations.

N evertheless, despite all that has been done to

publicize economic development programmes,there is not yet sufficient understanding of the vast issueswhich they involve for man's future. The urgency of theneed for increased assistance is not yet grasped by themass of the people, and even by many public figures, inthe industrialized countries from which that assistance

must chiefly come.

Nor are the nature and duration of the effort which

will be called for in the less developed countries them¬selves always fully understood by their citizens, any more

than the profound changes of attitude that will sometimes

be required before living standards can be made to rise.The economic state of any society is the result still more

of the psychological state of its members than of its

geographical situation or natural resources.

We are engaged upon perhaps the greatest enterprisewhich man has yet undertaken in common. We cannot

yet be sure of success, and we know that the effort will beexacting and very long. But the energy and persistencywith which we pursue this effort must be the measure of

our high ambition. (End.)

29

This year and In 1964 Unesco's programme gives top priority to education. In addition to pre-30 paring a world adult illiteracy campaign, Unesco will step up its aid to newly-independent and

developing countries which need to expand and improve their school systems. Above, timeout from the classroom for children from a temple school in the heart of Benares, India.

© Richard Lannoy.

UNESCO 1963-1964

A WORLD PROGRAMME

FOR EDUCATION

SCIENCE AND CULTURE

he Unesco General Conference held its 12thsession In Paris from November 9 to December

12, 1962, under the presidency of Professor Paulo de Ber-redo Carneiro of Brazil. Among the important decisionstaken three stand out: the election of a new Director-General for Unesco, an increase in membership of theUnesco Executive Board and the approval of Unesco'sprogramme and budget for 1963-1964.

Three heads of statethe President of the Council ofMinisters of the U.S.S.R., the President of the UnitedStates and the President of the French Republicsentmessages of good wishes to the Conference. Mr. Krush¬chev's message was received on November 9, that of Presi¬dent Kennedy on November 13 and that of General deGaulle on December 12. The French President hadpreviously received the members of the General Committeeof the Conference at the Elysée Palace, on November 16.

One of the first tasks of the Conference was to elect aDirector-General of Unesco. On November 14, by anoverwhelming majority, it elected for six years Mr. RenéMaheu of France who had served as Acting Director-General since the resignation of Mr. Vittorino Veroneseof .Italy in 1961.

Responsible for the execution of Unesco's programmeand its general policy between sessions of the GeneralConference, the Unesco Executive Board Is composed ofpersons of special competence in the arts, humanities,the sciences, education and the diffusion of Ideas whoare elected as Individuals, but represent the governmentsof their respective countries. In view of the great increasein the number of Unesco's Member statesfrom 44 to 113in the past 16 years the Conference decided to raise theBoard's membership from 24 to 30.

The chief task of the Conference was to examine and

approve Unesco's programme. After taking stock of thework carried out since its previous session, the Conferenceoutlined Unesco's tasks for 1963-1964. To finance them,it voted a budget of $39 million as compared to a previoustwo-year budget of just over $32,500,000. Unesco will alsodispose of extra-budgetary resources from the UnitedNations Technical Assistance Programme, estimated atabout $12 million for the next two years. In additionUnesco will serve as executing agent for a number ofUnited Nations Special Fund Projects.

ÎVE special priority projects stand out inUnesco's programme for 1963-1964:

A world literacy campaign;

A programme of international co-operation in scientifichydrology ;

A major study of main trends in social scienceresearch ;

A programme for the study and development of schoolbuilding plans;

A study on the use of satellites for telecommunicationpurposes.

Top priority was given to education. The Conferencevoted a total of $9.9 million for education out of theregular budget and In addition an estimated $17.3 millionwill be available for educational activities from UnitedNations Technical Assistance and the U.N. Special Fund.

The General Conference discussed at length the prob¬lems raised by the need to eradicate illiteracy through¬out the world. Each year the number of adult illiteratesin the world increases by between 20 and 25 millions.

Today there are an estimated 500 million of illiteratepeople aged between 15 and 50 years of age. "Shamefulfigures," declared Mr. Maheu at the opening of the Confe¬rence, "shameful for moral reasons because of theinjustice to which they bear witness, shameful, too, forstrictly economic reasons because of the fantastic wasteof intellectual resources that they represent."

Unesco will work out concrete and effective measuresfor the launching of a world campaign which, In itsinitial phase, will aim to bring literacy to 350 millionpeople. This action will be a major Unesco contributionto the United Nations Development Decade (See TheUnesco Courier, June, 1962). Declaring that Unesco wasready "to promote and support such a campaign," theConference added that it should be carried out inconjunction with programmes for the extension of primaryeducation.

he Conference decided to establish in Paris anInternational Institute of Educational Plan¬

ning which will provide special courses for governmentofficials and administrators, educational planners andeconomists or other specialists from institutions concernedwith encouraging economic and social development. Atthe same time the Conference stressed the importanceof research and assistance concerning school buildingconstruction, and decided to increase assistance given inthis field in 1963-1964.

Regional aid in education a large part of Unesco's grow¬ing operational activitieswill be concentrated on Africawhere the most urgent needs are the recruiting andtraining of teachers, the building of schools and theproduction of textbooks. Large-scale aid, however, is alsoforseen for activities benefiting the Arab States, Asia andLatin America.

By its decision to include in the natural sciences pro¬gramme preparatory work for an International HydrologieDecade, the Conference recognized the extreme gravityof problems concerned with various aspects of watermanagement in many parts of the world. Hydrology, thescience which treats of water and its distribution over the

earth's surface, its properties and laws and its use byhuman beings, needs to be rapidly developed so that acuteproblems due either to lack of water or to the misuse ofpresent water resources can be met.

In vast areas of the world basic facts and figures relat¬ing to water are insufficient or even Inexistant; there arenowhere near enough specialists in this field. Even ineconomically-developed countries few universities offertraining courses for hydrologists, as such, and countries inthe throes of development need scientific help and advicein order to create laboratories and research institutes.

In preparation for the International Hydrologie Decadein 1965, the Unesco Conference decided to call a specialmeeting in 1964 to discuss and adopt an international pro¬gramme in scientific hydrology. In the meantime Unescowill offer fellowships and organize training courses so thatmany countries will be able to participate In this pro¬gramme once it is adopted.

The social science programme as outlined by theConference reveals a clear trend towards concrete applica¬tions. The role of the social sciences as a "hinge" hadbeen recognized, declared Mohammed El Fasi, President ofthe Programme Commission, "not only because they are

CONT'D ON NEXT PAGE

31

WORLD PROGRAMME (Cont'd)

Prospects of communication satellites

essential to a clear-sighted planning of education itself,but because they provide young nations with the meansto proceed with their development clearly and rationally,and the international community in general with ways tograpple with some of the major problems of the modernworld."

The Conference decided to support the establishment inVienna of a co-ordination centre for social science researchand documentation, where specialists from countries ofdifferent social and economic systems will collaborate. Atthe regional level, Unesco will aid the Latin AmericanSocial Science Faculty at Santiago, Chile, the LatinAmerican Research Centre at Rio de 'Janeiro and theResearch Centre on Social and Economic Development inSouthern Asia at New Delhi.

u nesco will also carry out a major study of main trends in social science research similar to

the remarkable survey that was made of world scientifictrends and technological research (*) which couldprovide a new basis for and give fresh impulse to thebranches of the social sciences in question.

Unesco's programme in the field of mass communicationfor 1963-1964 will have three main objectives: (1) to pro¬mote the free flow in information and the development ofthe means and techniques of mass communication; (2)to develop the use of these media and techniques in theservice of education at all levels; (3) to stimulate theiruse in furthering international understanding.

A Unesco World Enquiry carried out during the pastfour years at the request of the United Nations has shownthat about 70% of the world's populationsome 2,000million peoplestill lack adequate Information facilities.

In various ways Unesco is to help developing countriesto set up or to expand their newspapers, news agencies,radio broadcasting services and, where applicable, educa¬tional television services. Unesco's Department of MassCommunication in addition will assist countries to makewider use of modern information techniques at all levels ofeducation, as well as already established methods such asfilmstrips, slides and tape recordings.

After discussions on the free flow of information, theConference noted "the lightning progress made during thepast two years in the launching and peaceful utilizationof artificial earth satellites" and- considered that "thesemarvellous achievements of science and technology, andthose which may be expected in the near future, open ur»boundless prospects for the free flow of information withpeaceful aims, the education of young people and adults,the universal dissemination of knowledge... and culturalexchanges between countries." It authorized Unesco'sDirector-General "to study the consequences which theuse of new techniques of communication on a worldscale... are likely to have."

One of the consequences in question will be the_ need to re-allocate the radio frequency spec¬

trum to make provision for the use of appropriate fre¬quencies in the communication satellite service. A specialconference of the InternationalTelecommunications Union(ITU) will open in Geneva next October to allocate fre¬quency bands for space radio communication purposes. Asubsequent meeting of specialists, to be held at Unesco'sH.Q. in Paris, will make further studies aimed at achievinga common programme concerning Unesco member statesand international organizations, and will also put forwardnew recommendations for Unesco's programme in 1965-1966.

Unesco's programme of international exchanges willalso be devoted to international communications but in adifferent form. Unesco's exchange service will, in additionto publishing "Study Abroad" and "Vacations Abroad,"

32(*) "Current Trends in Scientific Research" by Pierre Auger

(See The Unesco Courier, April 1962).

also bring out a new volume, "Handbook for InternationalExchanges" which is designed as a standard work ofreference in the field of exchange. The Exchange Servicewill also administer some 1,500 Unesco fellowships in1963-1964.

Finally, the Conference underlined the role of culturalactivities, alone capable of preparing the way for ahumanism in which universality and diversity are reconcil¬ed. Philosophy and the humanistic sciences are calledupon to advance knowledge of different cultures andcivilizations and to go thoroughly tato the cultural aspectsof present-day world problems. Unesco offers a frame¬work for and a bridge between the studies and researchof thinkers and scholars. The constructive exchangesthus encouraged open the way to broad new perspectives.

A share for everyone in cultural life one of the rightslaid down in the Universal Declaration of Human Rightsis a condition of social progress. The man in the streetwill have increased opportunities to appreciate the resultsof Unesco's work, whether through the popularization oftreasures of art (world art albums and pocket art books),of the cinema (aid to art and cultural films), of literature(series of translations of classical and modern works fromEast and West), or of music (records in a Musical Antho¬logy of the Orient).

During the next two years, the major project on themutual appreciation of Eastern and Western culturalvalues will aim mainly at the establishment or strengthen¬ing of research and teaching institutes capable of ensuringpermanent future exchanges between large culturalregions.

'roblems relating to the protection of theworld's cultural heritage remain principally

centered on the specific case of the Nubian monuments.Thanks to Unesco's intervention, major archexcavations of vital historical significance have beencarried out and a large number of monuments have beentaken to places of safety or protected where they stand.

But there is still a question mark over the fate of thetemples of Abu Simbel. The Conference refused toguarantee a loan of $30,500,000 to finance the lifting ofthese rock temples and instead, issued a new appeal forvoluntary contributions to governments and to public orprivate institutions. An executive committee of represen¬tatives from 15 countries is to meet before March 31 to

study the results of this appeal.

In the words of Professor de Berredo Carneiro, "Unesco

has given itself the task of promoting mutual understand¬ing among the peoples, of giving a powerful stimulus toeducation and the dissemination of culture and of assist¬

ing in the maintenance and advancement of knowledge."Yet all these actions must be indissociably linked With anideal which is written in its Constitution: the maintenanceof peace. Thus another of Unesco's permanent functionsis to encourage the adoption by governments of laws andpractices essential to peace and intellectual progress.

Two recommendations of this kind were adopted. Thefirst, concerned with technical and vocational education,stresses the need to develop this form of education accord¬ing to common principles covering the organization,orientation, staffs and methods of schools for training,engineers, technicians and skilled workers. The secondaims at guaranteeing the protection of rural and urbanlandscapes which, despite their esthetic value, "are indanger of being disfigured by building development andland speculation."

These, in brief, are the main achievements of the 12thsession of the General Conference in preparation for thetwo years ahead. The whole forms the programme ofUnesco which has set out to establish a system of co¬

operation and social harmony on rational foundations for,as Professor de Berredo Carneiro reminded the GeneralConference, "Without a far-reaching reform of opinionsand moral codes through education, the social sciencesand the development of culture, it will be impossible tocontrol the disturbances which increasingly affect Inter¬national life."

Letters to the EditorBETTER INVESTMENTS

THAN ARMS

Sir,

Unesco cannot concern itself exclu¬

sively with problems of education,science and culture, standing asidefrom the struggle to maintain worldpeace. Today, Unesco should do allin its power towards reducing presentworld tensions. The most effective

way to safeguard world peace is forall nations to agree to total disarma¬ment.

You could explain what mankind islosing by investing gigantic resourcesin armaments. What wonderful pro¬jects for the transformation of ourplanet could be carried out with thismoney, with a benefit to everyoneand an improvement of living stan¬dards in all lands.

M.J.M. DellargLéopoldville, Republic of the Congo

SOCIETY CALLS THE TUNE

Sir,

In the November 1962 issue of your

superb magazine (of which I amregrettably a rather late subscriber) isthe most interesting article "Societycalls the Tune" by Peter Lengyel. Tofellow-readers interested in this subject,I strongly recommend "Music, itsSecret Influence Throughout the Ages"by Cyril Scott (John F. Rider Inc.,New York), In the Chapter "TheFuture of Music", Mr. Scott prophe¬sied the invention of new musicalinstruments to be used in the music

of the future. "Perhaps the instru¬ment invented by MM. Baschet andLasry, is one of the those prophe¬sied many years ago.

Harry ScheidCleveland, Ohio, U.S.A.

Sir,

I am a student of the Bartok Con¬

servatory of Budapest. In your Nov¬ember 1962 issue I read with greatinterest an article by Mr. Peter Len¬gyel, "Society Calls the Tune". Ishould like to express my thanks toMr. Lengyel for his writing. I thinkhis article has done much in the for¬

mation of my opinion about music.

Csaba ErdelyiBudapest, Hungary

GERHART HAUPTMANN

AND ALFRED KERR

Sir,

In his article on Gerhart Haupt¬mann (Sept. 1962) Karl Ruhrbergwrote: "Alfred Kerr, the dramatic cri¬tic, who devoted a lifetime to com¬menting on Hauptmann's developmentand explaining his intentions, declaredthat the basic sentiment in his writingwas longing longing for a betterworld, where all men would be bro¬thers, all class and racial prejudicesforgotten."

A reader unfamiliar with events that

took place around 1930 would be led

to believe that throughout his lifeAlfred Kerr had been a supporter ofGerhart Hauptmann. But such isnot the case, and in the interests ofhistorical fact it should be made clear

that what Karl Ruhrberg calls "a life¬time" ended brusquely in 1933 whenKerr cut himself off from Hauptmannfor ever. He did this not through bitter¬ness over the destiny which forcedhim, as it did so many other figures onthe German cultural scene, to eat thebitter bread of exile, but because hecould not forgive Hauptmann fortaking sides with the persecutors andexecutioners of those he had defendedin his social drama "The Weavers".

In November 1933, Kerr wrote inthe "'Volkstimme" of Sarrebrucken:

"The author of these lines has alwaysbeen a friend of Hauptmann... we havefollowed together the road of life un¬til today. No, rather until yesterday...Since yesterday we have nothing incommon."

Kerr certainly did not expect Haupt¬mann "to man the barricades". But

he did believe that although the au¬thor of "The Weavers", could not findthe strength to protest, even in silence,against the masters of the Third Reich,he would never go so far as base flat¬tery. "This man", »wrote Kerr, "whothroughout his life was regarded as apoet of altruism, bows and scrapes be¬fore the mortal enemy of altruism.He cannot utter a single word of pro¬test against the most barbarian of thebarbarians. He witnessed an act of

inhumanity. His closest friends werethe victims... he kept silent and linkedhimself in unequivocal friendship withthe gaolers of Germany.

We wish in no way to besmirch thememory of Gerhart Hauptmann. Ourpurpose is simply to prevent the crea¬tion of a legend which would showAlfred Kerr at the side of the author

of "The Weavers" to the very end.Emil Locher

Neuhausen am Rheinfall

Switzerland

THREAT TO MAN & BEAST

Sir,

Pierre Guillon's letter (In Defenceof Fertilisers, December 1962 issue)was in reply to one from Michel Lam¬bert (Are We Poisoning Ourselves?July-August 1962 issue.)

The answer seems to be yes! It isnot fertilizers which contain toxic

chemicals but some sprays for weedand insect control. In Great Britainmuch wild life is threatened byresidual poisons. Some farmers andmany private gardeners are ininnocent bliss of the damage they arecausing to both wild life and man.

Certain doctors believe very manycases of deformed children being bornare due to these toxic chemicals.

They remain in the body or plantand cannot be excreted. When fatal

quantities have been built up deathresults. The red-backed shrike, orbutcher bird, is much rarer inEngland than it used to be. So areother birds of prey, especially thekestrel. Their prey die from

poisoning and are eaten by theirnatural enemies. In their turn theyare killed by the accumulation of toxicchemicals in the bone marrow.

Sometimes humans eat plants andanimals so affected. Are we poisoningourselves?

K. H. Lavender

Herne Bay, England

DRAWBACKS OF

ARTIFICIAL LANGUAGES

Sir,

E.D. Allen of Dunedin, New Zea¬land asks (in the December 1962 issue)"Could not Esperanto be a second lan¬guage common to all the people of theworld?". I am a former Esperantistand my reply is simple and direct:"No!".

Esperanto is an artificial languageitself a. contradiction in terminis andis not viable because it lacks the cul¬

tural and spiritual foundations thatgive to a language its quality of lan¬guage. Furthermore once Esperantohas been learned there is no need to

learn other languages, which representthe world's different cultural areas.

Thus one is deprived of the keys totheir literary and other intellectualtreasures, treasures which help one toa better understanding of specialdifferences between peoples, andthereby to better mutual understand¬ing.

Against Esperanto as a vehicularlanguage my objection is that it is notfeasible to create a language and intro¬duce it into an international commu¬

nity whose existing languages are thelogical outcome of historical develop¬ment.

It is often necessary to learn a sec¬ond language in addition to one'sown, as for example, in my countryDutch is a difficult language and notwidely known elsewhere but in suchcases the second language must belearned as thoroughly as possible.

My study of Esperanto has convinc¬ed me that this language is not suitablefor general use and thus can do littleto build practicable roads between thenations. By its admirable effortsUnesco seeks to draw within the

community of the world's intellectuallife, all those at present illiterate. Inorder to enter this community it is farbetter to learn languages like English,Russian, Chinese, Arabic, French andSpanish rather than Esperanto.

Robert H. J. van KuykBussum, The Netherlands

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY

Sir,

I should like to see more articles

on Europe particularly in view of thetremendous importance that the Eur¬opean Economic Community willhave upon Europe generally and onthe resulting relations through tradewith the African and Asian coun¬

tries.

H. C. Sallnow

Cardiff, Wales

33

From the Unesco New

IN THE STEPS OF ROUSSEAU: A special 110-page booklet, "In the Footsteps of Jean-Jacques Rousseau", illustrated by 22 colour slides has been prepared under the auspicesof the French and Swiss National Commissions for Unesco to mark the 250th anniversaryof Rousseau's birth. It contains a text by Anne-Marie Pfister, Curator of Manuscripts atthe University of Geneva Library and a preface by Jean Guehenno of the AcadémieFrançaise. Booklet and slides (in 5 x 5 cm. mounts), produced by Publications Filméesd'Art et d'Histoire in Paris, are available in parchment or plastic cases from: GreatBritain: Miniature Gallery, 60 Rushett Close, Long Ditton, Surrey; 59/6 (parchment), 54/6(plastic); U.S.A.: Prothman, 2787 Milburn Avenue, Baldwin, Long Island, N.Y.; $15.00(parchment), $12.00 (plastic), $9.00 (for teachers); Canada: Queen's Printer, Ottawa,Ont. $8.00 (parchment). $7.00 (plastic).

POLAND'S OLDEST UNIVERSITY:

The Jagellon University at CracowPoland's oldest will celebrate the 600th

anniversary of its foundation next year.The university is being modernized and en¬larged for this event and among the newbuildings are 14 scientific institutes. Over130 universities in all parts of the worldhave been invited to attend the commemo¬ration ceremonies.

AU.S. WATER ATLAS: The story ofU.S. water resources has been told for

the first time in a single reference book."Water Atlas of the United States" is a

comprehensive visual guide in which 40maps and descriptive texts offer a wealthof water facts: sources, quality, availabilityand uses. Available from Water Informa¬

tion Center Inc., 60 East 42nd St., NewYork 17, N.Y.

DUCKS, SUN AND STARS: Navigation¬al experiments with young ducks

carried out at California University, U.S.A.,have proved that as long as the sun isshining or stars are visible these birds canfind their way through unknown territoryto their favourite pond. A zoologist trainedthe ducklings to find water to the east oftheir cage and each time they were able tosee the sun or stars, they found the rightdirection.

SWEDEN'S NEW SKY-EYE: A tele¬

scope with a range of "several thousandmillion light-years" is to be built on the

Swedish west coast near Gothenburg. De¬signed for radio astronomy, space researchand tele-satellite communications, it willenable Swedish scientists to share more fullyin international space research.

DAY MOTHERS NEEDED: Millions of

children need day mothers becausemore and more young women are takingwork outside the home, reports the WorldHealth Organization, reviewing needs ofday-care centres around the world. In theU.S.A. alone, over three million of the84 million working women have childrenbelow school age.

COAL DUST DISSOLVES GLACIERS:

Soviet scientists seeking. ways to speedup the melting of glaciers and thus increasewater supplies for irrigation have found aneffective method: coal dust sprinkled on theice. Five tons of dust on each square kilo¬metre doubles or even trebles the flow ofwater. Glaciers in the Soviet Union cover

about 77,000 square kilometres and containabout 15,000 cubic kilometres of ice.

BOMBAY'S TECHNOLOGY INSTI¬TUTE: Starting in a temporary build¬

ing in a newly-reclaimed jungle area sixyears ago, the Indian Institute of Techno¬logy at Bombay has grown into a fullyfledged engineering institution with 1,600students. It recently held its first gradua¬tion ceremony. The Institute has benefitedfrom Unesco aid since 1956 and manyUnesco specialists are working there today.

UNESCO PHILATELIC SERVICE

NATIONS UNIES KêB

i ás sí

-Vv' "ÀiW^j

34

OBMflHHEHHblE HAUHH

Development throughScience and Technology

The first 1963 U.N. commemorative stamp (left,was issued on February 4 to mark the opening ofthe U.N. Conference on the application of Scienceand Technology for the benefit of the world's lessdeveloped areas in Geneva. Issued in 5 cent and11 cent denominations, it calls attention . to theobjectives of the present U.N. DevelopmentDecade. As agent in France of the U.N. PostalAdministration, Unesco's Philatelic Service stocksall U.N. stamps and first-day covers currently onsale, and those issued by Unesco member statesto commemorate important events in the historyof Unesco and the U.N. For prices and furtherdetails write to The Unesco Philatelic Service,

Place de Fontenoy, Paris 7e.

WORLD THEATRE IN WARSAW:The tenth World Theatre Congress,

organized by the Polish Centre of the In¬ternational Theatre Institute is to be heldin Warsaw in June. Over 200 dramatists,

producers, actors, scene designers, criticsand theatre historians from 50 countries are

expected to attend.

ISRAEL AIDS IRAN: Israeli agriculturalexperts, irrigation specialists and rural

planning advisers have arrived in Iran tohelp build a model village in the area whichwas devasted by earthquakes last year.The new village will be a pilot project forthe reconstruction of other agriculturalcommunities in the region.

SAWING THROUGH ICE: Soviet engi¬neers have designed a new icebreaker

that saws her way through ice packs. Thevessel's long inclined prow is fitted withsaws which slice through the ice. As theship moves forward the ice slides up anincline and on to conveyors which dump itover the sides.

T^TUCLEAR POWER AHEAD: Sweden's-L' power resources will become 26% nu¬clear by 1980 according to present plans.By that time, water power at present 94%of the country's power supply will havedropped to 65%.

FREEDOM-FROM-HUNGER WEEK:Well over 100 member states of the Uni¬

ted Nations or its Specialized agencies willissue special stamps during World-Freedom-from-Hunger Week (the last week ofMarch). The stamps are being issued insupport of the World Freedom from Hun¬ger Campaign launched by the U.N. Foodand Agriculture Organization. As theyappear they will be put on sale by theUnesco Philatelic Service (see box on thispage).

Flashes.. i

B An international océanographie researchoperation to determine potential fisheryresources in the tropical Atlantic has nowbegun. Vessels from Argentina, Brazil,the Congo (Brazzaville), Ivory Coast, Nige¬ria, the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A. are due totake part.

In the past ten years the population ofHong Kong has shot up from one million tothree and a half. To help feed this boomingpopulation, Hong Kong's acreage of fishponds has been doubled. Value of fishproduced annually is now over H.K. $5million.

B The problem of paying for education wasrecently defined in these terms: "To giveeach child, eight years of primary educationin the following countries, would cost, atcurrent prices, about 0.80% of the nationalincome in the U.S.A., 1.7% in Jamaica,2.8% in Ghana and 4% in Nigeria.

B Forty-five countries have now joined orratified the Unesco-sponsored UniversalCopyright Convention under which statesgrant foreign works the same protection asthose of their own nationals. Norway andFinland are the latest countries to ratifythe Convention.

JUST PUBLISHED

VACATIONS ABROAD

unesco

STUDY

ABROAD

VOLUME XIV 1963

Its 740 pages give full details on

130,000 opportunities for studyand travel abroad in 1963 and

1964, offered in 116 countries

Price : 1 5/- (stg) ;

$3.00; 10.50 F. F.

Gives full informa¬

tion to help you tomake stimulatinguse of your vaca¬tions

SUMMER

COURSES

STUDY TOURS

WORK CAMPS

186 pages

6/-(stg.)U.S.S1.75

4.50 F.F.

Vol. XV 7963

VacationsAbroad

Vacances à l'étrangerVacaciones enel

extranjeroXV 1863

UlieSCO Work Camp*Cour* etvtA'Wjct1* dï-tuci-f*chftntiera iiiu'rnírtioninrx

Cursof-^viaje* de iftudio,efunpo-j inttTnlfcinnal«-» d.t rnlw-.i" valtm-Uü-io

Where to obtain Unesco publicationsOrder from any bookseller, or write direct to

the National Distributor in your country. (See listbelow ; names of distributors in countries notlisted will be supplied on request.) Payment ismade in the national currency ; rates quoted arefor an annual subscription to THE UNESCO COU¬RIER in any one language.

AFGHANISTAN. Panuzaï, Press Department, RoyalAfghan Ministry of Education, Kabul. AUSTRALIA.Melbourne University Press, 369 Lonsdale Street,Melbourne, C. I., Victoria. (A. 1 5/-). AUSTRIA.Verlag Georg Fromme & C°., Spengergasse 39, Vienna V(Sch. 60.-). BELGIUM. Editions " Labor ",342, rue Royale, Brussels, 3. NV Standaard-Boek-handel, Belgiëlei 151. Antwerp. For The UnescoCourier (100 FB) and art slides only: Louis de Lannoy,22, place de Brouckère, Brussels. CCP 3 3 80.00.BURMA. Burma Translation Society, 361 Prome Road,Rangoon. (K. 5.50). CANADA. Queen's Printer,Ottawa, Ont. ($ 3.00). CEYLON. The AssociatedNewspapers of Ceylon Ltd., Lake House Bookshop,100 Parsons Road, P.O. Box 244, Colombo, 2. (Rs. 9).

CHINA. World Book Co. Ltd., 99 Chungking SouthRd., Section 1, Taipeh, Taiwan (Formosa). CUBA.Librería Económica, Pee Zayas 505-7, Apartado 113,Havana. (2.25 pesos). CZECHOSLOVAKIA. ArtiaLtd., 30 Ve Smeckách, Prague 2. DENMARK. EjnarMunksgaard, A/S Tidsskriftafdelingen, Prags Boulevard 47Copenhagen S (D.kr. 12). ETHIOPIA. InternationalPress Agency. P.O. Box 120. Addis Ababa. FINLAND.Akateeminen Kirjakauppa, 2 Keskuskatu, Helsinki.(Fmk. 540). FRANCE. Librairie de l'Unesco, Placede Fontenoy, Paris-7'. CCP. 12598-48. (7 F.).. GERMANY. R. Oldenbourg Verlag, Rosen-sheimer Strasse 145, Munich. For the Unesco Kurier(German ed. only) Bahren-felder-Chaussee 160,Hamburg-Bahrenleld.CCP. 276650 (DM 8). -GHANAMethodist Book Depot Ltd. Atlantis House, CommercialSt., POB 100, Cape Coast. GREAT BRITAIN. SeeUnited Kingdom. GREECE. Librairie H. Kauffmann,28, rue du Stade, Athens. HONG-KONG. Swindon

Book Co., 64, Nathan Road, Kowloon. HUNGARY.Kultura, P.O. Box 149. Budapest, 62. INDIA. OrientLongmans Ltd. Indian Mercantile Chamber, Nicol Road,Bombay 1; 17 Chittaranjan Avenue, Calcutta 13; Gun-foundry Road, Hyderabad, 1 ; 36a, Mount Road, Madras 2;Kanson House, 24/1 Asaf Ali Road, P.O. Box 3 86, NewDelhi,- 1 ; Sub-Depot: Oxford Book & Stationery Co.,17 Park Street, Calcutta 16, Scindia House, New Delhi.Indian National Commission for Co-operation withUnesco, Ministry of Education, New Delhi 3. (Rs. 7).INDONESIA. P. N. Fadjar Bhakti, D|alanNusantara 22, Djakarta. IRAQ. Mackenzie'sBookshop, Baghdad. IRELAND. The National Press,2, Wellington Road, Ballsbridge, Dublin. (10/-).ISRAEL. Blumstein's Bookstores Ltd., 3 5, AllenbyRoad and 48, Nahlat Beniamin Street, Tel-Aviv( 1 £ 5. SO).

JAMAICA. Sangster's Book Room, 91 HarbourStreet, Kingston. Knox Educational Services, Spaldings.(10/-). JAPAN. Maruzen Co. Ltd., 6 Tori-Nichome,Nihonbashi, P.O. Box 605 Tokyo Central, Tokyo.(Yen 670). JORDAN. Joseph L. Bahous & Co.,Dar ul-Kutub, Salt Road. P.O.B. 66, Amman.KENYA. E.S.A. Bookshop, P.O. Box 30167, Nairobi.KOREA. Korean National Commission for Unesco,P.O. Box Central 64, Seoul. LIBERIA. Coleand Yancy Bookshops Ltd., P.O. Box 286, Monrovia.LUXEMBURG. Librairie Paul Brück, 22, Grand-Rue,Luxemburg. MALAYAN FEDERATION ANDSINGAPORE. Federal Publications Ltd., Times House,River Valley Rd., Singapore (M. S 500) MALTA.Sapienza's Library 26 Kingsway, Valetta. (10/-).MAURITIUS. Nalanda Company Ltd., 30, BourbonStreet, Port-Louis. MONACO. British Library, 30 Biddes Moulins, Monte-Carlo. (7 NF.). NETHERLANDS.N. V. Martinus Niihoff, Lange Voorhout, 9, The Hague,(fl. 6). NETHERLANDS WEST INDIES. G. C. T.Van Dorp & Co. (Ned Ant.) N.V., Willemstad, Curacao

NEW ZEALAND Government Printing OfficeWellington, and Government Bookshops, Auckland,Wellington, Christchurch Dunedin (10/-). NIGERIA.'C.M.S. Bookshop, P.O. Box 174, Lagos. (10/-). NOR-

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A/B CE. Fritzes Kungl. Hovbokhandel, Fredsgatan 2,Stockholm. For The Unesco Courier: Svenska Unes¬

coradet, Vasagatan 15-17, Stockholm, C (Kr. 7.50);SWITZERLAND. Europa Verlag, 5 RämistrasseZurich. Payot, 40, rue du Marché, Geneva. CCP.1-236. " Courier " only: Georges Losmaz, 1, rue desVieux-Grenadiers, Geneva. CCP. 1-4811. (Fr. S. 8).

TANGANYIKA. Dar-es-Salaam Bookshop, P.O.B.9030, Dar-es-Salaam. THAILAND. SuksapanPanit, Mansion 9, Rajdamnern Avenue, Bangkok. (35ticals). TURKEY. Librairie Hachette, 469 IstiklalCaddesi, Beyoglu, Istanbul. UGANDA. UgandaBookshop, P.O. Box 145, Kampala. UNION OFSOUTH AFRICA. Van Schaik's Bookstore, LibriBuilding, Church Street, Pretoria. For the Unesco Cou¬

rier (single copies) only: Central News Agency, P.O.Box 1033, Johannesburg. (10/-). UNITED ARABREPUBLIC (EGYPT). La Renaissance d'Egypte, 9 Sh.Adly-Pasha, Cairo. UNITED KINGDOM. H.M.Stationery Office, P.O. Box 569, London, S.E.I. (10/-).UNITED STATES. Unesco Publications Center,801 Third Avenue, New York, 22, N.Y. ($ 5.00.)and (except periodicals): Columbia University Press,2960 Broadway, New York, 27 N.Y. U.S.S.R. Mez-hdunarodnaja Kniga, Moscow. G-200.Yugoslovenska Knjiga, Terazije 27/11, Belgrade.

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A giant intake pipe is installed on the site of the FurnasHydro-Electric Development Projectthe largest of itskind ever undertaken in Latin America. Sited on thebanks of the Rio Grande in the Brazilian state of Minas

Gerais it is being built with aid from the InternationalBank for Reconstruction and Development (The World

Bank). When completed in 1965 the installation will adda further 1,200,000 k. w. to Brazil's electrical powerresources. Forthe first time in history the peoples of theworld are beginning to share out their skills and resour¬ces among the less fortunate nations. This is one of themost significant developments of ourtime. (See page 27).

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Jean Jacques Rousseau; The UNESCO Courier: a window open on ...

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