Education: Hall of Nations

A Methodist institution, opened in 1914 on Washington’s northwest side, American University has ever since been trying to live up to its imposing name. To most Washingtonians it is merely a trim collection of white buildings. Students of the social sciences know and respect its School of Public Affairs and its earnest Graduate School. To diplomatic Washington, however, American University is notable as the school where Ellery Cory Stowell teaches international law.

Last week American’s Professor Stowell, a gracious, greying cosmopolite who has lived and studied in Russia, Berlin and Paris, and has more friends in Washington’s embassies and legations than most State Department officials, was thanking his friends for their help with an extraordinary scheme: to bring one student from each of the 54 countries represented diplomatically in Washington to study a year in the U. S. Christened the Hall of Nations, and with headquarters at American University where most of the students will enroll, Professor Stowell’s project already has on its advisory board 46 diplomatic representatives.

The Hall of Nations was launched two months ago with a ball in Washington’s Mayflower Hotel. With Mrs. J. Borden Harriman, the New Deal’s new Minister to Norway (see p. 13), as chairman, and such diplomatic bigwigs as Great Britain’s Sir Ronald Lindsay and France’s Georges Bonnet in the receiving line, the ball produced funds for two fellowships. Onetime (1929-33) Secretary of State Henry Lewis Stimson awarded these by lot to Czechoslovakia and Nicaragua.

Professor Stowell’s Hall has since been blossoming with Brazil’s Ambassador Oswaldo Aranha volunteering to send five Brazilians, a Committee for Mexico promising three fellowships, onetime U. S. Ambassador Alanson Bigelow Houghton donating one for Great Britain. Pan American Airways has offered free plane transportation to 20 Latin American students. Last week Promoter Stowell, announcing that the first Hall of Nations fellowship had been awarded to 22-year-old Jan Bazant of Brno, Czechoslovakia, made ready to sail for Europe to put the Hall of Nations over in an even bigger way.