It is to make up for this lack of close friendship with Americans that such ideas as the "Big Brother" system have been proposer. In theory, the Big Brother will be an American male to whom the foreign student can confide his problems, and who will help the foreigner to make other masculine and feminine contacts. But it would seem that there is not much fundamental that can, or should, be done in these two areas.
If American men do not develop the kind of deep friendships certain foreigners do, then it seems unlikely that the University or anyone else can do much to alter this cultural trait. And similarly, it seems impossible to do much about male-female relationships. American girls tend to prefer mates from their own cultural background, even from their own class within the culture. From the standpoint of sound marriages, this is probably a good thing, and it is probably best if male-female relations across cultures do not proceed too seriously.
Congenial Mingling
Social contact on a more superficial level, however, is certainly desirable. Some schools, such as M.I.T., take an official interest in this, and sponsor various teas and dances. At Harvard, the Foreign Student Office has generally left this aspect up to other organizations. Chief of these is the International Student Center on Garden Street. Sponsored by a private organization in Boston, it recruits its members from all the colleges in the area. It provides group activities and a congenial atmosphere where foreign and American students can meet, mingle, and work together.
The Center has adopted the Red Cross "donut girl" theory of providing superficial feminine companionship in healthy surroundings. A majority of the American girls who belong to the Center are either young wives, or girls who work at the local colleges. The former have an obvious protection against over-intimacy, and the latter generally handle themselves with more poise in awkward social situations than a college girl might.
Foreign Club
Criticism has often been levele against the Center as being mainly a "Foreign Students' Club," where foreigners can come and meet only foreigners, or where, at best, the foreign student can meet Americans who are not college students and probably do not have interests similar to his. To a limited extent this is true, but the Center does have a 35-40 per cent American membership, and already this year it has succeeded in attracting more than 100 Radcliffe members.
Several other organizations also help the foreign student make superficial social contacts. In Boston, groups such as the English-speaking Union and the Pan-American Society sponsor social functions for the foreigner. And at Harvard, HIACOM last spring started inviting small groups of foreign students to eat dinner in Eliot House with interested Americans. Though the program is much too young to be thoroughly evaluated, it seems to have been successful at least to the extent that all concerned had an interesting evening. Whether the program will foster enduring friendships between the older foreign graduate students and the younger American undergraduates remains to be seen.
Date Bureau?
But a definite problem remains. Dating is still something most foreign students can do little more than think about. Many, it is true, are not much concerned with getting dates, but a certain minority is. This can be attested to by several Radcliffe girls, who have found that after once being friendly with foreign students they are endlessly besieged with calls. Whether any Harvard-sponsored social program would help the situation seems doubtful. Matters such as these are not readily legislated, and the impetus will probably have to come from individual students who discover how rewarding contacts with foreigners can be.
It is important, however, not to exaggerate the social plight of the