Boston's foreign population will get a chance to learn the story of its adopted country from Harvard men next week when Phillips Brooks House sends out a team of speakers, trained to present the background of America in graphic and interesting fashion.
Five undergraduates will present the material, intended to form a composite picture of the United States, historically, politically, and geographically, to foreign born audiences in the scttlement houses of the Boston area, according to the plan devised by John C. Lacy '42, chairman of the P. B. H. Speaker's Committee and Ray C. Dennett, graduate secretary.
No Flag Waving
The plan was formed in response to a questionnaire sent by John F. Studebaker, commissioner of education in Washington, to every privately endowed college in the country, asking what it was doing in the way of sponsoring Americanization of aliens.
Dennett, to whom the questionaire was referred by Dean Baker, decided that additional work might be done besides the undergraduate faculty work in teaching foreign students English and the P. B. H. supervision of International House. The result was the speaking plan.
Each speaker of the team will talk for approximately eight minutes on his given subject, and each subject will fit into the next so that the five topics will form a complete whole. The speakers, coached by Frederick C. Packard, Jr., associate professor of Public Speaking, will be prepared to answer questions.
"The talks will not be attempts to wave the flag or to make the eagle scream," Dennett guaranteed. The purpose he announced, is to stimulate interest in Americanization by a skillful presentation of material.
The members of the team are Robert C. Conley '43, speaking on U. S. Politics; R. Richard Coombs '42, on Events Leading up to the American Revolution; Robert C. Lesserte '41, on Constitutional Development; John F. Prudden '42 on Geography of the U. S., and Chairman Burton R. Lewkowitz '43 on the Southwest.
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