Yesterday marked the fifth anniversary of the Lowell Institute Cooperative Broadcasting Council's efforts in the field of adult education.

The Council was formed in the spring of '46 when the presidents of Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Tufts, Northeastern and Boston College met with Ralph Lowell '12, trustee of the Lowell institute to discuss plans for the joint use of commercial broadcasting facilities in the Boston area. The first broadcast was on February 3, 1947.

In the past five years, the Council has prepared 894 hours of programs for radio and television stations. In addition, 877 hours of broadcasting have already been completed over the Institute's own FM station, WGBH, located in Symphony Hall and inaugurated last October 6.

WGBH has recorded and broadcast many University lectures and events, including several courses given last summer at the Summer School.

It is the only radio station of its kind in the country in which a major symphony orchestra is collaborating.

In addition to the B.S.O. and the six faculties, the Museum of Fine Arts and the New England Conservatory of Music join in composing the council.

The Lowell Institute's Cooperative Broadcasting Council yesterday inaugurated a new program over WHDH and WHDH-FM. The program "The American idea" each week will feature three or four Nieman Fellows who will discuss the growth of the ideas which characterize the United States with a leading faculty member of a college or university in the Boston area.

Yesterday, Oscar Handlin, associate professor of History, outlined the ideas of Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island and an early advocate of religious freedom in America. Handlin was joined by William F. Freehoff Jr., editor of the Kingsport, Tenn., "News," Joseph Givando, reporter for the Denver "Post," A. G. Ivey, associate editor of the WinstonSalein "Sentinel," and John J. Steele, United Press correspondent.

Some of the historical figures to be considered in the series are Benjamin Franklin, John Marshall, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt '04.

The series will be broadcast over WHDH and WHDH-FM, Sunday evenings from 6:05 to 6:30 and will be repeated later over WGBH, the Lowell Institute's FM station.