School for Internationalists

A new school with a sesquipedalian name this week sent its first alumnus to work in the State Department. The School of Advanced International Studies and Foreign Service Training Center was under way.

Many a U.S. college and university has taught the fundamentals of international law, diplomacy and foreign trade. And until the State Department stopped giving examinations for the Foreign Service in September 1941 (it will start again after the war), there were several Washington cram schools which undertook to stuff candidates with the right answers. But until S.A.I.S. set up shop, in a remodeled brick office building on Washington's Florida Avenue, there was no U.S. school of postgraduate calibre which undertook: 1) to give prospective diplomats and foreign traders highly individualized, up-to-the-minute training for specific jobs abroad; 2) to help the diplomats and businessmen understand each other's problems.

To finance the new school, a potent group of businessmen, diplomats and educators last summer initiated a novel plan. U.S. corporations which do business abroad would be asked to put up the cash. In return each could enroll one or more of its employes tuition-free--the number to be determined by the size of its contribution.

By autumn there were enough cash and promises to guarantee a $200,000-a-year, five-year trial. The school opened with only 25 students (most sponsors could not spare any men). But already students, teachers and sponsors feel confident of success.

Head of the school is able Dr. Halford L. Hoskins. onetime dean (1933-44) of Tufts College's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Faculty members include such practicing experts as John Newbold Hazard. FEA authority on Russia, John S. Dickey, director of the State Department's Office of Public Affairs, Herbert Feis, economic consultant to the War Department. They do most of their teaching in seminars. Maximum enrollment has been tentatively set at 130. Students may attend from a few months to two years. At present they range in age from 20 to 46 (average: 23), are alike only in their ambitious internationalism.

The State Department traditionally avoids official recognition of foreign service schools. But among S.A.I.S.'s 22 trustees are Under Secretary of State Joseph Grew. Assistant Secretary Will Clayton. Special Assistant to the Secretary Robert Woods Bliss.

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