The Foreign Service Journal, February 2004

equipped than is the average American college graduate in all those things which contribute to his ability to observe and interpret a foreign environ- ment, in the things that appeal to the eye and ear: architecture, applied arts, industrial process- es, methods of agriculture — in all those things, in other words, that make up the outward expressions of custom, tradition and belief. I have often been appalled and dismayed to see the imper- viousness and indifference of young Americans to phenome- na of a foreign environment which are new to them and which, as it now seems to me, should set them agog with astonishment and wonder. And what appalls and dismays me most is to reflect that of all the Americans I have known to whom this might be said, I think the worst case I have ever known was myself, as I was when I first went to live abroad some 23 years ago. Finally, he should have a sufficient experience with real scholarship, in the genuine academic sense, to understand at least the meaning of that concept, and to distinguish an unscholarly and unsound bit of intel- lectual work from a scholarly and sound one. I per- sonally do not think we can say that average under- graduate training in this country generally satisfies these demands. It was for this reason that I was one of those who looked with some favor on the scheme of a special Foreign Service Academy along the lines of West Point and Annapolis … Again, we have the possibilities of in-service train- ing. I am enthusiastic about that program. I think it deserves every support. But I am still inclined to feel that the raw material with which we work in the Service should come to us initially with broader and better intellectual equipment than has been the case in the past. And this, to my mind, means that a larger percentage of our candidates should undergo a year or two of appropriate post-gradu- ate study before coming to the Foreign Service. … In my opinion, the sub- ject of post-graduate study is not really important, providing it affords a genuine intellectual discipline and the appreciation of the meaning of scholarship which I have just mentioned. Here, of course, we have the question of special instruction in the foreign relations field. This is a very complicated one. There is no simple answer to it. My own feeling is that where such instruction is founded on a fearless realism as to the nature of the world in which we live and particularly the nature and limitations of our own country, and where it is rooted firmly in the basic sciences of which it can, in my opinion, consti- tute only an eclectic synthesis, then it can be possibly the best preparation a man could have for Foreign Service. But where foreign affairs instruction fails to meet these requirements, where it is not based on realism and where people become carried away with the pleasant sound of their own pleasant words, then I think it can easily degenerate into a pseudo-science, which is of little use to anybody and particularly to us. … What we need most of all is sufficient insight into one field of academic research to enable the man to understand the intertwining and the interdependence of all forms of human learning, to give in this way a universal quality to his curiosity and his interests, and to instill in him a dignified humility before the com- plexity and profundity of the problems of our time. October 1951 — How New Are Our Problems? The first of two articles written for the FSJ while in Europe, on extended leave from the Department of State. … If, then, the newness of our age lies neither in man himself nor in the natural environment with which he is surrounded, where does it lie? I would suggest that it lies in three things: first, in the greater numerousness of the human species; second in the F O C U S 44 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 4 Where foreign affairs instruction is not based on realism and where people become carried away with the pleasant sound of their own pleasant words, then I think it can easily degenerate into a pseudo-science. Susan Maitra is the Journal ’s senior editor.