Early last December Dr. Tillman, a consultant to the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, set out on a trip to Asia to study the Peace Corps and the Fulbright program in that area, worldview is pleased to have been granted permission to publish portions of the diary he kept on his journey, printed for the use of the Foreign Relations Committee. (Excerpts from Dr. Tillman's "Latin American Diary," chronicling an earlier journey undertaken for a similar purpose, appeared in the Summer, 1967 issue.)

International education is in a state of extreme crisis. The International Education Act signed into law by President Johnson on October 29, 1966, has yet to be funded. Recent congressional allocations with respect to international exchange programs have been slashed by an unprecedented 30 per cent — from $46 million to $31 million. Hardest hit was the Fulbright program whose funds were reduced approximately 72 per cent. The Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs which oversees the exchange programs has planned an overall geographic cut, and Western Europe which traditionally has received the most grants will experience the largest numerical cut.

Leo Tolstoy once remarked that “certain questions are put to mankind, not that men should answer them, but that they should go on trying.” The highly complex Middle East situation in which we must deal with the rights of Jews and Arabs against the background of a power struggle between a Russia and an America with nuclear weapons often seems to be one of those questions. I do not here propose to offer any final answer. But I will try to state clearly what I conceive to be some misconceptions blockinga possible solution.

James Reston wrote recently, “It is a time of strong passions and weak reason.” While one can hardly say anything but touché, could not the same be said of the whole Age of Conflict since 1914? The Time of Troubles which began with the outbreak of what was known before 1939 as the Great War has been characterized by many conflicts and crises, triumphs and tragedies. Vietnam, Nigeria, the Middle East, racial strife in America and elsewhere around the globe all are part of the pattern of this painful epoch of transition. Instead of putting these and other leading issues of the day in historical perspective, all too many leaders in this country have outdone the under-thirty set in irrationality.

Nothing stays fixed very long in our world. Change is the natural context of our lives. Some would claim that it is the very philosophical climate of the times. The spontaneous operation of the modern consciousness is to strain anxiously toward the possible, the not-yet. This is now so habitual a stance that we sometimes forget it is a relatively recent one. It is our principal heritage from the nineteenth century. Before then, change had never been experienced as 50 vital a factor in cultural life. That century, if we agree with J. S. Mill, was marked by a transition from a prevailing worldview that was relatively static and timeless to one predicated upon constant and even violent change.