MAPPING INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION: AN HISTORICAL SURVEY 1893-1944

Robert Sylvester

Mapping the Territory Claimed by International Education in the 20th Century

The conceptual maps that we are currently using to construct our modern sense of an emergent field of international education are largely untested and incomplete. A more realistic and contoured description of international education requires possibly a complete reconsideration of the history of international educational activities over the past 150 years. This is needed, if for no other reason than to examine critically the current mythology of international education that sees the field simply as a direct outcome of the horrors of two World Wars or a by-product of the second age of globalisation (Friedman, 2000) that followed.

Among the most distinctive problems in international education research is that of limiting the term international education within a realistic field of vision. For example, university libraries using the Library of Congress catalogue system currently designate ‘international education’ in their online catalogues as ‘works on education for international understanding; world citizenship, etc’ (see Tufts Library Catalog online at www.library.tufts.edu, and Harvard University Library Catalog online at http://hollisweb.harvard.edu). Such a simple and practical mapping of the term international education, while widespread in its use, has yet to be explored in a disciplined fashion in the research literature. It especially needs to be tested against the depth of historical material on international education before World War II which has recently come to light. In another effort towards defining international education, the distinguished encyclopedist, Torsten Husén (1994) observes that international education combines aspects of both theory and practice: ‘International education refers to both the objectives and content of certain educational pursuits and to the institutionalization of such activities.’ (Husen, 1994: 2972). Husén also summarizes the goals of international education as being: ‘to increase the awareness of students and to promote reflection and research on global issues.’ (Husén, 1994: 2973). The mapping of international education, therefore, could be visualized as embracing a field of vision wide enough to contain global issues related to both international understanding and world citizenship, while at the same time being expressed in both theory and practice. 

The research problem with regard to a mapping of the term ‘international education’ became more evident in the literature of the 1990s. Arum and Van de Water (1992) approached the problem of definition directly: 

What is international education? We use the term more and more yet seem to pay less and less attention to what it means. Why? Do we assume everyone knows what it means and agrees with the way we use it? Has it become so generic that it does not require any definition? Or is the term ‘international education’ so ambiguous, so nebulous, that it defies any easy definition so it receives none at all? ... As we look into the future, it is increasingly important to define the terms that define our emerging profession and work toward a higher level of understanding regarding what we mean when we use the term ‘international education’ (Arum and Van de Water 1992: 191). 

Arum and Van de Water (1992) then refer to Butts (1969) who believed: ‘To be sure, it often had an imprecise meaning, because so many different people have assigned different enterprises to it in the course of its usage ... Much of the trouble in the past has been that the term has had multiple and often vague connotations for many different types of activities’ (Butts 1969: 7) cited in Arum and Van de Water 1992: 193). Arum and Van de Water then observe: ‘To make matters worse, professionals and non-professionals alike use some of the following terms interchangeably: international education, international affairs, international studies, international programs, global education, multicultural education, global studies, the international perspective, and the international dimension’ (p 193). It is possible that the conflating of a constellation of existing academic disciplines in order to construct a working model of ‘international education’ became an increasingly overworked device in the descriptions of international education after World War II. 

Scanlon and Shields (1968) much earlier described a further and equally fundamental research problem related to international education. They noted both an absence of a general history of international education and a specific lack of historical studies of international education before World War II: 

‘Since international education can be traced to antiquity, it would seem that the literature of the field would provide an excellent starting point for resolving the question [of establishing an historical lineage]. However, the state of the documentation is such that there is little accessible material for the period before World War II and too much material... after the war to handle easily. Both periods present the serious scholar with complex research problems’. (Scanlon and Shields 1968: xii).

Scanlon and Shields (1968) then go on to note a complete lack of historical studies in international education which would assist in establishing a lineage, developing a conceptual framework and eventually denoting both an indicative methodology and descriptive content for international education. These historical inadequacies have recently become more sensitive to treatment using the advantages of modern information technology combined with traditional historical research work. 

This article sets out first to demonstrate that there is a wealth of historical material on self-described, international education activities from before World War II. This article also aims to review, with significant range and depth, important institutional and research documents related to the nature of international education in the same period. It is hoped that it will be followed by another historical survey of the mapping of the territory claimed by international education activists and researchers from the years 1945-1994. The two articles would then provide a detailed 20th century contour mapping of an intended conceptual landscape and territory of what we know today as the ‘field’ of international education. The present article, in effect, attempts to bring together historical materials on international education which, until now, were either unacknowledged or never considered side by side in any serious attempt to outline the range of activities in international educational before World War II. 

This lack of a body of serious work reflecting the early twentieth century history of international education leave attempts to approach any conceptual modelling of the field without the benefit of a proper historical perspective, or without a grounding in the knowledge of previous descriptive models of international education. It is hoped that this initial uncovering of the earlier territorial mapping of the field from the first half of the 20th century will enable other researchers interested in international education to proceed, with increased confidence, in further consideration of possible content, methodology and research frameworks for the field.

Brickman’s Baseline Bibliography of International Education in 1950

William Brickman (1950), Distinguished Professor and historian from the University of Illinois, published the only comprehensive research bibliography on the history of international education (of the modern era) in the Encyclopedia of Educational Research. Brickman is considered by Scanlon and Shields (1968) to be a ‘leading historian of international education’. Brickman’s bibliography indicates that there were more than thirty formal plans for some sort of international educational organization put forward between the years 1814-1914 from, among others, Jullien, Kemeny, Andrews and Peeters (Brickman 1950: 619). Brickman also offers a range of defining characteristics for the field:

‘The term international education may be applied to the various educational and cultural relations among nations. In this broad sense it encompasses comparative education..... More narrowly, it refers to international efforts at cooperation and harmony in the exchange of teachers and students, rehabilitation of backward cultural areas, mutual understanding through school instruction, and the like.... Although ‘international education’ has been often used in professional writings and sometimes in names of organizations, it has not gained currency as a designation of a field of professional study’ (Brickman 1950: 617-618).

In one of the few attempts in the 20th century to approach the task of providing a range of historical documents related to international education, Stewart Fraser and William Brickman published a documentary history of the field  (Fraser and Brickman 1968) which focused on the major works which were evident from the nineteenth century. They give credit to David Scanlon (1960) who several years earlier published a previous documentary history of international education. In the concluding remarks of the introductory chapter Fraser and Brickman (1968) provide several characteristic descriptions of the historical context of international and comparative education: 

‘The early nineteenth century is clearly a watershed in the development of a systematic and methodological study of both international and comparative education. Prior to the nineteenth century, the terms cosmopolitanism and universalism were accepted and understood, but the idea of internationalism was virtually unknown... The emergence of newly created European states and newly freed Latin American republics, the greater awareness of Africa and Asia, and the discovery of the contributions of Hindu, Buddhist, and Moslem educators during the beginning of the 19th century all contributed to the emergence of comparative education as a new field of inquiry’ (Fraser and Brickman 1968: 18-19).

However, international education has not enjoyed the benefits of the depth and range of serious research that has characterized the field of comparative education. Brickman (1977), Kandel (1933), and Wilson (1994) each provide comprehensive evidence of the historical depth and range of studies in comparative education and its own sense of a visible historical lineage. 

The History of International Education and the Rise of the Nation-State

Scanlon (1960) observed that the 19th century marked the start of great national systems of public education. The motives behind these systems varied, in his view, from the authoritarianism of a Frederick William to the humanism of a Pestalozzi, but all were committed in one way or another to the advancement of the interests of the nation-state. It is against this background of such aggressive nationalism that the efforts of early pioneers in international education should be examined. In Scanlon’s view these pioneers should be viewed as historically unique: 

‘For fundamentally all were out of step with the nineteenth century. In an era of provincial loyalties, they argued for loyalty to mankind. And in an era of mass education for patriotism, they contended that the school was the only agency capable of advancing education across national boundaries. Little wonder that their proposals were viewed as radical, visionary, and utopian’ (Scanlon 1960: 3-4).

However, in an encyclopedia article (Butts 1971) on international education, Butts gave a broad, historically deeper context for the field when he noted: ‘In a more restricted sense, international education did not appear until modern nation-states did; therefore, the term more usually refers to the educational relations among nation-states from the sixteenth century onward’ (Butts 1971: 165). In that respect John Amos Comenius (1592-1670), a Moravian bishop who is sometimes called the ‘teacher of nations’, is widely considered the seminal figure in international education. He proposed the establishment of a ‘Pansophic College’ where learned men from the nations of the world would collect and unify existing knowledge toward ‘international understanding’ (Brickman 1950; Carr 1945; Scanlon 1960). Compayré (1903) credits Comenius with writing twenty books and teaching in twenty cities, and compares his work favorably with that of Galileo and Bacon in terms of his historical standing in the field of education (p 122). Hans (1964) cites Comenius’ recently discovered Pampaedia where the 17th Century scholar insisted that ‘all men without exception should be educated for humanity’ (p 24).

The next major figure in international education did not appear until the 18th century. Marc-Antoine Jullien (1775-1848) proposed the establishment of a ‘commission speciale d’education’ to collect information on educational activities throughout Europe in an 1817 publication entitled ‘Esquisse et vues preliminaires d’un ouvrage sur l’education comparée (A Preliminary Outline of a Study in Comparative Education) in Paris (Brickman 1950: 619; Carr 1945). Jullien’s pamphlet was saved for historians by Kemeny (Scanlon 1960). Good (1960) credits Jullien with the first use of the term comparative education. Large portions of Jullien’s pamphlet were published in the first volume of the earliest American  professional journal, The American Journal of Education (Vol 1, July 1926 from Kandel in Carr 1944: 43). Jullien’s pamphlet is reprinted, in part, in Scanlon’s (1960) Documentary History of International Education where Jullien was credited with the practical outline for a suggested international institution to study education (Scanlon, 1960: 54).

The period of the 1850s to the first decades of the twentieth century was replete with a dramatic growth in increasingly highly co-ordinated commercial and professional international conferences and organisations. La Fontaine (1911) observes that from 1843 to 1910 there were more than 2,000 international meetings, with 800 of those meetings taking place in the first decade of the new century. He also noted that as of 1910 there were over 250 ‘central offices of all kinds having for their object the study of questions of general human interest from a universal point of view’ (p 244). Many of these arose from the holding of regular international ‘expositions’ starting in London in 1851. The most significant appearance of international education at these international expositions (which were later called World’s Fairs) was seen in 1893 in Chicago.

The World Congress of Education of the Columbian Exposition of 1893

A first and significant opportunity to view the early perspective of the meaning and mapping of the territory claimed as international education is evident from the historical documents of the meeting of educators from around the world at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. The International Educational Congresses of the Columbian Exposition in Chicago were hosted by the Educational Committee of the World Congress Auxiliary which included 91 sessions (July 17-26), and by the National Education Association (US) which included 50 sessions (July 25-28) with 27 countries represented. One departmental congress alone, Higher Education, had 326 vice-presidents (serving as chairpersons of the workshops) in attendance (Compayré 1893, NEA 1894). Many observers considered that most of the countries of the world were represented (Stoker 1933: xviii; Monroe 1919; Gregory 1938: 94). The published proceedings of the Congress (NEA 1894) indicate that there were at least 58 documents presented by non-US participants in the form of addresses, papers or appendices. In total these documents from ‘foreign’ sources constituted a significant portion of the total material under consideration by the congress.

Waterman’s (1893) report indicates that the purpose of the 1893 congress was that ‘of bringing together representatives of all nations, and obtaining the results of their thought and experience in some great field of human activity’ (p 159). Waterman further indicates that:

‘There was a strong sense of unity and fellowship underlying the proceedings that gave to them a far greater influence than is usually exerted by such gatherings. Eminent men and women had come from all parts of the world to meet on common ground, discuss common interests, and contribute their best to the common fund of experience which will shape the future of education’ (p 158).

Gabriel Compayré’s (1893) report of the Congress highlighted his perceptions as the delegate from the government of the French Republic. He was impressed with the openness of the discussion in comparison with the Paris meeting of 1889. He noted that there was no limitation to the subjects to be considered and that the range of the discussion resulted in the record of the Congress being ‘a veritable encyclopédie pédagogique’ (p 260). Compayré, like Waterman, also highlighted the leading role of women in the Congress. He listed the countries participating as including England, Russia, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, France, Japan, Australia, Canada, Chile, Uruguay and the host, the United States.

In his address of welcome to the delegates of the Congress, Charles Bonney (1894) characterized their deliberations in the following manner:

‘While the learned world ponders the new educational problems and seeks a means of their solution, a new and tremendous influence enters the field and asks attention. It is the spirit of the new age, demanding international fraternity and cooperation in every department of civilized life. The institutions of learning have more than willingly responded to this call, and have manifested a desire to accede to it so far as sound reason may lead the way. A true and enduring educational system must have its national and international as well as its local relations’ (p 18). 

Bonney (1894) further described a new international vision of education in the world; 

‘The new education, extended as it will be throughout the world, will do as much as, if not more than, any other agency to promote the unity and peace of mankind. For by education we mean not merely the training of the intellect; we mean also the culture of the heart and the hand. The golden circle of education embraces not only literature, science and art, but it includes as well the whole broad domain of virtue, morals, and religion’ (p 20).

In his welcoming comments to the Congress, the delegate from Russia, Prince Serge Wolkonsky (1894) argued passionately for serious consideration to be given to a nascent field of international education when he observed: 

‘International, Educational. May these two words be written in fiery letters on the dark sky of this summer night, so as to shine for every one who will attend the sessions of this congress. They who will treat an educational question will remember that, even in the case when it has arisen from purely national considerations, it must have in its results a value from the “international” point of view; for education, if not aiming to inspire humanitarian feelings of international brotherhood, is but a dead letter.... And so the union of these two words, “international” and “educational” - may it be blessed; may it resound in the hearts of all who will be present here; may it inspire the words and acts of the congress with great ideas of universal impartiality; may it loudly proclaim that every one of us belongs, first, to humanity, and, secondly, to one or another nation; may it teach that there is more honour for any one of us in being a man than in being an American, or a Russian, or a German, or an Italian, or a Greek, or a Japanese, or whatever else it may be’ (pp 38-39).

While intended neither as a direct, nor as a formal, definition of ‘international education’ the published record of the proceedings of the 1893 Congress presents the researcher in international education with a fertile source of primary historical material which reflects the unique utopian vision of many educators in the West at the end of the 19th century. While the evidence of a reflective practice of international education was decades away with the establishment of the World Federation of Education Associations (WFEA, 1927a) and the International Bureau of Education (IBE 1929), in the 1920s it is clear that a consideration of the documents from the 1893 congress tends to weaken significantly the case often made for international education to be considered the product of the ashes of the Second World War. While the material available was largely, if not exclusively, idealistic and utopian, the sentiments placed on the agenda at this meeting in Chicago represented themes and aims persistently represented in self-described international education efforts continuously over the next five decades.

Kemény’s  Framework of International Education in 1900

The first formal descriptive mapping of the territory of international education came at the dawn of the 20th century when Franz Kemény published ‘Entwurf einer Internationalen Gesammt-Akademie: Weltakademie’ in 1900 in Budapest, Hungary calling for a world educational organization (weltakamemie) (Scott 1912; Scanlon 1960: 10-11). This pamphlet in Budapest proposed six areas in which international education could be developed. They were: 1) studies of educational systems in various countries; 2) international conferences for teachers; 3) international codes for the organization and structure of education; 4) the teaching of human rights based on Western democratic principles; 5) countering xenophobia and extreme nationalism, especially in textbooks; and 6) the need to eradicate racial prejudice (Scanlon 1959). Kemény (cited in Butts 1944) later articulated six aspects of what he called ‘international education’ in 1914 as part of his plan for an international institute of education. The original list of items from 1900 constituting ‘international education’ was adjusted by Kemény by 1914. The aspects of international education were then listed in 1914 as: 

‘1) State of education in foreign countries (descriptions, statistics, etc; 2) Organization by which several countries benefit (conferences, exhibition, etc; 3) Efforts and measures aiming at drawing together, or even unifying, education on certain points (organization, legislation, rights and privileges, etc; 4) International or world education (based on universal rights of man and on the knowledge of modern languages); 5) Education for peace (to counteract chauvinism); 6) Inter-racial education (to counteract race prejudice)’ (Butts, 1944: 26).

In presenting this material from Kemény’s 1914 proposal, Rossello (in Butts’ 1944 translation) in a footnote (p 26) indicates that ‘The term “international education” leads to confusion and we prefer the expression “education on an international plane,” although it is longer.’ Rossello (trans. Butts 1944) also cited Kemeny’s interest in cultural internationalism: 

‘He does not wish to weaken the cultural autonomy of any nation. There again, he does not oppose nationalism to internationalism, which would hinder cultural internationalism by setting up a reaction. The two tendencies - national and international - should progress concurrently and develop into a higher unity. It would however, be futile to try to reach cultural internationalism - the groundwork of all internationalism - without first developing international education’ (p 26) [emphasis added].

While Kemény’s work appears detailed enough for consideration as a preliminary conceptual model for international education, there is no evidence that his ideas were taken up in any practical manner in succeeding decades. It was not until the reconstruction efforts following the Second World War that we begin to see significant detail in the literature on international education devoted to the building of conceptual frameworks for international education (see Arndt and Everett, 1951; Carr, 1944, 1945; Kenworthy 1947; Kenworthy 1952; Quillen, 1948; Rossello 1943; Schnapper, 1943, UNESCO 1949; and Wilson, 1947).

The Appearance of International Schools in the Pursuit of International Education

Recent historical research (Sylvester 2002) has uncovered a significant case to be made for the consideration of a ‘first’ international school which was established in the height of the Victorian Age in the institution of the London College of the International Educational Society, founded by the politician Richard Cobden and the scientist T H Huxley, among others. However, while the effort at the practical establishment of this international school (1867-1889) just outside London stands alone and somewhat idiosyncratic for that time, this proposed revision of the starting of the age of international schools back to the Victorian Age brings with it significant historical questions as to the nature and lineage of international education well before the Second World War. 

Among the first institutional standard bearers of the emergent field of international education (after the Spring Grove School in Hounslow noted above) were a wide variety of ‘international schools’ which became visible in the first decades of the 20th century even before the establishment of the League of Nations. A quick survey of several of these schools may indicate, for the researcher interested in international education, purposes in consonance with the current widespread understanding of the field of international education.

A co-educational school called Bedales was established in 1900 with the notion that ‘International goodwill is to be encouraged in every possible way’ (Meyer 1949: 137). Stewart (1972) noted that the New Schools, Abbotsholme and Bedales all had international reputations, especially on the continent of Europe. They served as a pattern for a number of schools in Germany, Switzerland, France, Belgium and Holland. Paul Geheeb established an international experimental school in 1910 in Germany known as the Oldenwaldeschule with 20 per cent of the students from throughout western Europe. The purpose of his school was to educate cultured, social human beings. This purpose placed the school in direct conflict with the rising Nazi ideology. Geheeb was later forced to flee Germany and was directly responsible for the establishment of École d’Humanité in Switzerland in 1937 (Meyer 1949: 145). 

The International School of Peace in Boston (Scott 1912: 380-389; Meyer 1949) was founded by the educational publicist Edwin Ginn, who was inspired by the peace activist Edward Everett Hale of Boston. The purpose of the school was to educate ‘the peoples of all nations to a full knowledge of the waste and destruction of war and of preparation for war, its evil effects on present social conditions and on the well-being of future generations, and to promote international justice and the brotherhood of man...’ (see the by-laws of the school online at www.worldpeacefoundation.org/founder.html). This international school was soon transformed into the present ‘World Peace Foundation’ in Boston (Harley 1931; Stomfay-Stitz 1993) and is still operating to date. 

The idea of international schools was reported as being widespread by the end of the first decade of the new century (La Fontaine 1911: 254). La Fontaine also outlines the work of those international education efforts by noting: 

‘An effort is being made at the present time to attain an equivalence of diplomas, and to establish an International Pedagogical Centre. There are also in many countries institutes of higher studies, which are embryos of real international schools, and the idea has arisen of uniting them in a larger organisation, which would be the International University, or rather the World School’ (La Fontaine 1911: 252). 

The International Folk (Peoples) High School in Helsingor, Denmark was established in 1921 with the help of Danish, English and American contributions (Brickman 1950; Carr 1945; Stoker 1933; Kenworthy 1951: 224; and Lawson, 1995) and modified over the next thirty years to meet the needs of a student body from over forty nations with both summer and winter courses (Kenworthy 1951: 225). Brickman (1962) credits Peter Manniche, a Dutch educator, as founding this school with over 5,000 students attending regular courses and over 10,000 attending short courses (p 231). The aims of the school included the promotion of ‘personal development in the students and to further international understanding and co-operation’ (p 232). By 1929 the school founded by Peter Manniche apparently assisted directly (Lawson 1995: 9) in the sponsoring of the combined International Conferences of the New Education Fellowship (England) and the Progressive Education Association (USA) which was held in Helsingor. Kenworthy (1951) noted that over 12,000 students had attended the summer and winter courses representing over forty nations. The staff was composed of Danish, Swedish, German and English personnel. The typical courses related to International Relations, language instruction, Social Psychology and International Order (Kenworthy 1951: 224-225).

With regard to the traditionally accepted ‘first’ international school founded in Geneva as the International School of Geneva (also known as Ecolint), Hill (2001) relates that ‘... in 1924, the International School of Geneva was founded by a group of parents predominantly from the League of Nations and the International Labour Office in conjunction with Adolphe Ferriere, a sociologist and educationist, and Elisabeth Rotten, a German scholar, both of the Rousseau Institute (opened in 1912) in Geneva’ (Hill, 2001: 11). Hill further relates, while citing the International School of Geneva Student-Parent Handbook for 1924, that the ‘School’s objectives were to meet the specific educational demands of ‘an international community such as exists in Geneva ... to imbue the new school community in which the students were to live and grow with an earnest belief in internationalism’ (Hill, 2001: 11). Wooton (1929) reports, in School and Society, that the International School of Geneva had a ‘school population that is truly international in character, there being sixteen nationalities represented in the student body in grades from one to twelve, inclusive, and seven nationalities in the staff of twenty-two teachers’ (p 23). Wooton (1929) further reports that:

‘The school has deliberately set about the task of breaking down the narrowly nationalistic prejudices and building up a sympathetic understanding of individuals and groups of other cultures. This is achieved most successfully in courses in social science designed to treat modern civilization as a composite of the contributing elements from all nations now in existence’ (p 25).

Wooton (1929) further characterised the experience of the school community in the following manner: 

‘Although the International School is in its infancy, the experiences in the past lead the founders, the teachers and the parents who have been long associated with the school to an ardent faith in its future as an institution inculcating qualities of sympathy and understanding and a devotion to human service, to the end that those whom it may serve will realize the essential unity of all mankind’ (p 25).

Recently discovered archival documents from the World Peace Foundation held at Tufts University Library include a copy of the one-hundred page programme from the 1929 Congress of the World Federation of Education Associations, which was held jointly with the International Bureau of Education in Geneva. The International School of Geneva apparently was an active participant in the congress. In addition to offering an advertisement for the school which indicated that its aims included ‘knowledge of the modern world directed towards international peace and world citizenship’ as well as preparation for international exams (WFEA 1929: 16) the international school later in the pamphlet outlined its purposes in the following manner:

‘General culture should make our pupils into men and women for whom internationalism, which we consider to be the outcome of individual nationalisms, will become a reality, a second nature, a mode of their thought. We have to prepare a generation which will carry over on to the international plane ideas of brotherhood, understanding, and mutual assistance’ (WFEA 1929: 94).

The International School of Yokohama after its establishment in 1924 (a few months after Ecolint in Geneva) was apparently, from an early stage, grappling with the practical needs of raising monies in support of a new type of ‘international education’. The Swiss Principal, Dr. Peter, is quoted by Stanworth (1998) from the minutes of the 10 December 1929 meeting of the governing board of the school:

‘The building of an international curriculum would mean a crusade under the flag of International Fellowship for New Education, a movement started after the war and grown to a great movement in all civilized nations. It would mean the building up of an atmosphere which, as I see it, sooner or later is bound to be successful for our school, as it is a worldwide necessity and thus also a necessity in this worldwide port. [Yokohama] A prospectus should be written along these lines [and] should be a document worth while to be sent to the corresponding financial institutions promoting international education’ (p 58).

Kees Boeke’s Children’s Community Workshop at Bilthoven, Holland was established as another one of the early international schools around 1930 (year estimated, see Brickman 1950; Meyer 1949: 586). Meyer noted that Kees Boeke wished (in 1949) to ‘extend the work of the school on an international basis, with pupils in the Children’s Community coming from many lands’ (p586). Lengyel (1951) indicates that the children came from many countries and the school ‘attempted to do away with artificial boundaries of petrified institutions between man and man. It observed the individual, not his nationality, and sought to restore to him his original - as distinguished from national - attitude toward his fellow men’ (pp 602-603).

As noted above, Paul Geheeb’s Ecole d’Humanité was established in Switzerland in 1937. Lengyel (1951) indicates that Geheeb’s school in Germany, Oldenwaldschule, organized the students into ‘self-constituted families which treated nationality as incidental and not essential.’ Lengyel further observes that ‘An attempt was made to lay the basis of a new type of citizenship, Weltburgerschaft: citizenship of the world’ (p 603). Lengyel (1951) then traces the setting up of the new school in Switzerland: 

‘When Hitler came, Geheeb decided to leave. He moved to Switzerland, where he founded l’Ecole de l’Humanité, the School of Humanity, on the outskirts of Geneva. From there he moved to the more rural settings of Morat and Schwarzsee, in the canton of Fribourg. His idea was to create a pilot plant of the school of the future, where teachers and pupils should work as members of the same family. All cultures should promote international good will. The apparent incompatibility of some cultures, he averred, was the vestige of the aristocratic way of life, which set up caste barriers. Only when these were disregarded would democracy become a living reality’ (p 603).

Another example of a pre-World War II institution was the College Cévénol, which was founded in 1938 in central France by Messieurs Trocmé and Theis as an international school founded upon a ‘sense of idealism for world peace’ and ‘student exchanges as a means of facilitating intercultural understanding’ (Hill, 2001: 16).

A significant weight of historical evidence, seen above, indicates that both ‘education for international understanding’ and education for ‘world citizenship’ are consistent and central themes of self-described international education activities up to the Second World War. The sub-theme of ‘world-mindedness’ appears in the 1930s and is seen consistently through the 1960s but then fades in the literature. Also, it is important to note that international schools made their early appearance in an apparently rich environment of interest in education for international understanding and peace education. These international schools, numbering in the thousands today, are arguably potential inheritors of a rich heritage of universal and idealistic educational values.

The League of Nations and the Struggle of International Education

The decision by the Western powers to exclude the term ‘education’ from the charter documents of the League of Nations was symptomatic of the political tension which existed between the widespread impulse of many educators to attempt to extend further the boundaries of education beyond the narrow purposes of the nation-state, and the opposing widespread fear among politicians of the resultant loss of national sovereignty under the influence of such a widening of the educational process. The early discussions during the formation of the Committee on Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations in 1921 expose a discourse which was typical of the fear of encroaching upon educational matters of the nation-state. The delegate from Haiti, M. Bellegarde, was a lone voice in support of ensuring that the realm of education remained a central consideration of the work of the League and a part of the mandate of the Committee on Intellectual Cooperation. Bellegarde (in League of Nations, 1921) spoke to the Assembly in support of international educational pursuits, as follows (English translation of original speech in French): 

‘I note the Committee has been careful to avoid the reproach of intervening in the domestic affairs of nations with regard to education …. Our object is to collect for the information of all countries the results achieved by the human intellect. Now, if it is desired to coordinate the achievements of the human mind, how can we afford to neglect the formation of the human mind? …. It is obvious that methods of education must vary in different States, because all nations are anxious to develop along the lines of their national traditions; but it is none the less true that the human soul is one, and that methods of education which aim at the development of all our faculties may be applied to all men irrespective of nationality’. (cited in Scanlon 1960: 70-71 and original in League of Nations, 1921: 311-312).

The original Committee on Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations (12 members) met under the chairmanship of Henri Bergson and with the membership, among others, of Eve Curie, Gilbert Murray, Albert Einstein and Jagadis Bose, but had to work within a budget of only five thousand pounds (Scanlon 1960: 15). Stoker has noted that, in its first meeting, the Committee received communications from forty eight recognised national and international organisations in support of its work (Stoker 1933: 32-33). Lengyel (1951) indicated that during the years before the formation of the Committee the ‘project traveled around the halls’ of the League and, when it emerged into the open, the word education had been removed completely from any further consideration. There apparently had not been much political enthusiasm for intellectual cooperation either. Lengyel (1951) further observed that: 

‘The League could not overlook the problem of internationalism in education... The League attempted to have history textbooks revised, so that they should show more understanding for other people and display less jingoistic spirit.  It also launched a study of the remarkable new media of mass communication, which reached millions and could be turned to constructive use. Walls dividing the world’s intellectual forces were to topple as universities, teachers, scholars, librarians and researchers were to meet periodically under the auspices of the League’ (p 598).

Sir Gilbert Murray, professor of Greek at Oxford University who held the first chairmanship of the Committee on Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations, outlined his philosophical framework of international education in an address before the World Conference on Education in Geneva on 26 July 1929. His address (cited in Murray 1929) focused on the broad needs of a liberal education as the Greeks understood that concept:

‘The Greeks made a distinction between cosmos, the order of the world, and chaos, the absence of that order. The enormous changes of the last fifty years, including of course the war itself, have given a shock to all existing order and introduced a dangerously large element of chaos. In art, in literature, in philosophy, as well as in politics, I think the chief need of our times is the recreation of a cosmos, both inward and outward. And I strongly suspect that the surest way both to a good education and to international citizenship is to have one’s studies grouped around some central interest, one’s efforts devoted to some central purpose. Such a central purpose, to be at all satisfactory or enduring, must help or at least be consistent with the good of the whole; above the turmoil of momentary desires and egotisms’ (p 215).

The League’s work did little in the way of establishing such a thematic educational practice for international citizenship but Murray’s proposal is a rough parallel to such a broad philosophical approach to international education, as may be seen in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma programme now used in over one thousand schools worldwide. This is especially evident in the IB diploma’s central use of epistemology as an organizing principle of interdisciplinary work with the Theory of Knowledge requirement.

The Establishment of the International Bureau of Education in Geneva

According to its own historical accounts, the International Bureau of Education, IBE (1929), had its historical roots in a resolution passed at the International Conference on Primary Teaching held in Brussels in 1880. However, it was only in 1912, through the almost single-handed efforts of the Boston peace activist F Fern Andrews of the American School Citizenship League, that the American President Taft called for an international conference to ‘study the methods for teaching international understanding and the other problems which hold common interest to all nations’ (p 1). While the conference was aborted at the last moment due to the uncertainty of the approaching war, the cause was taken up, as a private venture, following the failure of the League of Nations to take any interest in the project. The IBE also had strong local roots in Geneva and connected with the early work of Frédéric Zollinger, Professor Edouard Claparede and Pierre Bovet of the Rousseau Institute of Geneva which was founded in 1912. The records of the IBE indicate that the IBE also carried on the work of the International Bureau of New Schools (1899) established by Adolphe Ferrière, also of Geneva (see also Rossello 1944). According to IBE records, the purpose of the bureau was to ‘develop international relations in the field of education’ (IBE 1929: 3). However, the IBE had evident interest in both education for international understanding and peace education:

‘The International Bureau of Education is in a position to do still more fruitful and important work. The realization of its full program is not possible without the help of those persons, throughout the whole world, who believe that only by a new spirit will humanity find the peaceful solutions to the perplexing problems confronting us on all sides, and that education is the one power that can awaken that spirit’ (IBE 1929: 5).

The Contribution of Rabindranath Tagore to International Education

The Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s international school, named Santinikentan Visva-Bharati (which means world university), was formally established in India in 1921 as one of the first modern international schools in the world with a visiting professor from Sorbonne University in the first year (Brickman 1950; Scanlon 1960: 99-118; Periaswamy 1976). Kenworthy (1951) indicated that the school ‘has grown in size and purpose until it has become a center of world culture, including a university, a teacher education institute, a crafts division, and a rural reconstruction department ... Its library is one of the finest in the Asiatic world, with outstanding collections on Islam, Chinese culture, and the fine arts’ (Kenworthy 1951: 226).

At the inauguration ceremonies of the school Tagore noted his world view: 

‘Let me state clearly that I have no distrust of any culture because of its foreign character .... What I object to is the artificial arrangement by which this foreign education tends to occupy all the space of our national mind and thus kills, or hampers, the great opportunity for the creation of new thought by a new combination of truths. It is this which makes me urge that all the elements in our own culture have to be strengthened; not to resist the culture of the West, but to accept and assimilate it. It must become for us nourishment and not a burden. We must gain mastery over it and not live on sufferance as hewers of texts and drawers of book-learning’ (Dutta and Robinson 1996: 221-222).

During a tour of China, Tagore (cited in Chakravarty 1961) further outlined a philosophy of international education; 

‘When races come together, as in the present age, it should not be merely the gathering of a crowd; there must be a bond of relation, or they will collide with each other... Education must enable every child to understand and fulfill this purpose of the age, not defeat it by acquiring the habit of creating divisions and cherishing national prejudices. There are of course natural differences in human races which should be preserved and respected, and the task of our education should be to realize unity in spite of them, to discover truth through the wilderness of their contradictions’ (p 216).

Gilbert Murray and the Indian Nobel Prize-winning poet engaged in a compelling series of exchanges of letters in 1934. Their letters (Murray and Tagore 1935) focused on the mission of education in the context of a world culture and civilization and the future needs of education in a united world. Murray spoke of a ‘higher task’ related to ‘healing the discords of the political and material world’ through the inward and spiritual life. Tagore responded and immediately invoked a ‘common humanity’ as the basis of their discussion, alluding to the ‘inescapable moral links which hold together the fabric of human civilization’ (Scanlon, 1960: 106).This theme of a ‘common humanity’ can be explicitly seen in the present International Baccalaureate Organization mission statement and, in that sense, that discourse uncovered by Murray and Tagore continues today. Tagore then characterized the work he had invested in the international school as an ‘arduous responsibility of creating in our Educational Colony in Santiniketan a spirit of genuine international collaboration based on a definite pursuit of knowledge, a pursuit carried on in an atmosphere of friendly community life, harmonized with Nature, and offering freedom of individual self-expression’ (Scanlon, 1960: 106). Tagore also outlined a philosophy which generated his interest in international education by stating: 

‘The fury of despotic tyranny, the denial of civic sanity and the violence with which the citadels of international federation are constantly assaulted, combine to betray an uncomfortable and increased consciousness in the mind of man of the inescapable responsibilities of humanity. It is this stirring of the human conscience to which we must look for a reassertion of man in religion, in political and economic affairs, in the spheres of education and social intercourse. It is apparent that innumerable individuals in every land are rising up vitalized by this faith, men and women who have suffered and sought the meaning of life and who are ready to stake their all for raising a new structure of human civilization on the foundation of international understanding and fellowship’ (Scanlon, 1960: 117).

World Conference on Education of 1923 and the World Federation (WFEA)

The National Education Association (NEA/USA) hosted a World Conference on Education in 1923 in San Francisco which was organised in order to: ‘agree upon principles and plans for the promotion of good-will and mutual understanding ... to be carried out in the schools throughout the world...’ (Stoker 1933: 120; Gregory 1938: 202). The official report of the conference may arguably represent one of the most important historical documents on the perspective of the supporters of international education in the early decades of the 20th century. While it was much smaller than the Congress held in Chicago in 1893, the official reporting of the presentations of the World Conference (NEA 1923b) indicate that fifty different national education groups were represented at the Conference as well as ‘thirty distinct racial groups’ among the 150 official delegates (p 3, also see Buell 1925). Most importantly, the 1923 conference resulted almost immediately in the formation of the World Federation of Education Associations (WFEA, 1926) which brought together national bodies of professional education associations from around the world. The WFEA would remain at the forefront of international education efforts right up to the Second World War. 

Dr P W Kuo, president of the National Southeastern University of Nanking, China and the chairman of the Chinese delegation to the 1923 World Conference, was the first formally to respond to the welcoming addresses of the World Conference. Dr Kuo outlined his view of the requirements of international education of the time: 

‘We must remove through education and other effective means all selfishness, pride, hatred, revenge between nations, and cultivate in their place the spirit of good-will, of sympathy, and of mutual confidence. I share with others the belief that if the five millions of teachers and educators of the world are fully convinced of the evils of war and the necessity for peace, and are willing to dedicate themselves to the task, they can make a great contribution to the cause through the various educational agencies at their command. Their greatest service will naturally be the bringing up of a new generation of people possessing the right kind of ideals of international relationship’ (NEA 1923b: 4).

The president of the Japanese Imperial Education Association, Dr M Sawayanagi (1923), focused the needs of international education efforts on the establishment of peace: ‘Peace is just beginning to stand by itself without outward support. I consider this a great change in human history, foretelling the birth of a new order of the world’ (p 5). The Japanese representative later highlighted the need for a wider civic education in schools around the world; 

‘In this way each child should be trained to become a worthy citizen of his country and at the same time become a good citizen of the world. Nationalism must be reconciled with internationalism and patriotism must be harmonized with humanism. Nationalism which does not harmonize with internationalism should not be tolerated nor patriotism not in accord with humanism’. (Sawayanagi, 1923: 5)

In the record of the speeches to the World Conference, the president of the National Union of Teachers of England and Wales, E J Sainsbury (1923), presented a perspective on international education following the first World War:

‘The future of the world will depend largely upon the extent to which the peoples of the world will be prepared to temper national feelings and national egoism by the larger considerations of international well-being .... Education will still be national but it must not exclude the wider and more comprehensive view, including the international one’. (Sainsbury 1923: 226-227).

Among the resolutions adopted at the World Conference on Education in 1923 were specific actions recommended in the area of civic education. The ninth resolution read; ‘That the World Conference on Education request the proper educational body of each country to outline for its own schools a system of training that will cultivate in children attitudes of mind and habits of thought and action appropriate to effective membership in this world community, such outlines to be presented to the next world conference for comparison, discussion, and publication throughout the world’ (NEA 1923a:10). This sentiment for the creation of a practical international curriculum and teacher training effort for the education of world citizens was also amplified by the chairman of the World Conference on Education, Augustus O Thomas (1923) in his address delivered to a joint meeting of the World Conference on Education and the National Education Association (USA) on July 5, 1923: 

‘Today the citizen must be a citizen of the world. He must know the world, what is transpiring in the world, and know how to interpret that in the language of the relationships of the world. Therefore, the children of today must receive that larger viewpoint and that larger understanding. That understanding and viewpoint must come through the teachers of the schools of our country’ (Thomas 1923: 405).

A variety of terms were used in the first decades of the 20th century to describe international education. In 1925 a retrospective survey of the resolutions of the World Conference of 1923 cited the undertaking of the Conference of 1923 (noted above) to encourage the development of curriculum outlines in ‘world civics’ among the national educational bodies represented at the Conference. Dunn (1925) in School and Society observed that two years after the first WFEA World Conference there was no evidence that any action had been taken on that resolution (Dunn 1925: 771). Buell (1925) reported that: 

‘The conference hoped to secure more accurate and satisfying information in text-books as to foreign countries, and to emphasize the essential unity of mankind in regard to the evils of war and the necessity of universal peace. These objects should be attained by the teaching of international civics, universal education, the exchange of teachers, and so forth’ (p 25).

Significant Research Studies in International Education before World War II

Surprisingly, multiple research efforts related directly to self-described international education are in evidence in the historical record before World War II. A review of two of them provides the current researcher in international education with a useful glimpse into the thinking of at least some serious educational researchers before the Second World War. The School of Education at Indiana University was the site of one of the earliest and most significant educational research projects on international education. Smith and Crayton (1929) were responsible, under the auspices of the World Federation of Education Associations (WFEA) to support the mandate of that organization which was ‘that of instilling in all mankind good will toward each other’ (p 7). As Smith and Crayton (1929) indicated; ‘The objective of this study was a statement of principles relative to a program of education for world friendship, which would best represent the thinking of the group cooperating in the study, and in some measure, at least, the thinking of all the people of the countries represented’. Several of the revised points from the statement of principles that resulted from the research are worthy of note in the consideration of the mapping of international education as of 1929: 

‘1. An important task before the world today is the creation of a new state of mind, a state of mind which will permit an understanding and appreciation of the character, attainments, and traditions of other peoples, and which will transcend national boundaries without seeking to destroy them; 2. Loyalty to both the nation and to mankind is a concept similar to that of loyalty to both city and nation and, while it may be somewhat more difficult to grasp and to hold, it is equally desirable and not unattainable; 3. It is, therefore, possible to develop, in the individual, world understanding and good will without the loss of any quality really essential to a desirable national citizenship .....; 5. This world-mindedness is largely intellectual, and must be based on knowledge, and energized by emotion and sentiment ....’ (Smith and Crayton 1929: 39-40).

Another significant research project was undertaken by Daniel Prescott (1930) of Rutgers University, who engaged in a comprehensive survey of the early results of educational programmes in Europe concerned with international relations. With a grant from Harvard University and starting in 1926 he travelled through European nations including England, Switzerland, France, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Germany. Over the course of two, one-year projects (1926-1927 and 1927-1928) he interviewed educational leaders and teachers, visited schools and universities, examined curriculum guides and materials, surveyed professional literature and interviewed international professionals associated with the several newly-formed multi-lateral institutions concerned with international education, including the International Bureau of Education and the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation in Paris. As he noted: ‘I wished to learn from them if possible what steps an educator should take to secure and maintain a realistic yet wholesome international understanding of the part of the school population, who are the next generation of citizens’ (p 2). Prescott also observed a potential for education in support of international understanding:

‘There is now a certain leaven at work gradually permeating the schools. It is a growing public opinion insistent on a sane conciliatory internationalism, insistent that schools bring up a generation of pupils who will try the experiment of peace and cooperation in the place of war and force. Educators fostering opposed attitudes are out of harmony with the trend of human evolution. This research has strongly established me in this belief’ (Prescott 1930: 9). 

Prescott concluded his study by outlining both an expressive mapping of international education which encourages ‘international understanding’, and the sentiment of a more ideological framework which calls for the training of world citizens: 

‘I found individual teachers scattered about in all countries who were hopeful that the schools could build a loyalty to humanity that would foster international understanding and, following that, international cooperation ..... Current social problems, both local and international, must be studied in the light of the development of science in order that the schools may be brought once more into contact with reality, in order that they may harmonize their teaching with the direction which [the global] society is evolving’ (Prescott 1930: 138).

Harley’s Cataloguing of International Education Activities and Institutions

The first major comprehensive and scholarly historical survey of international education activities was undertaken by Harley (1931) in collaboration with, among others, Paul Mantoux, the Director of the Political Section of the League of Nations in Geneva. This six-hundred page document offers a rich mine of historical clues to the researcher in international education as well as several pointed reflections on the nature of international education. As Paul Mantoux noted in the foreword:

‘Brutal events have supplied evidence of a truth that had been slowly gaining ground, namely, the interdependence of nations and the need for establishing in the world an order and harmony hitherto lacking. It was not owing to some impulse of dreamy love for mankind in the abstract but rather for the sake of their own countries that the promoters of international education set to work’ (Mantoux, in Foreword to Harley 1931: x).

Another perspective on defining the elements of international education was offered in Harley’s collection by Dr Paul Van Dyke of Stanford University: 

‘The phrase “international education” may mean several things. If it means education conducted by international institutions, I do not see how it is possible to substitute it for our present system of national institutions. We cannot go back to the Middle Ages, nor do I believe it would be an advantage to make an artificial attempt to do so. International education may mean the attempt to create in students what is sometimes called the “international mind” by destroying patriotism and substituting for it a love of humanity. This implies that love of country is incompatible with love of humanity which is a false assumption.... It is no more necessary to supersede patriotism to maintain the love of humanity than it was to destroy the love of home in order to create patriotism. Thirdly, the phrase may mean trying to train sensible intellectual attitudes towards other nations and helping people to escape from foolish or wicked forms of national pride .... Fourthly, the phrase may mean special instruction given in international law, the history of diplomacy, or other topics concerned directly with international relations...” (Van Dyke cited in Harley 1931: 15).

The view of graduate students was also included in Harley’s collection. The perspective of a Chinese graduate student at the University of Southern California at the time offers a poignant critique:

‘In the movement of promoting and fostering international education for peace, nowhere is offered a more fitting place than in this country [USA] ..... Banquets and social gatherings, with speeches of glorification and vindication of one’s own people or country, do not, to my way of thinking, help along this movement. Friendship, familiarity, and understanding through association only can have effect. Much has been done, if I am not mistaken, through a kind of surface sympathy, pretentious generosity, and kindness, which to serious-minded students of the principle of equality of opportunity and of fair dealing deserve not a whit of consideration’ (Chin Chi Kao, cited in Harley 1931: 21).

The evidence of historical documents indicates that not only was there an active interest in a reflective practice of international education by the 1930s but that also, significant resources from prominent universities were allocated to the pursuit of a disciplined approach to research of the emergent field. What is most surprising though is the lack of current knowledge of these early studies which may help to inform present day practice and research.

The Herman-Jordan Plan for International Education

An address by the Secretary General of the World Federation of Education Associations at the Seventieth Annual Meeting of the National Educational Association in Atlantic City in 1932 could well be a current description of a ‘globalized’ world. Augustus O Thomas (1932) painted the contemporary scene by observing that; 

‘We are no longer living unto ourselves alone. We are part of a new world community. Education up to recent times has been largely provincial. Each country has marked out its own program and follows its own course, but under the influences of the scientific revolution thru which we are passing, provincialism must be cast aside and a new cooperation accepted ....’ (p 186).

Later in the same address Thomas cited the undertaking by the World Federation of Education Associations to support research into a worldwide plan of education for understanding and cooperation among nations. The plan that emerged from the first meeting of the WFEA in 1923 became the first broadly-based attempt to develop a conceptual curriculum framework in international education. The plan became known as the Herman-Jordan plan after the donor of the prize money (Mr. Raphael Herman of Chicago) and the prize-winning proposal (by Dr David Starr Jordan of Stanford University) which included the following principles as a guide to the building of such a world-based curriculum: 

‘1. The training of teachers for the new international point of view. It will endeavor to avoid emotionalisms but will be based upon the psychology and the philosophy of understanding and the points of collective justice. 2. The great epochs of history and the movements which have carried the nations to higher grounds of social advancement. 3. The community aspect of great literature, art, music, and architecture. 4. The application of science and discovery to the advancement of the nations. 5. The organization of the social sciences with the international point of view, the development of the spirit of justice and broad-mindedness. 6. The story of national attempts to set up machinery for the solution of international problems and the efforts which have been made to substitute justice for force. 7. The appreciation of fine patriotism based upon a love of country rather than upon revenge and hatred of others’ (Thomas 1932: 189-190).

From its first meeting, the committee (WFEA 1927b) of the WFEA responsible for the Herman-Jordan Plan held education for international understanding as central to their purpose. The popularity of the Herman-Jordan Plan that originated from the early meetings of the World Federation of Education Association in 1923 can be observed, to some extent, by the fact that in the 1939 WFEA convention the original Herman-Jordan Plan was reinterpreted and extended by the WFEA. At the same time the association created a new committee to take over the work of its historical ‘Herman-Jordan Section’. The new section was termed the Committee on International Education and the purpose of the committee was noted as: 

‘... to enlist education in creating a compelling world opinion for peace and against aggression; and to do this by calling the attention of the teaching profession, of governments, and of other organizations in society to the importance of education in world understanding, goodwill and cooperation among all peoples and all nations, and by promoting the spread of these ideals through education and their practical embodiment in civic and government agencies suitable to the needs of the world community’ (WFEA 1939: 154-155). 

The association also outlined specific activities in international education for its Committee on International Education, including teaching international relations, teaching of foreign languages and cultures, establishing international speakers bureaus, promoting residence and study abroad as well as international correspondence, review of textbooks and peace education, among others. 

The Contribution to International Education of Professor Kandel of Columbia 

Professor Issac Leon Kandel of Columbia University is widely seen as a leading researcher in both Comparative Education and in International Education. His work during the first five decades of the 20th century is matched in importance by very few other academics in the West. His views on the importance of rooting international education in a national ethic were widely apparent in his writings. Kandel’s (1937) “Intelligent Nationalism in the Curriculum” provided a cogent and often-cited essay on a definition of international education, or what was understood in research circles of the time as ‘education for international understanding.’ In speaking specifically of the relationship between civic education for national purposes and the wider educational goals of education beyond the boundaries of national civic duty and affection, Kandel observed: 

‘If the movements for better international understanding and better methods of international cooperation have failed in the last two decades [1920s-1930s], the reason is to be found in the fact that the educational emphasis was placed upon internationalism before any attempt was made to eliminate the evils of the concepts of nationalism that had been built up during the nineteenth century. Internationalism, international understanding, international cooperation, and amicable international relations have been discussed as metaphysical concepts, as it were, existing outside of, and apart from, nations and their existence ..... If the movements to develop international understanding have failed, the failure has been due either to an overemphasis on sentimentality that ignored realities or to a confusion between internationalism and cosmopolitanism; and from both points of view there seems to have been a failure to understand that internationalism and international understanding are things that exist between nations and that nations must continue to exist .... International understanding cannot be conceived of as a substitute for patriotism nor does it militate against loyalty to one’s own nation’. (Kandel 1937: 36-37). 

In another text, Kandel also characterized an appropriately broad context for the implementation of international education: 

‘The thesis round which this Yearbook [Kandel and Whipple, 1937] has been organized is that the development of international understanding is the concern of every teacher of every subject in every grade of the school, and that international understanding can only grow out of a proper teaching of nationalism. In truth, nationalism, properly understood and taught, should stress not, as in the past, the differences between peoples but their similarities, their interdependence, and their common efforts as the normal trend of civilization’ (Kandel and Whipple 1937: 39). 

In explaining such a progressive view of nationalism, Kandel encouraged educators to adopt the Latin motto “Nihil humanum a me alienum puto” [Nothing that is human should be considered alien] since, in his words, ‘... there is not a subject, activity, or experience that is not the product of humanity as a whole .... Literature may be the product of a nation’s history, traditions, and ways of looking at life, but, because it is human, it soon becomes the property of the whole world’ (p 40). Kandel then summarised the overall aim of international education in arguing that ‘The end to be achieved is an understanding of civilization and culture as a collective achievement - the common heritage and the joint responsibility of all nations - and patriotism will be no less as each pupil learns the part that his own nation has played in this achievement’ (p 42).

Thomas Woody of the University of Pennsylvania, writing in a special issue of School and Society devoted to the works of Issac Kandel, reflected upon the apparent historical tension between the aims of national education and those of international education: 

‘The Hague Conference (1899), the League of Nations and the United Nations are conspicuous symbols of the conviction, crystallized by wars of the 19th and 20th centuries, that order under law is preferable to unrestricted exercise of national sovereignty. While the political desideratum of world order became clearer, there was reluctance to work in forthright fashion to utilize education to promote world order, as education in the 19th century had been used to serve the national state. Educational leaders and idealists in many lands, East and West, saw the vision and were ready to work to realize it; but politicians and men of affairs were reluctant’ (Woody 1956: 19).

Future Considerations of a Contour Map of the Territory of International Education

As observed above, the historical material related to self-described international education activities before WWII is extensive but still, to a large degree, idiosyncratic. This article tries to reflect what others have defined as international education in a variety of contexts. One must not, for a moment, believe that the Library of Congress definition is totally constructive or eminently complete, but it is the one definition which seems to be in current and wide usage. Additionally, the current attempts to approach research in international education are, by all accounts, constructed without reference to the wide historical background of international educational activities throughout the twentieth century.

Another area that needs to be explored by researchers interested in international education is the relationship, if any, between the stories of the leading figures in international education such as Andrews, Tagore, Harley and Kandel. Telling their stories in the specific context of international education may well accelerate the provision of a clear picture of ‘links’ between the many parallel movements involved in ‘self-described’ international education activities before WWII.

The work of the WFEA is worthy of further research on the development of the Herman-Jordan Plan. This would be a valuable addition to the telling of the history of efforts to construct a practical international curriculum. Also, while the protagonists may not be living any longer, abundant biographical material from dissertations and library collections on several major figures (Kandel, Tagore and Andrews among others) is available and those collections could yield valuable further insights into the nature of international education before WWII. The passion with which apparently mainstream educators approached international education (as evidenced in their own writings) before WWII leads to a natural desire to know more about how their passionate view of the world may possibly relate to our current understanding of the practice and theory of international education.

What has been presented here is a broadly painted picture of the essential elements of what is self-described as ‘international education’, without trying to weed out what may or may not have been sensible relationships between the major activists and institutions. What is vital though is to start a discourse on the history of international education which will assist not only in the development of a mapping of its essential elements, but more importantly in the development of a defensible definition of the field. This article is an attempt merely to form a beach-head in that effort. Without a knowledge of this rich history, researchers are still very far away from being able to begin to construct any rigorous conceptual frameworks for international education.

The current designation of the term ‘international education’ and its association with ‘education for international understanding’, ‘education for world citizenship’ and education for global issues seems, from the evidence of the historical documents before the Second World War, to have been justified. However, the relationship (and possible tension, as seen in the politics of the League of Nations and its view of international education efforts) between the often broadly-based education for international understanding and the more ideologically stringent education for world citizenship can be observed in an increasingly clear manner as the Second World War approached (see Heater 1996 for an extended treatment of world citizenship). These two sentiments continued to occupy the stage upon which the field of international education was portrayed. While both sentiments have been carried forward into the continuing story of the 20th century, one commentator from the early decades of that same century predicted, with some accuracy, the difficulties inherent in establishing education which focuses beyond the frontiers of the nation-state:

‘The internationalists who care for the human future and enjoy some world citizenship have no precedents, no technique, no common tradition or understood procedure to guide them. The science of international relations is for them like the first stumbling of a child. They live at the dawn of new ways and thinking, and they are certain to meet many failures before their own minds have clarified their task’ (New Republic of 1 May 1915 cited in Kuehl 1969: 1).

It is with confidence that this mapping of international education in the first half of the 20th century is offered for consideration to researchers interested in international education. The story of international education in the first half of the 20th century is more complex and more subtle than any of us can even imagine at this moment. A wider and deeper history of international education is a story that will emerge over the next several years as researchers find the ‘links’ between the major institutions and the central activists involved in international education throughout the 20th century. The acknowledgement of these, until now, unexplored antecedents of current international education efforts not only has the potential more fully to encourage our practice in the school setting but, just as importantly, may inform future directions in research into the now truly emergent academic field of research in international education.

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