EASTERN STUDENTS MAY TAKE CRUISE WESTWARD

When the four hundred American students on the University Afloat visited Shanghai a month ago, they found no indication of the revolution. It was instead a revelation.

They were taken in charge by the representatives of thirty nine educational institutions, who gave them a wonderful welcome but who also took advantage of the opportunity to convince every one of their guests of the justice of the Chinese regarding the foreign governments. They converted every American student.

Governor H. J. Allen wrote: "With a humility which is after all, the beginning of wisdom a number of students have asked for better opportunities to study international problems. Our vessel sailed out of Shanghai dock, as she had sailed in, to the accompaniment of fire crackers and cordial cheers exchanged between the docks and the decks. The fire cracker seems to be to the Chinese what the Aloha is to the Hawaiian. It's their way of saying welcome and goodbye with emphasis."

Find Order in China

"The students spent two very illuminating days in Shanghai. They came in to China with a confused idea that we would be in the midst of war's alarms. Instead of that we found order, peace, and a cordiality so eager and genuine that we carry away from Shanghai some of the most impressive memories of the cruise. Here, as in Japan, we find a devotion to education which surely must be significant of the intention of these ancient people to meet the West with western methods and western understanding. As one student expressed it, 'The manner in which these Chinese students caused us to look like school children at the Shanghai conference made me fairly disgusted!'"

The plan was immediately suggested to organize a Floating University in China and have five hundred Chinese students visit the University people in the United States. It would act as a complete refutation of the impression that there is any general anti-foreign feeling in China.

The plan is receiving serious consideration from the International University Cruise Committee, which is organizing the University Afloat for American students to leave New York next September on the steamer Aurania, owned and managed by the Cunard Line. The plan is already under way and if cooperation can be established with the students in Pekin and Canton, the Chinese Floaing University will also be attempted.