Pusey Describes Chief Concerns After Two-Month Tour of Orient

Language instruction at Harvard, the poverty of the Far Eastern academic community, and nuclear testing were among President Pusey's concerns on his recently completed two-month journey.

On his trip, Pusey visited Korea, Japan, and other Far Eastern countries, and spent the final 18 days attending the convocation of the World Council of Churches in New Delhi.

Pusey said yesterday that he had hoped to formulate ideas for the teaching of more modern languages at Harvard, but that his inquiries in the Far East only left him "more confused than ever." He noted that "in India, you see how many competing languages there are, and you wonder how many and which ones to choose which one to do."

The President found that Far Eastern college students work under "tremendous handicaps" and that "the incredible poverty affects the academic world." The students are younger than those at a comparable stage in the American system, Pusey said, usually ranging in age from 14 to 16.

"Lack of Opportunity"

"There is no opportunity for a rich extra-curricular life," such as Harvard's, Pusey said. "You come away excited by the young people and saddened by the lack of opportunity." Pusey said he tried to find out "what way we can relate to these activities more constructively."

At the meeting of the World Council of Churches in New Delhi, Pusey was chairman of a committee to look at the past activity of Council representatives and to form guide lines on current issues for the next six years. The Council normally convenes every six years; its last meeting, however, was in 1954. The seven-year gap was due to an unstable situation in Ceylon, which prevented a conference last year.

One of the issues before Pusey's committee was nuclear testing. This year for the first time the committee included a Russian representative, and Pusey reported that the brotherly debates produced some marked disagreements.

Pusey, first named to the Council's Central Committee in 1954, was reappointed at the New Delhi meeting. The Central Committee is a group of 90-100 people who meet every summer to evaluate the work of the executive officers and act for the full Council.