STUDENT FRATERNIZATION
[From El Nuevo Diario, Caracas, June 20, 1920.]
Students, as a general rule, are free from prejudices and are exempt from the burden of preconceived ideas which in most cases distort the judgment of the individuals who purpose to learn from the bottom the problems of a distinctive nationality. By reason of their temperament they are optimists and like to view with dispassionate eyes the phenomena of life. Therefore their impressions possess a high value of sincerity, which contains perhaps more worth than the observations of experience. The North American students who are going to Venezuela, we are sure, will be able to carry back on their return a fresh and pleasing impression of the noble Venezuelan land, and will be able to understand that on the part of the students of Spanish America there exists toward those of the United States nothing but warm sympathy and a generous brotherhood.
It is to be desired that in years to come the University of Georgetown, which now has given the example, and other North American Universities will organize student trips such as this to other countries of the New World, sending groups of students who for some months will live the life of the Spanish Americans.
In turn, it is to be desired also that the Spanish American Universities will inaugurate these student trips to the United States, supervising them in a proper manner, and sending each year a certain number of students, not to study in the cloister but to put themselves in touch with the daily life of the country and the activity of the masses.
For the Venezuelans it will be a matter of satisfaction—this visit of the North American students—and with all confidence the society of this country will endeavor to prove its worth in making their stay agreeable to them, facilitating for them the necessary means whereby their voyage may be in all respects profitable in order that a definite judgment may be formed of the importance of our nation.
The trip organized by Dr. Sherwell in the form we have already noted, seems to be a precedent of great importance for the relations between the student societies of the two great portions of the continent, as it must redound in the near future to the benefit of all.
To labor in this furrow signifies to water a fertile seed, a seed of true progress and democracy, and whoever dedicates his efforts to this end deserves the congratulations of the public.