It was provided that the students should have, each day, an academic hour of formal Spanish instruction while in South America, that they should be distributed among private families where they might have frequent opportunity to practise Spanish and that they should devote a second academic hour each day to recitation and discussion of the economic and financial conditions of Venezuela. Individual research work on economic topics was likewise required. The results of each student's investigations were to be discussed in class so that each student might profit by his fellow-students' labors, each man having one topic on which to report. This program was carried out as it had been planned. The topics, distributed by lot during the sea voyage, were as follows:
- Economic history of Venezuela.
- Agricultural and forestal resources of Venezuela.
- Cattle industry in Venezuela.
- Coffee industry in Venezuela.
- Sugar industry in Venezuela.
- Mineral oil industry in Venezuela.
- Mineral resources of Venezuela.
- Ports of Venezuela.
- Commercial travelers in Venezuela.
- Venezuela as a field for the investment of foreign capital. Present foreign investments.
- Banking and currency in Venezuela. History and present status.
- Venezuelan foreign trade. American goods in Venezuela.
- Bills of exchange, checks, and trade acceptances in Venezuela.
- Steamer and cable communications with Venezuela.
- Taxation and budget in Venezuela.
- Venezuelan public debt.
- Population, immigration, and public education in Venezuela.
On June 16, 1920, the group sailed from New York on the Red "D" Line Steamship Caracas. Several representatives of the press came on board together with friends and alumni of Georgetown to bid Godspeed to the first missionaries of friendship sent by an American university to South America.
On June 26th the group arrived at La Guaira, the port nearest the capital of the country, and was received by personal representatives of the Secretaries of Foreign Relations, of the Treasury and of Public Instruction, as well as by a very distinguished group of students of the different schools of Caracas, headed by their President, Mr. Atilano Carnevali. After lunching at a beach called Macuto, the group was taken in automobiles to Caracas and escorted to their lodgings where two students were placed in each house.
On Monday, June 28th, the message, in Latin, from the University of Georgetown, engraved on parchment and addressed to the Universidad Central de Caracas, was delivered to the Venezuelan authorities in the beautiful auditorium of that University.
The President of the Council, a body which exercises supervision of the University studies and is the supreme examining tribunal for the conferring of diplomas, announced in brief words the object of the meeting and invited us in the following words, to present the message of the University of Georgetown:
"Gentlemen of the National Council of Instruction and Members of the National Commissions; President and Members of the Schools of Physical, Medical, Mathematical and Political Sciences of the City of Caracas; Representatives of the Academies and other Institutions of University Extension; Students, Ladies and Gentlemen:
"We have assembled to receive the visit of illustrious guests who bring a noble and generous message from the University of Georgetown; they come at a time propitious for American patriotism and they are going to spend here the month in which we celebrate the date of the independence of our countries. It will be a pleasure for the Venezuelans to do as much as lies in their power to the end that such distinguished guests carry back to their country the most agreeable impressions. You are about to hear the message from the University of Georgetown. Prof. Sherwell will now address you."
The message follows.
The
President and Faculties of the
University of Georgetown
to
The President and Faculties of
the
Central University of Caracas,