Friend of the Foreign Student

[p. 98] In his history of the University of Illinois, Winton Solberg says that “After 1873 the student body became more diversified than in earlier years. Most counties in Illinois sent one son or daughter to Urbana. Altogether more than a dozen states were represented and pupils entered from Armenia, Germany, Greece, Japan and England primarily to study agriculture. The first women, fifteen in number, enrolled in 1870 and their ranks rose to 90 three years later.” Student numbers, including foreign students, did not grow markedly during the ’70s and ’80s. Solberg remarks that when the student body finally topped 500 for the first time in the Winter term of 1891 it was cause for great rejoicing.

Foreign student numbers continued to increase but not at a rapid rate until after the turn of the century. By 1910 the prominence of the University was such and the influence of its graduates so far flung that large numbers of foreign students were arriving. On the recommendation of Dean Thomas Arkle Clark, an Assistant Dean for Foreign Students was appointed.

Particularly large numbers of foreign students came from China due in no small degree to the missionaries whose background had been the University of Illinois and the University YMCA. Commenting on this period, Maynard Brichford, University of Illinois Archivist, said, “The scattering of early foreign students reflects missionary zeal and the cosmopolitan view of Gregory. The Chinese probably benefited from the Boxer Indemnity. Edmund James’ series of foreign ambassadors as commencement speakers and foreign travel widened the local horizons. The fame of our engineering college attracted foreign students. Probably the greatest influence was the active young faculty recruited in the 1895-1915 period.” By 1920, 296 students from thirty-one countries were enrolled, 105 of them from China. Visiting the University in 1922 John R. Mott remarked, “There is another reason I find myself so much at home here—there are few universities that have drawn to themselves so large a number from different nations of the world as has this university. It is not only the most national university of America but also one of the most international. Our efforts should be to enter sympathetically into the life of these other nations.”

In a brochure prepared by the University Y in 1936 the status of the University [p. 99] of Illinois as an international university was dramatically depicted by listing the numbers of students from other countries which had enrolled at the University during the past twenty-five years—1,192 from China, 317 from the Philippines, 275 from India, and 1,741 from more than fifty other countries in the world. The brochure, one which had been prepared to assist in the fund raising campaign for a new building, then stated significantly: “The influence that our democratic university has had on these students will reflect itself in their leadership in their homelands and in their friendship for America, one expression of which is to our commercial advantage.”

Though the University YMCA was committed from the outset to a religious missionary effort and hence was interested in the University’s foreign students, there was no significant continuing effort on their behalf until the YMCA was able to employ a General Secretary. Between 1900 and the advent of Chief Wilson in 1916 a program was gradually formalized through the efforts of General Secretaries Philip Conard, Dwight Weist, and Lloyd C. Douglas (known to many as the author of The Robe and other books).

In 1918 Chief Wilson brought C. D. Hayes to the staff as Associate Secretary. Hayes, who had spent six years in China and the Orient, worked with dedication to build up a program within the Y. A Committee on Friendly Relations, predecessor of the International Friendship Committee, was formed and the program really got under way. Besides the work for foreign students, the Y through Hayes and his committee became an effective instrument through which young men were recruited for the missionary effort and Christian life work. It is significant that the student YMCAs preserved their international contacts during the fury of both world wars. Admittedly the contacts were sporadic and circuitous. The important fact is that the student YMCAs stood for an international Christianity when even churches became nationalist.

Mic Coldwell, out of his phenomenal storehouse of memories, credits Cameron Hayes with initiating many of the programs which the Y later carried on with foreign students. The buildup of good will for the University of Illinois and for the United States as a result of the Y program with foreign students is difficult to estimate. Not scores but hundreds of the top leaders in all walks of life in foreign countries participated in the Y program and were influenced by it. To cite an example, not an unusual one, Dr. Hachiro Yuasa, President of the International Christian University in Japan, while a student became a friend of Cameron Hayes and a lifelong friend of the Y. Hayes visited foreign students in the hospital, helped them find rooms, assisted in getting loans, had them as guests in his home, counseled with them regarding personal problems, organized an English conversation class, and conducted countless Christian interviews as a result of which many foreign students embraced the Christian faith. The first International Banquet, an event which has taken on great significance over the years, was held in Wesley Foundation on May 2, 1925. It was sponsored by both the YMCA and YWCA in cooperation with Wesley Foundation—300 students from 29 nations attended.

[p. 100] Hayes became seriously ill in 1924 and was unable to return to the staff. Fortunately for the Y and its international program, a worthy successor was found in the person of Melville T. Kennedy, a native of Illinois and a missionary in Calcutta who had returned to his native country to educate his four boys. Though his period of service was not long (he left the Y in 1928 to become minister of the First Congregational Church), he kept alive and healthy the program which Hayes had started.

The International Friendship Committee

Reporting for the year 1924-25 the International Friendship Committee said, “The features which have characterized our program of other years have all been continued this year—finding rooms, boarding places and employment, loaning money, conducting social events, securing invitations into American homes at Thanksgiving and Christmas time, and conducting Bible classes.” Significantly the Committee said: “The presence of foreign students here should develop on the part of American students a sense of responsibility for making and maintaining Christian internationalism. Friendships should be made which will continue after our American students and these from abroad return to their homes. This can never be accomplished if the work is done by the Association’s Secretary. Therefore, we organize and maintain each year a committee of American students as a Friendly Relations Committee.”

During the year 1924-25 two new programs were started—The International Banquet and calling upon foreign students in their rooming houses. During that year, also, delegates were sent to a conference on Pacific Problems sponsored by students at the University of Chicago. The theme for the conference was a prophetic one—“How can we promote the peace of the Pan-Pacific basin?” The conference program carried a quote from Theodore Roosevelt, stating, “The Mediterraneau Era died with the discovery of America. The Atlantic era is now at the height of its development and must soon exhaust the resources at its command. The Pacific era, designed to be the greatest of all, is just at its dawn.”

In its 1924-25 report the committee also referred to a remarkable book, “The Foreign Student in America,” the result of a study by a commission of twenty-four leaders in religious work. A quote from the foreword written by Dr. Robert E. Spear is no less significant today than it was fifty years ago—“American life and the Christian church have never met a more severe and searching test than they are meeting today in the presence of these foreign students in our schools. These young men and women from many lands are testing the honesty of the political and social axioms which have constituted our American tradition. They are proving the reality of our profession of Christian brotherhood and equality. Almost all of them come here full of confidence and hope. Many of them are going back disillusioned, some bitter, some sorrowful. Thousands of them have gone home with strengthened faith having received that for which they came. They were able to distinguish between good and evil and to understand [p. 101] the struggle which was going on in our own national character. . . . Their presence is an opportunity; we have never had a greater one . . . they will not carry back what they do not get and they will not get what we cannot or do not give.”

Hayes contributed to this study. Members of the study group said that they believed the best piece of work for foreign students in the country was being done by the YMCA at the University of Illinois. At least the Y was doing its best to provide experiences which would forestall observations like that made by a brilliant Indian student—“When I came to England I was a Christian as a result of my study in a mission school. After five years in England I go back to India as a Hindu.” In this context the United States could as well have been substituted for England. The disillusionment of foreign students about the practice of idealism in America was just as real as that which exists among American college students today.

The annual reports of the International Friendship Committee are filled with stories and examples of the kind of help the YMCA was able to give. A lad arrives in New York bewildered, unable to make himself understood and understanding even less. He is met by a stranger who turns out to be a friend, a representative of the New York YMCA who sees that he gets lodgings for the night and that he is put on the train for Chicago the next day. In Chicago he is met by another stranger turned friend who does the same thing and heads him for Urbana. There he is met by a member of the International Friendship Committee, given the help he needs with housing and other immediate problems and is put in contact with a student from his home country, perhaps even his hometown. One must have been a stranger in a foreign land amidst a sea of faces and a jumble of voices with no place to turn to understand how literally thousands of foreign students felt when they reached the shores of America. This one service alone on the part of the YMCA was enough to justify all the efforts of the International Friendship Committee.

The Committee fostered many programs which are still operative—the Host Family Program (putting foreign students in contact with an American family), English language classes before the University had established such, tours and visits to places of interest in Illinois and other parts of the country, international forums at which were discussed the principles of the world’s great religious leaders, current problems in the home countries of foreign students, and the basis for world peace. The Y also fostered the establishment of foreign student associations helping them with mailing lists and publicity and providing a home for their parties, national dances, national dinners, and other events.

During the ’40s Larry Cadwell worked with the International Friendship Committee and the foreign student groups in helping establish more social occasions such as national dinners and meals with which the students helped and recreational meetings with light refreshments in the basement area which later became the Kaeser Room.

The international outreach of the Y can be illustrated by the lives of many [p. 102] men. James Hunter, Arthur Mosher, and Dean Leeper are worthy examples from three eras of the Y’s existence. Jim Hunter was graduated from the University of Illinois in 1914 and devoted the rest of his life to religious and agricultural work in China. In 1958 Agricultural Missions, Inc. honored him with its certificate of merit. The citation read, “For forty-nine years you have shared your knowledge of agriculture, your gift of intelligence and sympathy with human need and your understanding of the problems of village people in North China and Taiwan. You pioneered in agricultural extension including farmer’s fairs, in training your farmers in short courses and for longer term training for service in the village church. Recognizing that effective Christian rural programs could develop only through cooperative planning you helped to organize a North China Christian Rural Service Union. Because of their mutual trust in you, both the National Government of China and the United States Relief and Reconstruction Agency give you special authority to carry out their program in agriculture after World War II.”

Arthur Mosher, President of the University YMCA in 1931-32, spent twenty years of his life either as principal or on the staff of the Allahabad Agricultural Institute in India. Early in his assignment he and his wife lived in an Indian village as the villagers lived. He farmed with bullocks and hand tools so he could better understand what it was like to be an Indian farmer. Out of his rich experience in India he has provided sage counsel and sound agricultural development methodology to thousands of American university personnel now on assignments in India and other Asian and South American countries.

Dean Leeper, President of the Y in 1940-41, an extremely personable and dedicated young man who credited the Y with turning him toward missionary work, entered the mission field in Japan after World War II. The influence he exerted and the friendships he made were truly extraordinary. But his good work was tragically terminated on September 26, 1954, when a ferry boat capsized in a typhoon off Hokkaido Island. Under the leadership of Pete Ingalls a memorial fund was established for Dean as an expression of the deep feelings and respect which so many people had for him. Delmar Wedel, for four years on the staff of the Y and now Director, International Student Service, New York, followed Dean in the mission work in Japan.

Ralph Scott, President of the Y in 1911-12, spent most of his life as a Y Secretary abroad and P. A. Conard, General Secretary of the Y from 1900-1904, pioneered in Y work in South America. These are but a small sample; scores of others could be mentioned. In one of his frequent visits to the campus John R. Mott said, “I have met your former members in almost every corner of the world.”

It was a good day in 1950 when Pete Ingalls induced John Price to join the Y staff and be in charge of the foreign student program. For eighteen years, until he retired and joined the University staff to carry on similar work in 1968, John devoted his whole thought and energy to the welfare of foreign students on the University of Illinois campus. More than ever before the Y came to be known as the place where a foreign student could be helped regardless of his problem, where national groups could socialize and “mess up” Fred Witwer’s kitchen preparing [p. 103] their national dishes, where foreign students whose countries were at odds could meet and let off steam, and where different nationalities could gather in cooperative programs such as International Nights and a Little United Nations. The international program of the Y was aided by a Faculty World Service Committee.

Even after the University appointed a Dean of Foreign Students, the Y remained the focus for foreign student activity. While the Dean’s office could help students with academic and admission problems, with travel arrangements and visa questions, it could not supply the human touch which was supplied by John Price and the YMCA. Well organized tours conducted during vacation periods helped students get a feel for America that couldn’t arise while they were confined to the campus. Many foreign students were too timid or dedicated to their studies or lacking in funds to do those things which would deepen their understanding of America and its people. John Price sensed this need as he sensed many other needs because he dealt with foreign students in depth, not superficially. In turn they could sense his concern and sympathy and knew they had a friend. More than formalized programs, committee structure, numbers attending banquets and other data which might be assembled to show the nature and extent of the program, this attitude and devotion on the part of John earned for the foreign student work an enviable reputation.

Early after he came to the Y John published a foreign student directory. This was maintained in subsequent years. By the mid-’50s foreign student numbers had reached a thousand, so preparing the directory became a sizeable task. The International Supper program was expanded. The suppers, held on alternate Sunday nights in the Y, were planned by a joint YWCA-YMCA committee. Attendance averaged over 200. The evening was devoted to consuming the national dishes and to talks, music, folklore, skits, slides, stories and native dances.

The tours, always popular with foreign students, and of high educational value, are well described in an issue of the Y’s Indian: “John W. Price, Program Director, could spend all his time (if our budget could afford it) working with students from abroad. One aspect of the program alone—that of weekend and vacation tours—offers so much that it could become a major activity. Three events of this nature were held during the first semester; each had a capacity group of at least 35 international students. A large bus load went to Whiteside County for three days over the Thanksgiving holiday to take part in a program set up by Frank H. Shuman, Farm Advisor. Students lived in farm homes, participated in Thanksgiving Day events, saw family life from the inside and were part of the community during their stay. People in Whiteside County, as well as the students who participated, are still talking about it.

“Christmas vacation—despite heavy snows and ice—saw another group of 35 going to Streator for a four day program in cooperation with the International Relations Club of the high school. John R. Fornof, Editor and Publisher of the Times-Press and U. of I. Trustee, was active in the program. The students met with several groups including the city council and the Y’s Men’s Club. On the [p. 104] way home they joined other international students in Peoria for a tour of the Caterpillar Tractor Company and the Regional Research Laboratory of the U. S. Department of Agriculture.

“Springfield, with all its historic Lincolniana, welcomed some thirty more international students in the between semesters period. The Women’s Society of the First Presbyterian Church provided home entertainment and set up a full schedule.”

John started an American Students Abroad program and a Junior World Service program. In 1966 he accompanied thirteen University of Illinois students to India where in the village they carried on projects in agriculture, construction, family life and health, and recreation.

In 1959, soon after the cultural relations “thaw” with the USSR, John accompanied an official group of twelve YMCA students on an exchange mission. Upon his return he made a moving and incisive Faculty Forum address about this experience.

When John left the Y staff in 1968 to join the University staff, part of the international program went with him. While foreign students are still given personal help, including temporary rooms, guidance, contacts with other students and faculty members and a friendly place to relax, the activities which made the program distinctive have been substantially reduced. This has resulted in part from the tremendous build-up of the foreign assistance and international programs of the University—but primarily it is because John Price is no longer there.