Monro Calls Student Peace Corps 'Exciting Adventure' in Politics

A forum on the "peace corps" attracted an audience of almost 150 people at Boylston Hall Saturday morning, despite limited publicity and the early hour of 10 a.m.

Dean Monro, Elliot J. Berg, instructor in Economics, and Paul E. Sigmund, instructor in Government, discussed in a wide-ranging two-hour session the genesis of the "peace corps" idea, the needs of the emergent nations that would be served, and the specific pilot program under consideration at the University.

The concept of youth service in under-developed areas, Monro said, is "one of the most exciting adventures in political thinking" of the past 20 years. It involves "the responsibility and public service that are at the heart of the democratic process."

He expressed the hope that Harvard would "do something useful" with the proposal currently under consideration. Government officials from Nigeria, Kenya, and other African nations have shown interest in employing American college graduates as secondary school teachers. The University, however, has not yet "officially looked at" the proposal to send 20 to 25 seniors to western Nigeria next fall.

"Teachers, Not Doers"

Any youth service program, according a Berg, must concentrate on the schools rather than on construction or manual labor. Africa needs "teachers, not doers," he emphasized, and the secondary schools, which provide the "crucial layer of people with intermediate skills," are the great bottleneck in the continent's development.

In most African nations, the personnel problem at the secondary school level is critical, Berg added. The youth corps must try to hit specifically at this problem and should not become a "massive work camp" for idealistic Americans.

Many questions from the floor centered on the question of draft exemption.