Pan American World Airways teacher, Vol. X, No. 5, May 1954

              TEEN-AGE EDUCATIONAL EXCHANGES
FORUM DELEGATES — Five of the 32 delegates from abroad to the Herald Tribune Forum for High Schools are pictured on arrival at Idlewild Airport. They are David Tin, Burma; Epel Esin, Turkey; Rasul Nizam, Pakistan; Satoshi Kawamitsu, Okinawa; and Kimko Fujii, Japan.
PAN AMERICAN PAY LATER PLAN WILL AID EDUCATIONAL TRAVEL
Teenagers from abroad who have demonstrated that the members of their set can be effective international ambassadors of good will, are the high school age youngsters who came to the United States this year from more than thirty countries to attend the New York Herald Tribune Forum for High Schools, and the “Junior Ambassadors” who were brought to the United States by Pan American-Grace Airways last fall.
A third teen-age ambassadorial project was the visit of two teenagers to Pakistan, followed by a trip on around the world, as guests of the Pakistan government.
Teenagers are effective in these exchanges in a way which cannot possibly be matched by their elders. What they say and do is completely unofficial, full allowance is made by everybody for their inexperience, so they are pretty much uninhibited. There is a free exchange of information and explanation of attitudes, which has no appreciable effect upon the immediate course of world affairs, but has a great influence upon the thinking of those who will be the leaders, and also the followers, in the decades just ahead of us.
The first group of delegates from abroad to the Herald Tribune Forum for High Schools was brought to the United States from Latin America by Flying Clippers of Pan American World Airways in 1948. In each successive year PAA has similarly participated in this phase of the forum program, which eventually became world wide in scope. This year representatives of thirty-two countries participated in “deliberations” of the forum at the United Nations General Assembly Hall.
Panagra’s Junior Ambassadors from Latin America visited the U. S. last October, and a return visit by U. S. students to Latin America is being organized for this summer.
The Herald Tribune’s first high school forum, in 1947, was a meeting for delegates from high schools in New York City and suburbs which was set up as a “projection” of the newspaper’s famous annual Herald Tribune Forum for the general public. The high school edition was so successful in that first year that Mrs. Helen Hiett Waller, the Forum Director, initiated in the following year the international phase which has come to be its dominant feature.
Delegates are chosen primarily on the basis of their scholastic records, and their ability to speak English, but personality factors enter largely into the final decision of the judges.
Competition for the honor, and the privilege of traveling to the United States, is keen. Beginning with eliminations in indi-( Continued on page 15)
The chief obstacle to educational travel which has existed in the past—the lack of ready cash—is cleared away now by a credit financing arrangement in the present generation tradition of installment buying.
The Pan Am Pay Later Plan, available to the general traveling public, is especially appealing to teachers and students for whom travel is an educational experience, and who therefore have the same incentive for arranging to pay later for travel that they have for “financing” a college education.
In announcing the Pan Am Pay Later Plan, Willis G. Lipscomb, Vice President, Traffic and Sales of Pan American World Airways said:
“Air transportation long has needed an installment plan to enable it to compete with other similarly priced commodities on the consumer market.
“Installment buying of our tickets is the second major step in Pan American’s long-range objective to bring international air
travel within the reach of the average man. Introduction of tourist service rates by Pan American in 1948, since extended to almost every part of the world and adopted by domestic airlines, was the first step.
“The new plan will permit millions to fly abroad without disturbing their current savings.
“The plan stems from Pan American’s recognition that the American economy to a large degree is based on credit. Without credit, there would be little hope of maintaining the constant increase in the purchase of durable and consumer goods. More than any other single influence, credit has enabled Americans to achieve and maintain the highest standard of living in the world. We want to see international travel made a regular part of that standard of living.”
The “Pan Am Pay Later Plan” was filed as a special tariff with the Civil Aeronautics Board to become effective on May 1. It (Continued on page 2)