Charles Seeger -Notes 1948
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UNESCO, February 1948Author(s): Charles SeegerSource: Notes, Second Series, Vol. 5, No. 2 (Mar., 1948), pp. 165-168Published by: Music Library AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/891431
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UNESCO,
FEBRUARY
1948
by
CHARLES
SEEGER
"Since
wars
begin
in the
minds
of
men,
it
is in
the minds
of men
that
the defenses of peace must be constructed."-Preamble to Constitution
of
United
Nations
Education,
Scientific
and
Cultural
Organization.
When
the United
Nations
Organization
was
set
up
in
San
Francisco,
provision
was made
for
a
number of
dependent
agencies.
Upon
the
high-
est
level
were the
General
Assembly,
the
International
Court of
Justice
and
the
Security
Council.
Upon
a
second
level
were the
Secretariat,
the
Trus-
teeship
Council
and
the
Economic
and Social
Council.
Dependent upon
the
last
mentioned,
though
with
no
definitely
established
relationship,
were
a
numberof special agencies having to do with Human Rights, Health,Food
and
Agriculture,
Labor,
Statistics,
Finance, etc.,
and a
United
Nations
Educational,
Scientific
and
Cultural
Organization
(UNESCO).
There
was
general
agreement
that
such
a
body
should
be
authorized.
But the
name
(which
had
quite
a bit
to
do with
the
function and
was
suggested
by
the
British
Delegation)
gave
pause
upon
two
grounds.
First,
considerable
doubt
existed as
to
inclusion
of the
word
"education" in
the
title.
United
States
Delegate
Vandenberg,
among
others,
feared
it
smacked
too
much
of
propaganda.
United
States
educators
relayed
the
news
back
home
and
such a flood of telegrams came in that the Delegation yielded. A second
trouble was
what
to call
the
"and-so-forth"
nterests,
not
strictly
scientific
or
educational,
that
were
involved-libraries,
museums,
fine
arts,
letters,
humanities,
theatre,
dance,
folklore, radio,
cinema,
press.
The
blanket
term
"cultural"
was
adopted,
following
practice
in
most
foreign
offices
and
many
other
organs
of
governments,
and
on
November
16,
1945,
repre-
sentatives
of
43
of
the 55
Member
States
of
United
Nations
signed
in
London
the
Final
Act
of the
Conferencefor
the
establishment
of
UNESCO.
By
September
1,
1947
there
were
32
members,
among
them
the
United
States. Unofficially, t was said on February1, 1948, 41 nationshad joined.
From
the
beginning,
the
promise
of
a
union
of
intellectual
rationale
and
political
common-sense
that
gave
birth
to
the
Organization
has
proven
an
inspiration
to all
who
have
worked
in
UNESCO
or
watched
its
growing
pains.
The
difficulties
of
making
the
union
work
in
day-to-day
practice
have
proven
enormous.
Some of
them,
uppermost
in
the
minds
of
those
most
concerned
with
the
program,
have
been
the
supposition
that
peace
can
be
taken
by
storm,
the
spreading
of
too
little
over
too
much
and the
pressure
of
special
interests.
These
are
largely political
difficulties.
But
there are technical difficulties;not so
easily
identified. So
rapid
has
been
the
development
of
intellectual
progress
in
modern
times
that
a
lag
of
portentous
size
has
grown
between
it
and
the
progress
of
political
thinking
and
action.
The
naivete
of
the
intellectual
in
minimizing
this
lag
is
as
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and
Humanities.
Music
Education will
be taken
care
of
by
the Arts
and
Letters Section
in
cooperation
with
the
Section of
Education
in a
project
calling
for
three
consultants
and
a
meeting
of
experts.
A
sum
of
$8,750
is
allocated for
that
purpose.
Music
Library might
claim
to be
divided
between the Library Section and that of Arts and Letters. But in this
latter
there
is a
project
"in
collaboration
with
experts
and institutions
concerned
with
music,
to
prepare
a
catalog
of
world
music,
listing
music
which
is
already
available
in
recorded form
and music
which
should
be
recorded
to
supplement
existing
materials;
provided
that
the
Director-
General
should
seek
sponsors
to bear the
cost of
publication,
which
should
not be
borne
by
UNESCO."
A
sum
of
approximately
$8,000
was
allocated
to
this
project.
Musicians,
music
librarians
and
music
administratorswill
be
interested
in several dozen projects listed under Mass Communication(headings of
Audio-visual
aids
and
Telecommunication),
but
more
particularly
under
Libraries,
where
there are
15
projects
involving
preparation
and
guidance
of
librarians,
a
multilingual
dictionary
of
librarianship,
creation of
union
catalogs,
standardization
of
classificatory
systems,
bibliography,
archive
development,
etc.
Music and
books about
music
might
be
concerned
in
the
general
sections
Books,
Publications,
Journals,
and
Copyright.
An
im-
portant
liaison for
music
activity
is found in
the
project
"Fundamental
Education"
in
which a
regional
conference
has
already
been
announced
by
the Pan American Union in cooperation with UNESCO. Others are in
Reconstruction,
Exchange
of
Persons,
and
Education in
International
Un-
derstanding.
Luiz
Heitor
Correa de
Azevedo,
distinguished
Brazilian
music
historian
and
folklorist,
who
will
be
in
charge
of
Music
Affairs in
the
Section
of
Arts
and
Letters
during
1948
(with
one
assistant),
will
have
his
hands
full.
Perhaps
the
action
most
significant
to
musicians
was
the
resolution,
adopted
in
Mexico
upon
motion
of
Helen
White
of the
United
States Dele-
gation,
instructing
the
Director-General
"to
make
preliminary
enquiries
for the establishmentof an InternationalMusic Institute and
prepare
pro-
posals
for
furthering
such a
project
for
submission to
the
Third
Session
of the
Conference
in 1948."
A
large
number of
such
institutes,
councils
and
commissions
already
exist
in
special
fields,
among
them
an
Interna-
tional
Theatre
Institute,
an
International
Commission
on
Folk
Arts and
Folklore,
an
International
Federation
of
Library
Associations,
an
Interna-
tional
Commission
of
Museums,
etc.
There
is
no
reason
to
believe
that
a
music
institute
or
council
cannot
take its
place
among
them.
The
picture,
then,
of
UNESCO-an
inter-governmentagency, dealing
only
with
governments
and other international
organizations-surrounded
by
a
planetary
family
of
autonomous
specialized
organizations
with
which
it
can
deal,
but
which
are
controlled
and
directed
by
private
initiative,
makes
considerable
sense.
UNESCO
has
sufficient
funds
to
aid
many
of
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