THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

and their results». The University, like the great international
expositions towards the end of the previous century, should
be a manifestation of the positivist spirit. Courses, lectures,,
expositions would be brief. Professors would be recruited from
among the most distinguished scholars and teachers in the
various universities in the world and from those nominated
by particular international associations because of their eminence
within the association or because of their eminence in
some aspect of the association's field of interest. Students,
would be mature, and as a rule,, almost at the end of their
formal studies. Many of them would be intended for an international
career in the League of Nations or elsewhere. The
University's seat would be at Brussels and the languages of
instruction would be the League's official languages, French
and English.
Otlet envisaged a series of publications emanating from,
the university: a Review, an Annual and a Monograph series
in which would be published the best lectures or courses.
«These works», he observed «would rapidly constitute a
'summa' synthetically treating the most important questions
of the moment». He suggested that financial support for the
venture might flow from the League, from individual universities,
from the international associations and from governmentsin
the form of grants, sponsored professors, scholarships for
students and endowed chairs.
In 1919 a number of international organisations set up
their headquarters in Brussels, thus continuing after the interruption
of the War, the long, steady growth of Brussels
as an international center. Among these organisations were
the Union of Associations for a League of Nations, the International
Research Council, and the recently formed International
Federation of Students. Acting on the initiative of
Otlet and La Fontaine, the International Federation of Students
and the Union of Associations for a League of Nations
passed resolutions directed at the League of Nations urgingit
to create an organ for intellectual matters and to support
the International University which the Union of International
Associations proposed to create. These resolutions were at
once transmitted to Sir Eric Drummond, the League's Secretary-General,
who, as 1920 progressed, was kept closely informed
of all developments in the UIA and the International
University. 6
Otlet and La Fontaine hoped for three kinds of support
from the League, and they used every means in their power
to obtain it. First was to see the League deliberately take up
the role of organising international intellectual work along"
the lines suggested by them with a firm, central, useful position
reserved to the UIA in its Palais Mondial. Second, they-
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