THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

development through things (Nature, Man, Society), through space
(Nations, Countries), through time (History, Evolution, Revolutions,
Transformations).
2. This instruction is supported by the vast documentation already
assembled in the Museum, the Library, the Archives and the Repertories
of the Palais Mondial. Such documentation permits everyone, at any
time, to deepen and extend his studies: it simplifies oral exposition ...
The documentation of the Museum in particular allows one to see and
touch things themselves or reproductions of them: «The Silent University
of Sight and Touch».
3. Moreover, this instruction extends to everything. It covers the great
fundamental facts, the links, the connections, the recurrences, the
repercussions, the interdependencies. In this form it constitutes in
essence «Modern and Generalised Humanities». It draws its inspiration
from these adages: you are a man and nothing human should be
foreign to you; you have become a citizen of the world and no part
of the world should lie outside your knowledge; you are a son of the
twentieth century and none of the great common tasks, now imposed
or proposed, should leave you indifferent.. .
The Palais Mondial's cycle of triennial instruction takes many forms:
lectures, still and moving pictures, phonograph concerts, demonstrations,
guided tours with commentaries, meetings with enquiries,
questions and debates. General meetings are complemented by
conversations, by initiation into the methods of Documentation and
intellectual work by means of courses and practical work in the
workshops of the Palais Mondial. 1
In this program Otlet had endeavoured to put into
practice the educational uses to be made of the collections of
the Mundaneum upon which he had expatiated in 1926. The
range of subjects dealt with in the lectures, many accompanied
as the program promised, by slides or other primitive
forms of what nowadays are called the audio-visual media,
was extraordinary. Otlet himself in just the first half of 1930
lectured on «The International Bank», «The Hague and London
Conferences*. «The International Organisation of Vice», «The
Problems of Language*, «From the Cave to the World City»,
«The International Institute for Intellectual Cooperation —
Its Re-organisation and the Institutes of the Palais Mondial*,
«Concerning the Revolution of 1830 and of all other Revolutions
that have or will be seen in the World», and «Philosophy
•of Life and Universalism». 2 Other lecturers ranged in their
discourses from «The Necessity for Dental Hygiene*, to «The
Enigmas of the Universe*. 3
During this period, too, a special effort was made to interest
children in the work of the Mundaneum. In 1930 Georges
Lorphevre set about organising a children's library at the
Mundaneum for the Jeunes Amis du Palais Mondial (sometimes
known as JAPM) who were taking up their work at that
time, it was remarked, «with enthusiasm*. 4 The aims of the
Jeunes Amis du Palais Mondial were defined as «developing
the faculties*, and «extending the knowledge* of its members,
thus permitting them to make «some worthwhile contribution
to the Palais Mondial while helping themselves*. 5 In some
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