Britons at Princeton

Many Britons firmly believe that 1) Americans talk like characters out of Damon Runyon and 2) that it is hazardous to walk the streets of gangster-ridden Chicago.

On a tip from a graduate whose similar haziness about life in England was cleared up by a visit to Cambridge, Princeton University had an idea. It began conducting weekend courses for groups of British and Dominion servicemen and women stationed in the U.S. Last week the 15th such group left Princeton's campus after a three-day closeup of U.S. opinion, culture, labor, politics, hospitality. The general student reaction: the U.S. is easier to understand and much more likable than its press, radio and cinema have led foreigners to believe.

The 29 members of the party included representatives of almost all British do minions and services, ranging in rank from corporal to brigadier. Before they arrived, each of the students received a U.S. his tory text plus a list of reference books.

After a tour of the campus (during which guides discreetly said little about the mementos of a 1777 Anglo-American meeting at Princeton), they settled down to the first of four two-hour conferences in a room which used to be the office of Princeton's President Woodrow Wilson.

Winding up the course was an all-afternoon "bicker session" at which final blunt questions were aired.

Typical questions: What is the difference between a Republican and a Democrat? Why are American children so badly brought up? What is the U.S. equivalent of Britain's prestigious Crown? Like their predecessors, most of the visitors were struck at the sight of adults eating dry cereal ("horse food,") and drinking milk ("Put some brandy in it").

--In Manhattan, similar classes on a more elementary level are being held for Russians by the American Russian Institute.

Starting with such lofty themes as "American Traits and Attitudes," the professors are quickly reduced to explaining such U.S. oddities as Superman, the technique of dating girls, the mystifying myth of Horatio Alger.

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