I THINK this is a wonderful experiment, because you are going to find out just exactly what we think, how we live, and how we act. Our exchange teachers will have the same privilege in your great country. In that way, we will learn to understand each other better.
The Philippine Foreign Minister the other day told me that the reason for the extreme loyalty of the Philippines in the last war was the American schoolteachers who had been with them for the last 40 years.
We need no such reason to be friendly and loyal when trouble is on us, because we are always side by side on that. But I think there will be better understanding of our-well, I might say our shortcomings and our idiosyncrasies, which sometimes are not agreeable when not well understood. And that is the way with all the different peoples of the world. When we understand the other fellow's viewpoint--understand what he is trying to do, 9 times out of 10 he is trying to do right.
And I am hopeful that you will carry back to your respective countries a good opinion of this country, and that when our people come back there will be complete understanding between us--no chance for any misunderstanding or failing out.
I hope you have a pleasant tour with us, and that when you go back you will be in as happy a frame of mind as you are now.
Thank you very much.
Note: The President spoke at 12:20 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White House.
The teachers were in the United States under the provisions of the United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948, Public Law 402 (62 Stat. 6).
Harry S Truman, Remarks to a Group of Exchange Teachers From Great Britain. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/229905
