Mutation

During the early 1930s, when I was a graduate student and later a post-doctoral researcher at the National Research Council for the University of Wisconsin at Madison, we had the opportunity to get acquainted with many graduate students from China who were sent to the University for training in modern basic sciences as well as social sciences. The University of Wisconsin continues to graduate a large number of Chinese students. Economic conditions in the 1930s were very precarious for the United States and other parts of the world. Many of us students grew closer together because we were living on similarly tight budgets. As a matter of fact, we subleased a part of our apartment in Madison to some Chinese graduate students. This was a very nice opportunity for us to learn about the scientific and cultural back- ground of our Chinese friends. Many of them came from the interior of China and had had very little opportunity to become acquainted with people from a western culture. Living with these students was a very pleasant and educational experience which gave us a good pic- ture of the cultural life and educational system of China at that time--an intimate picture that one normally would not see without travelling in that country.