During the 1936-37 and 1938-39 academic years, the University of Delaware's Foreign Study Committee published a series of pamphlets written by students abroad. "Letters from a Junior in France," by J. Edward Davison, and "Letters from a Junior in Germany," by Louise B. Morley, mainly reported on the day to day business of studying abroad. But Davison and Morley also wrote about holiday festivities, national celebrations and the political climate of Europe.
Davison on the French Christmas:
Naturally, customs vary in Paris and in the provinces. In the former, a Noel mondain is the most typical. One attends midnight mass at Notre Dame or another of the many famous churches. Then one has a supper of oysters, roast chicken, chestnuts, good wines and copious draughts of champagne at some chic restaurant. En province on fait la veillee de Noel en famille, or one keeps the Christmas Eve watch at home gathered around the fireside. The entire family attends midnight mass and in the small villages one may see the father of his family leading his numerous offspring to church with a lantern. After the services there is a family supper....The children instead of hanging up their stocking place their shoes by the fireside for Pere Noel to fill with gifts of fruit and toys.... (Jan. 7, 1937)
Davison on being in Paris on Armistice Day:
Despite a constant drizzling rain, the city's millions, it seemed, lined long, beautiful Champs-Elysees to do honor to the nation's dead. Before the parade of the troops, thousands of the Parisian school children, thirty abreast, filed past the tomb of the unknown soldier beneath the Arc de Triomphe and then down the Champs-Elysees. At one minute before eleven o'clock a warning salute from a noisy canon hushed the noisy crowd and for sixty seconds a deathly silence gripped the multitude, broken toward the end by an uncomprehending enthusiastic child who cried "La France aux Francais..." (Nov. 22, 1936)
Morley on European politics:
For while we were at the Assembly of the League of Nations...most of our minds kept turning toward Prague of Munich, toward Chamberlain and Hitler, as we became more and more distressed about Czechoslovakia's plight. We were completely depressed the evening when the Canton of Geneva had a blackout to prepare us for potential air raids, and when all work at the League had to stop at four-thirty. The streets of Geneva were pretty lugubrious when the only light to be seen was that from the fake sign placed carefully in the middle of the lake to fool the enemy....(Oct. 10, 1938)
