nd World War and the existence of large uncollectible foreign credits, resulted in the bill creating the scholarships. . . . The recipients of these awards may be considered as grandchildren of Cecil Rhodes, scattered throughout the world."Historical Precedents of Using Surplus Money for EducationThe little know incident that gave Senator Fulbright the idea of using the war surplus to create a fund for education was the event associated with a secret nationalist society know as the Boxers. The Chinese Empire had been divided up into pieces by western nations like England, France and Russia at the turn of the last century and thousands were sent to the United States as virtual slave laborers to help build the Western Railroads. Boxers, the secret society tried to reclaim Peking and some other places in an attempt to uphold the dynasty but their rebellion was put down eventually by European and American ships after they terrorizes the Westerners and destroyed their property. As an indemnity of their actions, the West had demanded a total of $ 333 million, $26 million of which was the share of the United States. The U.S. government had put $16 million of this acquired indemnity, in an act of good faith, in a trust fund in order to help educate the young Chinese who were in the United States at the time.After remembering this little known historical incidence Senator Fulbright did some additional research and found out that part of Belgiums war debts to United States after the First World War was also converted to a student exchange program (Coffin, 1966; Vogel, 1987).III. The Fulbright PlanSenator Fulbright was already a firm believer in the value of international exchange programs. He once had said:Its never possible to prove what word or ideas may have changed the course of events, but we do know from history the narrow margins by which some great decisions are made. I remember reading once about the decisions of the Athenians to attack ...
