Fannie Fern (Phillips) Andrews, 1867-1950

Internationally known as a lecturer and author, Fannie Fern Andrews, Ph.D., receives even wider acclaim as an authority on international law and the international aspects of education. While her interests and activities penetrate almost every phase of social life, she is chiefly identified with world relationships and has been, both before and after the World War. Dr. Andrews is extraordinarily well equipped for the multifarious tasks she undertakes as a representative of her country abroad and as an official at home, in an infinite variety of fields. She has the background of natural gifts, breadth of scholarship, extensive travels and contact with great minds and outstanding personalities. What she says or writes receives world wide attention for, to paraphrase one of hundreds of comments made upon the recent publication of two of her most important volumes, -- she is distinctly interesting, comprehensive, open-minded, and fundamentally impartial. "Personal observations never descend to the trivial. On the other hand, attention to judicial and administrative questions never loses itself in technicality. While straining always for complete authenticity and accuracy, the author maintains a high note of literary expression." (Prof. Albert Howe Lybyer.)

Dr. Fannie Fern (Phillips) Andrews, was born in Nova Scotia, Canada, the daughter of William Wallace and Anna Mariah (Brown) Phillips, the former a native of Auburn, Maine and the latter of Nova Scotia. She married, on July 16, 1890, Edwin Gasper Andrews (1858-1935) q.v., in this volume. The marriage was ideal, and there was an affinity of interests throughout Mr. Andrews' life. He approved her renewal of collegiate studies; collaborated in many of her activities, and they were mutually fond of the out-of-doors, hiking, camping and fishing together and with friends with keen enjoyment. In a gift to the Columbian Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, Boston, of her greatest work, "The Holy Land Under Mandate," she wrote: "This book is inscribed to Columbian Lodge as a joint gift from the author and her husband, Edwin Gasper Andrews, who participated in the elaborate investigations into the life and conditions of the Holy Land, which form the substance of the book, and who from the first to the last, even to the reading of the proof, remained a constant help and inspiration."

Graduated from the Salem Normal School (State Teachers' College,) of Salem, Massachusetts, in 1884, Mrs. Andrews was a student in the Harvard University Summer School during two sessions, 1895 and 1896. She then matriculated at Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, from which she received in 1902, her Bachelor's degree in Arts, majoring in education and psychology. In 1920 she was granted her Master's degree in Arts, and in 1923 earned the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, both of the latter named degrees having been gained in the field of international law and diplomacy. In view of the fact that her most famous work, published in two volumes, nearly a decade later, was entitled, "The Holy Land Under Mandate," it is pertinent to note that the Mandatory System was the subject of her Doctor's thesis, which she presented in part for the Harvard University Doctor of Philosophy degree. The book, to which further consideration is given in this review, was written only after a prolonged stay in the mandated territories of Palestine, Syria and Iraq, investigating the legal basis and consequences of the mandatory system.

In 1908, Dr. Andrews began her noted career as a champion of the theory that education is an important and vital element in creating international friendliness and in shaping national and international progress. She made extensive researches into this subject, both in the United States and in Europe, working under the auspices of the American School Citizenship League, which she organized in 1908. During this period, she was the author of many important works written to assist teachers and school officials in the practical application in the schools of the principles which she had established in her research studies.

As Special Collaborator of the United States Bureau of Education, a position which she held from 1912 to 1921, she prepared two noteworthy government bulletins, containing information of world-wide import to the thesis of international friendliness through education. These were distributed to the extent of several hundred thousands, at a nominal price, by the Bureau of Education to the schools of the United States; and they were also transmitted to the Foreign Offices of Europe. The research studies of Dr. Andrews led her directly to Europe where she investigated foreign educational systems, primarily from the international angle. She discussed the international aspects of education with government officials, outstanding educators and international publicists. Dr. Andrews numbers among her friends many of the leading minds of the old world.

In 1911 she propounded the plan for a world diplomatic conference on education whose purpose was to establish an International Bureau of Education which would act as a world clearance on information pertaining to education. At the solicitation of Dr. Andrews, the United States Government sponsored this Conference, first, under President Taft, and later under President Wilson during whose administration complete arrangements were made for the assembling of the world education conference. It was at the suggestion of Dr. Andrews that the United States requested the Government of the Netherlands to issue the call for the Conference. Both governments invited Dr. Andrews to visit the Foreign Offices of Europe for the purpose of explaining the object of the Conference. The result hoped for was the adoption of Statutes, agreed upon by a Committee appointed by the Netherlands Government working jointly with a United States Committee, providing for the setting up of an International Bureau of Education which was intended to function as Dr. Andrews had originally conceived the idea. Eighteen countries accepted the invitation of the Dutch Government and appointed delegates to the Conference which was called to meet at The Hague in September, 1914, but because of the War was never held. Dr. Andrews was appointed by President Wilson to represent the United States at this Conference.

In 1915. Dr. Andrews accepted by cable the invitation from an international group of law professors and publicists, representing the neutrals of the War and also the Allies and the Central Powers, to discuss at The Hague the principles and conditions of a durable peace. This remarkable Conference, held almost within hearing of the raging conflict, composed of such outstanding figures in world affairs, four of whom having later been appointed to the Permanent Court of International Justice, resolved itself into what was called the Central Organization for a Durable Peace. And it was through the skillful efforts of Dr. Andrews, who became the International Corresponding Secretary, that the famous nine-point Minimum Program became discussed in the United States and in many centers of Europe as well as Central and South America. The Central Organization for a Durable Peace produced a series of publications, written by well-known authorities, on all the points in the Minimum Program. In 1917, Nijhoff, at The Hague, published Dr. Andrew's monograph on "The Freedom of the Seas."

After the War was over, and because of her intelligent and tactful approach in her interviews with ministers of foreign affairs and ministers of education in explaining the purpose of an International Bureau of Education, Dr. Andrews was appointed by the Department of the Interior, with the approval of President Wilson, to represent the United States Bureau of Education at the Peace Conference in 1919. While in Paris, Dr. Andrews was called upon to assist the Army Educational Commission in preparing material for the teaching of the foreign relations of the United States in the American Army schools in France which were set up after the armistice. She wrote a book of some three hundred pages, and she also went out to the forwarding camps of the American soldiers to talk to them on foreign relations.

As one of the representatives of the League to Enforce Peace, appointed by Mr. Taft to serve in the Conference of Allied Societies, Dr. Andrews submitted a resolution, recommending the organization of an international bureau of education within the framework of the League of Nations. This was not only adopted by the group, but was carried directly to the Council of Ten. During this same period, she represented the National Council of Women of the United States in the International Council of Women and the Conference of Women Suffragists of Allied Countries, a delegation from which was received by the League of Nations Commission, of which President Wilson was Chairman. On this occasion Dr. Andrews presented the Bureau plan in the form of a draft article for the Covenant, which among other projects presented by the woman of ten other countries, became registered in the official proceedings of the Peace Conference.

Being also accredited to the American Press Bureau, Dr. Andrews attended the plenary sessions and the special conferences, where she became acquainted with the official backstage of the peace negotiations. And it was during these experiences that she became interested in the Mandatory System, which, she believed, was the "most impressive bit of idealism in the whole war settlement." She approached the subject with her characteristic ability for research, and became thoroughly informed on this unique method of governing conquered territories.

Although reference has already been made to "The Holy Land Under Mandate" which has received acclaim by authorities in America and Europe, as "the best book on modern Palestine that has yet been issued," it is doubtful whether appreciation of this rich fruition of Dr. Andrews' mental qualifications, mature scholarship, and almost unique knowledge of the subject and people discussed, can be over emphasized. These volumes, to quote but a sentence or two from the introduction by Professor James T. Shotwell, "supply with great wealth of detail, the story of this last chapter in the history of the Holy Land. Based as it is upon first hand information of the land and its administrators, documented with scrupulous, scholarly care, Dr. Andrews' narrative of the complex problems of race, religion, and politics should furnish the material for an objective judgment upon the part of those interested in Palestine and its people." There was a universal amplification of this cautious statement by reviewers of this work after its publication.

While the temptation is great to quote at length from the appraisals and critiques of such notables as Professors Albert Howe Lybyer, William E. Hocking, James T. Shotwell, William Langer, and many others high in university circles, and from reviews in the "London Morning Post," "The Scotsman," of Edinburgh, "The New York Times," "New York Herald-Tribune," and other New York newspapers; "The Boston Herald," "The Boston Transcript," and other journals of the "Hub," and such magazines as "Foreign Affairs," "Current History," "Bulletin of the International Bureau of Education," Geneva, Switzerland, "The Arbitrator," of London, "Journal of American Association of University Women," "World Federation News," "School and Society," "The American Journal of International Law," "The Geographical Review," and others, space will be given only to our beloved American William Allen White and sentences from his comments in his "Gazette" under the heading: "A Statesman-like Book on an Important Problem."

"Here is an intelligent book on Zionism. Mrs. Andrews is particularly well equipped to write it. . . .

The book is the result of ten years of earnest, conscientious study and research by a trained mind . . . . It is bound to be a source book, for this decade at least and probably for this century . . . . To her book must go any historian, any lawyer, or any statesman who is inquiring about the problems made by Zionism in the modern world. She has set forth the claims of the Jews and the Arabs most temperately, fairly, with a scholar's detachment, with a lawyer's judicial temperament. Probably no one from the western world writing of Arab civilization has set forth so powerfully the claims of Arab life to expression and development as Dr. Andrews. . . . Her book will remain a model of fairness and consideration . . . . It is a statesmanlike contribution to the problem. To know it is the first step in any solution."

In 1934, President Roosevelt appointed Dr. Andrews a delegate to the Third International Conference on Public Instruction, which was called by the Swiss Government. She received a warm welcome by the International Bureau of Education in whose name the Conference was convoked, and also by the delegates at the Conference who represented forty nations. This Bureau is the direct outcome of the pre-War activities of Dr. Andrews for an International Bureau of Education, which was noted by Dr. Marcel Nyns, General Secretary of the Belgian Ministry of Public Instruction, the President of the Conference: "This Conference," he said, "whose initiative was taken by Mrs. Fannie Fern Andrews in 1914, but which had not been able to meet because of the Great War, is reunited here in Geneva just twenty years after . . . . Great ideas," he declared, "can never die."

At the request of the United States Consulate at Geneva, Dr. Andrews wrote the Report of the 1934 Conference which was transmitted to the State Department, at Washington. This Report is a valuable educational document, since it not only gives an account of the actual proceedings of the Conference, but also presents a detailed history of the events which form its background. Dr. Andrews had a rich and scholarly foundation for her special mission in Geneva in the summer of 1934. Her numerous writings and her practical experience in the lines of education and diplomacy attest the unique qualifications necessary for successful achievement.

For purposes of record and as reflecting the manifold interests of Dr. Andrews, the following list of organizations of which she is a member or official, together with the names of the various works of which she is the author, or compiler, are given: A Phi Beta Kappa, of 1923, Radcliffe, she was President of Radcliffe College Chapter (Iota of Massachusetts,) 1929-1932; Chairman of the Committee on the Encouragement of Scholarship (Iota of Massachusetts), 1925-1929, and a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Association of Greater Boston, 1933. She was the organizer and President of the Sherwin-Hyde Parents Association (Boston), the first Parents' Association connected with the Schools to be organized anywhere, April 23, 1905; organizer of Boston Home and School Association, 1907; President of Boston Home and School Association, 1914-1918; Founder and secretary of American School Citizenship League, 1908--; member, Council of International Peace Bureau, Geneva, Switzerland, 1911--; special Collaborator, United States Bureau of Education, 1912-1921; represented the United States at the 1915 Conference at The Hague, composed of leading international lawyers and publicists, representing the neutrals in the War and also the Allies and the Central Powers, which organized the Central Organization for a Durable Peace; member, Executive committee of the Central Organization for a Durable Peace, The Hague, 1915-1923; International Corresponding Secretary of the Central Organization for a Durable Peace, 1915-1923; representative of the New England Women's Press Association at the Peace Conference, Paris, 1919; member, Board of Directors, and Chairman of the International Relations Committee of the Boston League of Women Voters, 1922-1929; President, Boston Branch, American Association of University Women, 1923-1925; Chairman of International Relations Committee, Boston Branch, American Association of University Women, 1925-1932; member of the Program Committee, Foreign Policy Association, Boston Branch, 1926-1927; member of the Council, Foreign Policy Association, Boston Branch, 1927--; member, International Advisory Committee, International Bureau of Education, Geneva, Switzerland, 1927--; trustee of Radcliffe College, 1927-1933; member, Standing Committee on the Radcliffe Library, 1927-1933; member, Standing Committee on the Radcliffe Graduate School, 1927-1933; member, Committee on Anniversary Publications, 1929; Chairman of the Activities Committee of the Women's City Club of Boston, 1927-1928; member of the International Relations Committee, American Association of University Women, Washington, D. C., 1930-1935; member of the American Woman's Association, New York, 1931-1934; member of the "Editorial Staff of the A.W.A Bulletin," 1931-1932; member, Foreign Relations Committee of the National Education Association (annual appointment), and is a Fellow, American Geographical Society.

Dr. Andrews was appointed by President Wilson to represent the United States at the International Conference on Education, at The Hague, September, 1914; appointed by the Department of the Interior, approved by President Wilson, to represent the United States Bureau of Education at the Peace Conference at Paris, 1918-1919; appointed by Mr. Taft to represent the League to Enforce Peace in the Conference of Allied Societies, Paris, 1919; appointed by the National Council of Women of the United States a delegate of that body to the conference of women in Paris who represented the International Council of Women and the Conference of Women Suffragists of Allied Countries. Presented to the League of Nations Commission, of which President Wilson was Chairman, a resolution on behalf of the Conference, calling for the insertion of an article in the Covenant, providing for the establishment of an international bureau of education, 1919. She was also appointed by President Roosevelt to represent the United States at the Third International Conference on Public Instruction, July, 1934, at Geneva, Switzerland. In connection with the new line of work undertaken by Mrs. Andrews growing out of this Geneva Conference, note must be taken of her appointment as a member of the Committee on International Aspects of Education, established by the American Council on Education. She is a member of the National Institute of Social Sciences, National Education Association, American Society of International Law, Academy of Political and Social Science, International Law Association, The Radcliffe Alumnae Association, National Council of Social Studies, National Economic League, National Committee on Prisons and Prison Labor, Woman's Advisory Committee of the National Conference of Jews and Christians, and Advisory Council of The Living Age. Among her clubs are: Radcliffe Club, Boston; National Clubhouse, American Association of University Women, Washington, D. C.; American University Women's Paris Club (Reid Hall); Women's Republican Club of Massachusetts; The Boston Author's Club; and The College Club, of Boston.

Included among the publications of Dr. Andrews are: "Peace Day Bulletin," No. 8, 1912; and the "Promotion of Peace Bulletin," No. 12, 1912, which she compiled for the Department of the Interior (United States Bureau of Education); "The War, What Should be Said About it in the Schools?" 1914, (Brochure); "Freedom of the Seas," published in Recueil de Rapports, Nijhoff, The Hague, 1917, reprinted (Brochure); "The Central Organization for a Durable Peace," Journal of the National Institute of Social Sciences, 1917; "The United States and the World, and the World Family," (two chapters in "A Course in Citizenship and Patriotism"), Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1918; "A Course in Foreign Relations (a book prepared for the Army Education Commission, Paris), 1919; "Editor, American Citizenship Course in United States History," five volumes, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1921; "American Rights and Interests in the Mandatory System," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, July, 1921; "The Mandatory system after the World War," (Doctor's thesis, Radcliffe College), 1923; "Influence of the League of Nations on the Development of International Law," The American Political Science Review, May, 1934, reprinted (Brochure); "What the Public Schools are Doing to Educate for World Peace and How the Teaching of Patriotism is Related Thereto," Religious Education, October, 1924; "Instruction of Children and Youth in the Existence and Aims of the League of Nations," League of Nations Documents A. 10, 1925, XII. Supplement, A. 10 (a), 1925, XII; "The Teacher an Agent of International Good Will," School and Society, July, 1927, reprinted (Brochure); "The Holy Land Under Mandate," two volumes, 1931, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston; "Education of the Jewish and Arab Population in Palestine," Bulletin. International Bureau of Education, Geneva, Switzerland, January, 1932; "The Mandates," The American Scholar (published by Phi Beta Kappa), May, 1932, reprinted (Brochure); "Official Report on the Third International Conference on Public Instruction at Geneva, Switzerland," called by the Swiss Government, at the request of the International Bureau of Education, Geneva. (Prepared by Dr. Andrews at the request of the United States Consulate at Geneva for the State Department), 1934. Other information concerning Dr. Fannie Fern Andrews, may be found in most of the "Who's Who" and similar biographic publications.

One looks forward to the publication of "The Autobiography of Fannie Fern Andrews," which is now (1935) in preparation.

From the guide to the Papers, 1896-1941, (Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute)