ABSTRACT
On June 23, 1954, thirty-one children and their parents were enjoying themselves at a picnic on the lawn in front of an old colonial farmhouse in Media, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. The children had come to visit their fathers, a carefully chosen group of businessmen from the Bell Telephone System, who were celebrating their completion of a novel experiment at the University of Pennsylvania. W. D. Gillen, President of the Bell Telephone Company of Pennsylvania and a trustee of The University of Pennsylvania, determined to find some way of broadening the educational background and expanding the point of view of Bell’s most promising young men. Mr. Gillen took the plan to several other presidents of Bell companies and got their support. In the spring of 1953, as a consequence, the Institute of Humanistic Studies for Executives, sponsored by Pennsylvania Bell, came into existence on the campus of the University.
