Reprinted with permission from
Dolls of Friendship, 2nd Edition,
copyright 1997, Sidney L. Gulick, 3d

  
A Typical Program of Welcome

Six of the twelve dolls welcomed by the National Education Association at their Minneapolis meeting

As local committees around the country began to plan their receptions for the Japanese Friendship Dolls, the New York office of the Committee on World Friendship Among Children was flooded with requests for suggestions as to how a program of welcome might be arranged. The following outline was therefore prepared and was generally used:

PRESENTATION of an American flag by a Boy Scout.
PRESENTATION of a Japanese flag, if possible by a Japanese boy.
SONG, America the Beautiful.
MUSIC, Japanese National Anthem, Kimigayo.
STORY of the Doll Messengers of Friendship.
PRESENTATION of a doll, by Japanese girl if possible, and acceptance by an American girl. Brief suitable speeches by both.
The Winged Shoe, a pageant of welcome by Anna Hempstead Branch. (Ten minutes.)
Song of Friendship. Words by Marion E. Grey, music by John A. Rogers.
READING of Japan's Welcome Poem to American Dolls.
Friends Across the Sea, Poem by the Hon. Robert Underwood Johnson.
SONG, The Sun and the Stars.
MOVING PICTURES, The Welcome in Japan to America's Doll Messengers of Friendship. (Thirty minutes.)
SONG, America.

It is worthy of note that the doll presentation ceremony was first used in Japan by the American girls who presented dolls to the Japanese girls. It was repeated again and again in both countries, and through it American children in Japan and Japanese children in the United States became better and most pleasantly acquainted.

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