U.N. Day Poster #12: Knowledge Promotes the Growth of a Nation's Spirit and Material Life, 1953 US poster: A photograph

U.N. Day Poster #12: Knowledge Promotes the Growth of a Nation's Spirit and Material Life (Japanese poster distributed in Asia)

A photograph of three children in hats at a wall bearing a hand-lettered Spanish word list; one child writes on a sheet. Japanese text says knowledge promotes a nation's spiritual and material growth, that education underlies all human progress, and that UNESCO and the ILO are raising the intellectual level of backward countries. The tell is glittering-generalities: education, progress and growth are broad approved values attached to the UN agencies named.

Propaganda techniques used in this poster

Glittering generalities

Date: September 14, 1953
Period: Cold War
Made by: U.S. Information Agency (predecessor: State Department International Information and Educational Exchange Program), Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia series
Region: North America
Country: United States
Medium: Poster
Issuer type: State
Regime: Eisenhower Administration
Leader: Dwight D. Eisenhower
Audience: Foreign public
Purpose: Persuade or win support
Theme: Science and technology
Event: Cold War
Source: Unidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure
Source: U.S. National Archives (NARA), Record Group 306, Propaganda Posters Distributed in Asia, retrieved October 3, 2026
Rights: Public domain (U.S. government work; NARA RG 306)
U.S. Information Agency / Department of State, c. 1953. National Archives, Record Group 306 (NAID 5730114, 306-PPA-214).

Text on the object

Original (Japanese) · read from the image, not independently checked

知識は国民の精神、物質両方面の成長を促進させる。

教育は、人類のあらゆる進歩の基礎である。初等教育は読み書き算術を教え、基礎教育は我々にその環境を克服する智恵を授ける。又技術教育、高等教育は技術者、教育者及び行政官を養成する。ユネスコ並びにILO(国際労働機構)は、後進国の知的水準を引上げる役割を果しつつある。

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English translation (machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader)

Knowledge promotes the growth of a nation's spirit and material side alike.

Education is the foundation of all human progress. Primary education teaches reading, writing and arithmetic; basic education gives us the wisdom to overcome our environment. Technical education and higher education train technicians, educators and administrators. UNESCO and the ILO (International Labour Organization) are playing a role in raising the intellectual level of backward (late-advancing) countries.

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