Lynn Poole gives a brief history of this "fastest game on two feet," which the Indians called Baggataway and the French lacrosse. Former player and member of the U.S. Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association, William Morrill, describes how the game's equipment and rules have changed and explains today's field layout, rules, players, and equipment. Robert Scott, head coach, and Wilson Fewster, assistant coach of the Johns Hopkins University lacrosse team, the Blue Jays, explain skills such as passing and cradling, personal and technical fouls, stick work, dodges, and face off strategies while team members demonstrate. The coaches give a play-by-play commentary of film footage from the 1957 Navy/Hopkins lacrosse game. Coach Scott interviews Hopkins's All-American player Mickey Webster, who explains why he enjoys lacrosse, its appeal to fans, and its difference from football. Lynn Poole lists other schools fielding lacrosse teams, describes the qualities lacrosse instills in players, and mentions that Hopkins is the current holder of the Wingate Trophy, named for Baltimore sports writer W. Wilson Wingate, and emblematic of the intercollegiate lacrosse championship.

Lynn Poole interviews five students graduating from the Johns Hopkins University this year. He asks pre-med major Rierson and English literature major Seipt about their future plans, how they financed their education, what influenced them to attend Hopkins, and their comments on the university's curriculum. Allison Furst, a Wellesley College graduate, is at Hopkins on a scholarship provided by the Fund for the Advancement of Education for a teacher training program. She did graduate work in her own field while learning teaching methods and participated in a paid internship. Mr. Poole asks her about factors in selecting a position after graduation. Electrical engineering students Lory and Garbis tell Mr. Poole about their interests in this field and about the guidance from and influence of professors William Huggins and Ferdinand Hamburger. They also critique the curriculum and describe their future plans.

Dr. N. Bryllion Fagin recounts the life of Poe and the circumstances surrounding his death in Baltimore. Poe's obsession with death and the transmigration of souls led him to become a precursor to modern mystery writers. Dr. Fagin analyzes several of Poe's short stories, indicating pattern weaving. Three of Poe's lyrical poems are read in part and analyzed: "The Raven," "The Bells," and "Ulalume." Dr. Fagin also notes Poe's reputation as a literary critic.

Lynn Poole points out the country's increasing need for engineers, scientists, technicians, and researchers. Dr. John Woodburn, assistant director of the Johns Hopkins masters in teaching program, offers courses to working teachers wanting an advanced degree. He maintains that teachers can interest children in science by exposing them to the phenomena of nature, asking questions, teaching them to notice things around them, and showing them the scientific principles in everyday things. To illustrate, teacher Jacqueline Wolfe performs a simple experiment, and students in her fifth grade class from Woodmore School in Baltimore, MD, observe, hypothesize, test tentative hypotheses, and verbalize final conclusions. Dr. Woodburn suggests that other teaching aids, such as microscopes, telescopes, blocks, and models, also stimulate young minds.

Lynn Poole shows a chart of epochs and notes that man didn't appear until the Pleistocene period. Dr. George Carter, department chair and professor of geography at Johns Hopkins University, discusses the possibility of a land bridge from Siberia to Alaska across the Bering Strait, based on human tools found with mastodon remains. Likewise, zoologist R.G. Gilmore has discovered that animals crisscrossed the Bering Strait between ice periods. In describing the history of the study of pre-history, Dr. Carter names W.H. Holmes and Ales Hrdlicka as men who led the opposition to the previously generally accepted belief in the existence of a glacial age man in America. With Willard F. Libby's 1951 discovery that all living things contain radioactive carbon, remains could be dated, challenging previous beliefs. From evidence such as stone tools, Dr. Carter speculates that man entered America about 40,000 years ago. He creates a timeline based on the degree of skill in making tools, the degree of weathering on tools, and the date of the existence of the lake where the tools were found. Dr. Carter also discusses physical geography and carbon-14 dating of tools along the southern California coast. Using charts and photos, he shows how reading California river valley records also yields data about sea level, climate, and glaciers. In the controversial Texas Street site in San Diego, Dr. Carter claims he has discovered hearths, crude stone tools, and dart points corresponding to the last interglacial period.

A biophysicist with the Research Institute for Advanced Studies, established by the Martin Company in Baltimore, MD., Dr. Hans Turnit explains the chemical process of photosynthesis and the life cycle of a plant vs. that of an animal. He also discusses lamella planes and shows a film clip of how materials can be taken from chloroplasts and made into monomolecular films or layers, as researched by Nobel Prize winner Irving Langmuir. Dr. Albert Krall, a plant biochemist at the same institute, discusses respiration of plants and reports the two problems his research is trying to solve: how energy is converted into chemical energy and by which enzymatic steps is energy stored. He notes that in 1828 Friedrich Wohler laid the foundation for organic chemistry, and in 1896 Eduard Buchner opened the era of biochemistry. Now the Calvin Group in California has traced the path of carbon through a plant during photosynthesis showing that sunlight acts on the chlorophyll to make organic compounds. Dr. Krall shows a mock-up model of a chloroplast with grana and a hypothetical model representing the enzymatic reaction during photosynthesis. Dr. Bessel Kok, a plant physiologist with the institute, describes a microscopic view of a plant cell. A time lapse film, by Dr. Jan Zurzicky, of chloroplasts under differing light intensities shows an example of light saturation. Since plants convert one-third of light energy into usable energy, photosynthesis from experimental large-scale algae farms could be a key source of energy and food in the future.

An animated film details the parts of the eye. Lynn Poole compares the operation of an eye to that of a television camera. Eye prints reveal retinal detachment, glaucoma, and diseases of the body such as diabetes. A diagram traces the evolution of the eye. A history of sight-related research includes Galileo's telescope, Sir Isaac Newton's experimentation with prisms, Dr. Thomas Young's work with astigmatism, and Hermann von Helmholtz's development of the ophthalmoscope to look into the interior of the eye. Dr. Stewart Wolff, ophthalmologist at Johns Hopkins' Wilmer Eye Clinic, displays an electric ophthalmoscope, demonstrates a slit lamp, using Lynn Poole as a patient, and shows slides of cataracts. He also explains the test for tunnel vision with the tangent screen and peripheral field examination, the Snellen chart to test eyesight, and the tonometer to measure the intraocular pressure of the eye.

This program commemorates the fourteenth anniversary of this battle in the Philippines written about by Dr. C. Vann Woodward, history professor at Johns Hopkins University, in "The Battle for Leyte Gulf." Using maps and U.S. Navy film clips, he describes in detail the strategies and battles of this decisive naval campaign. The U. S. fleets were led by Admiral William F. Halsey and Vice Admiral Thomas C. Kincaid. Key Japanese commanders were Toyoda, Ozawa, and Kurita. Dr. Woodward concludes that Leyte was the last and most decisive battle fought between surface forces. The victory was nearly a disaster for the U.S., and the defeat was nearly a triumph for Japan since sheer chance and human frailty were critical to the outcome.