Unique ID

72a16eef-6a21-47ba-811d-261fa371fc25

The road from Kenya

Model
Video

Abstract

This is the final program of The Johns Hopkins University television series. In it, Dr. George Carter, geography professor at Hopkins, notes that Louis S.B. Leakey found evidence of the earliest primitive man and his tools in Kenya. He then displays revised maps of the world that reveal different land masses during glacial periods, thus allowing the Kenyan man to explore new lands and form colonies over a period of 100,000 years until the glaciers receded and the oceans returned. Dr. Carter discusses the transformation of Kenyan man from an isolated pygmy into modern man with regional or racial characteristics, such as the cave dwelling "Sinanthropus pekinesis" in northern China and the Swanscombe man in England. Glacial periods also created a land bridge near the Bering Strait, allowing animals and man to cross from Asia into North America. Tools found in the Americas plus the physical characteristics of early American Indians offer proof of waves of Asian migrations. Survivors of early man include the australoids, europids, and mongoloids. At the conclusion of the program, host Lynn Poole thanks members of the studio, university, and network for their hard work and dedication. John McClay, general manager of station WJZ-TV, expresses his gratitude to Johns Hopkins University and Lynn Poole especially. University president Milton S. Eisenhower thanks everyone responsible for the shows and announces reluctantly that "File 7" will not be on the air next season. He says that the "business of producing, creating, and presenting a weekly program has become increasingly burdensome," and because of the University's other commitments, it is unable to produce shows of the high quality expected of Johns Hopkins. Furthermore, Dr. Eisenhower hopes that this "will be only an interruption and not a permanent termination" of Hopkins educational television. Thirteen "File 7" reruns will be shown during the summer of 1960, but it will not be continued thereafter.