In an address on East-West relations several years ago Mortimer Adler, director of the Institute for Philosophical Research in the United States borrowed a phrase from an Indian economist—“the yeast from the West”. Now it is the “yeast” from the East which has germinated one of the significant new trends in higher education in the United States. It is only in the last five years that most American colleges and universities have become aware of the importance of Asia in the modern world. Now across the United States more and more institutions are establishing centers for Asian studies, and expanding their curricula to offer more courses in Asian history and culture.