THE SCIENTIFIC PLAN OF THE CONGRESS 



BY PROF. HUGO MUNSTERBERG 



THE PURPOSE OF THE CONGRESS 



1. The Centralization of the Congress 



THE history of the Congress has been told. It remains to set forth the 

 principles which controlled the work of the Congress week, and thus 

 scientifically to introduce the scholarly undertaking, the results of 

 which are to speak for themselves in the eight volumes of this pub- 

 lication. Yet in a certain way this scientific introduction has once 

 more to use the language of history. It does not deal with the ex- 

 ternal development of the Congress, and the story which it has to tell 

 is thus not one of dates and names and events. But the principles 

 which shaped the whole undertaking have themselves a claim to his- 

 torical treatment; they do not lie before us simply as the subject for a 

 logical disputation or as a plea for a future work. That was the situa- 

 tion of three years ago. At that time various ideas and opposing 

 principles entered into the arena of discussion; but now, since the 

 work is completed, the question can be only of what principles, right 

 or wrong, have really determined the programme. We have thus to 

 interpret that state of mind out of which the purposes and the scientific 

 arrangement of the Congress resulted ; and no after-thought of to-day^ 

 would be a desirable addition. Whatever possible improvements of 

 the plan may suggest themselves in the retrospect can be given only 

 a closing word. It was certainly easy to learn from experience, but 

 first the experience had to be passed through. We have here to inter- 

 pret the view from that standpoint from which the experience of the 

 Congress was still a matter of the future, and of an uncertain future 

 indeed, full of doubts and fears, and yet full of hopes and possibilities. 

 The St. Louis World's Fair promised, through the vast extent of 

 its grounds, through the beautiful plans of the buildings, through the 

 eagerness of the United States, through the participation of all coun- 

 tries on earth, and through the gigantic outlines of the internal plans, 

 to become the most monumental expression of the energies with 

 which the twentieth century entered on its course. Commerce and 

 industry, art and social work, politics and education, war and peace, 



