376 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1903. 



Universit}^ of California, in an article on ''The urgent Need of a 

 National University in Washington,"" observes: 



The great revival of learning in the United States, which has shown itself in the 

 growth of universities, in the rise of the spirit of investigation, and in the realization 

 of the value of truth, can he traced in a large degree to Germanic influences. These 

 influences have not come to us through German immigration, or through the pres- 

 ence of (Tcrman scholars among us, l)ut through the exjierience of American scholars 

 in (iermany. If it l)e true, as Mr. James Bryce says [American Commonwealth, II, 

 1889, p. 694, 3 ed.], that "of all institutions in America," the universities, "have 

 the best promise for the future;" we have Germany to thank for this. It is, how- 

 ever, no abstract Germany that we may thank, but a concrete fact. It is the existence 

 in Germany of universities, strong, effective, and free. 



Even English voices lay stress upon this fact. Thus, in an article 

 in the Sjjectator oi February 12, 1898, on ''What is a University?" 

 in which, in consideration of the establishment of a universit}^ in Lon- 

 don, live types of modern luiiversities are characterized, the French, 

 German, English, Scotch, and American (p. 231). it says concerning 

 the American types: 



We come now to the American universities, by which we mean the greater insti- 

 tutions of culture, not the hundreds of petty colleges to be found in all parts of 

 America. Some of these, in our judgment, come nearer to the ideal of a true uni- 

 versity than any of the other types. Beginning on the old English collegiate system, 

 they have broadened out into vast and splendidly endowed institutions of universal 

 learning, have assimilated some (irerman features, and have combined successfully 

 college routine and discipline with mature and advanced work. Harvard and 

 Princeton were orignally English colleges; now, without entirely abandoning the 

 college system, they are great semi-German seats of learning. Johns Hopkins at 

 Baltimore is purely of the German type with no residence, and only a few plain 

 lecture rooms, library, and museums. Columbia, originally an old English college, 

 is now perhaps the fir.'^t university in America, magnificently endowed, with stately 

 buildings, and with a school of political and legal science second only to that of 

 Paris. * * * The quadrangles and lawns of Harvai-d, Yale, and Princeton almost 

 recall Oxford and Cambridge; their lecture rooms, laboratories, and postgraduate 

 studies hint of Germany, where nearly all American teachers of the present genera- 

 tion have been educated. 



I myself received the impression that the majority of the professors 

 of the universities which I visited in New York, Chicago, Philadel- 

 phia, Boston, and Cambridge, with whom I became acquainted and 

 there were not a few of them — had studied in German}' or had at least 

 spent some time there, of course excepting the few Germans who 

 tilled positions in the imiversities named. 



When, in January of this 3' ear, the faculty and students of the Uni- 

 versity of Chicago gave a formal reception in Chicago to the German 

 ambassador, the professor of political economy, Mr. Laughlin, deliv- 

 ered the address of welcome, from which I take the following sen- 

 tences (Illinois StaaU-Zettung, Janiiar}^ 25, 1900, p. 5): 



There is no American university which is not imbued with the fire of German 

 intellectual activity. We have attended in crowds the lecture halls of the universi- 



^< Forum, January, 1897, p. BOO. 



