The Days of a Man 1868 



Another factor, characteristic of British and Ameri- 

 can institutions generally, strengthened the bonds 

 which united professors and students at Cornell. 

 This may be defined as sympathetic cooperation. 

 Meaning It lies behind the endearing term "Alma Mater," 

 f which I never heard used for a German university. 

 Ma**- Goethe, indeed, spoke of Jena as "liebes, ndrrisches 

 Nest." But Jena in those days was a center of 

 student debauchery, and the "dear, foolish nest" 

 abounded in costly folly. Some one once asked a 

 student from the University of Prague if he loved it. 

 "Love it! No, I hate it!" "And why?" "Because 

 it's a State affair." But with the American con- 

 ception of the State as a cooperative commonwealth, 

 educational relations are wholly different, and the 

 state university is thought of as "Alma Mater" by 

 thousands of men and women. Having behind it 

 no element of the compulsory and its degrees not 

 essential to professional advancement, it stands in a 

 very different relation and is loved by its alumni 

 quite as warmly as Harvard or Yale. The Uni- 

 versity of Prague, a creation of soulless officialism, 

 has as a whole no personality. It could no more be 

 the object of love than a post office; it serves mainly 

 as the door to professional preferment. 

 Looking A second great advantage possessed by American 

 forward institutions is that they are never complete, but 

 always look forward to something better. This 

 gives a perennial impulse toward progress. The 

 German university, on the contrary, is from the 

 first a perfect representative of its type, with practi- 

 C 84] 



