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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVI. No. 664 



time of a few generations! John Har- 

 vard's foundation is flourishing to-day in 

 the midst of hundreds of other colleges, of 

 which even the least stands higher than the 

 Harvard of the old days. And Harvard 

 College never looked with misgivings on the 

 wonderful growth of her young rivals; on 

 the contrary, Harvard knew that her own 

 steady progress resulted first of all from 

 the spreading of the collegiate spirit over 

 the country, every college which devotes 

 itself with earnestness to the high task helps 

 every other college, and if a younger insti- 

 tution can prove that through three quar- 

 ters of a century it has lived up to the 

 noblest ambitions and to the most idealistic 

 hopes, then it is a matter for sincere re- 

 joicing to the older colleges, and for none 

 more than to the oldest. To be allowed to 

 bring to you to-day the message of such 

 Harvard sentiments and the sincere con- 

 gratulations of America's largest univer- 

 sity, is the privilege which makes me most 

 grateful. 



But I feel that your choice of a speaker 

 must have been influenced by still another 

 motive. To bring on such collegiate occa- 

 sion the greetings of another college, you 

 would have hardly selected a man who, as 

 you know, never went through an American 

 college at all. You ask a foreigner, and I 

 can not help feeling that he was meant to 

 come to-day as such a messenger from the 

 non- American world. On your celebration 

 day, which is in any case a day of pride for 

 all American colleges, you desire not to 

 miss 'in the chorus a voice of appreciation 

 from those lands which never knew, and do 

 not know to-day, a counterpart of the 

 American college in their own educational 

 systems. "To see ourselves as others see 

 us" is always a most natural desire— nat- 

 ural when we are dissatisfied and want the 

 criticism of the outsider in the service of 

 reform, but still more natural when, as to- 



day, the work has been tested and has been 

 found successful beyond hope. It seems to 

 me, therefore, that I may enter best into the 

 spirit of this hour if I emphasize less that 

 I am a teacher in another American college, 

 and emphasize more that I was a student 

 of no college whatever; in short, that I 

 come to you as a German with an education 

 "made in Germany," and thus with an in- 

 born tendency to look on every new life 

 experience from the German standpoint 

 and with German prejudices. 



And yet I come to sing a song of praise 

 for the American college. I believe in its 

 mission, and, in spite of the pressure from 

 the high schools below and from the pro- 

 fessional schools above, I believe in its es- 

 sentially unchanged future. I see in the 

 college the most characteristic expression 

 of the American genius, the most important 

 condition for the healthy development of 

 the national life. I can calmly use such 

 high-pitched phrases, as I am weaponed 

 against the suspicion that my enthusiasm 

 may be invented for this special occasion. 

 I have sufficient witnesses in print to prove 

 that this is not flattery made up for my 

 commencement part. No, whenever I have 

 spoken to my German countrymen, for in- 

 stance, in my book on the Americans, writ- 

 ten entirely for German consumption, I 

 have said in definite words, "The college is 

 the soul of the American nation. ' ' 



Of course, I am not blind to the wonder- 

 ful achievements in all the other parts of 

 the educational system, from the kinder- 

 garten of the city suburb to the professional 

 institution of the large university. The 

 energy with which the American primary 

 school shapes the little descendants of a 

 score of races into the uniform product of 

 the future American citizen, is admirable 

 and marvelous. And the progress which 

 in the last two decades scientific research 

 and productive scholarship have made in. 



