September 20, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



367 



tunity, and, if possible, a foundation in one 

 of the smallest federal states in which no 

 other university exists and in which, there- 

 fore, no traditions are to be broken and no 

 academic inequalities to be feared. Good 

 luck seemed to open such opportunity. The 

 little state of Hamburg, which is practically 

 the large old Hansa city and its surround- 

 ings, has no university. It is the greatest 

 commercial place of the country, and the 

 vivid pulsation of its economic life seems 

 to have excluded for centuries the idea of a 

 real university. But in recent years a sen- 

 timent has grown among her leading citi- 

 zens that Hamburg ought to become not 

 only the center of seafaring, but a center 

 of intellectual influence as well. Large 

 donations from rich Hamburgians were in 

 sight, and the state government seemed 

 inclined to yield to the public demand. In 

 this situation the president of the supreme 

 court, who was the soul of the whole move- 

 ment, invited me in the name of friends 

 to make suggestions for the new university 

 and to elaborate a plan. I did so, and the 

 gentlemen over there published my volu- 

 minous memoranda as a pamphlet last year. 

 It has been discussed beyond expectation. 

 It has been heartily welcomed by many and 

 has been sharply attacked by not a few who 

 wish the new university in Hamburg to fol- 

 low exactly in the path of the old ones. 

 Wealthy citizens have given millions during 

 the last year and there is now no doubt that 

 Hamburg will have a university in a not 

 far distant time. 



Whether that new institution of the fu- 

 ture will realize some of these suggestions, 

 no one can say to-day. But if I had to 

 bring the plans which I sketched for it into 

 a short form, I should say : my scheme pro- 

 posed to erect a German university with the 

 substructure of an American college. My 

 model was naturally Harvard, not only be- 

 cause I knew her best, but because Harvard 



is the only American university which has, 

 besides its college, a graduate school of arts 

 and science, a law school, a medical school 

 and a divinity school, and which demands 

 for all four of these professional faculties 

 a bachelor degree as entrance condition. 

 The idea was that in Hamburg, just as in 

 Harvard, the youth ought to get in common 

 in years of academic freedom the inspira- 

 tion of cultural work in history and eco- 

 nomics, in literature and philosophy, in art 

 and natural science, before their ways are 

 divided to go either to the professional 

 schools of the typical German university or 

 to the practical enterprises which commerce 

 or industry or agriculture or politics may 

 offer. While many new technical schools 

 have sprung up with the new requirements 

 of our practical age, Germany has not 

 founded a university anew for a whole gen- 

 eration. The spirit of the Germany of to- 

 day has not yet found its real characteristic 

 expression. If Hamburg really has the 

 courage to add to the old German plan an 

 American college, then its university will 

 be significant for the German Empire of 

 to-day just as the foundation of the Uni- 

 versity of Berlin a hundred years ago was 

 an expression of the new moral energies of 

 the ascending Prussia. 



But those ideas have found too much root 

 in the sentiments of the German nation to 

 be lost even if in Hamburg, as it well may 

 be, the old traditions shall once more pre- 

 vail. It was, indeed, only in coimection 

 with the Hamburg project that I wanted 

 to see an American college in the Harvard 

 way in immediate contact with the upper 

 parts of the university. But I used from 

 the first many an opportunity to urge that, 

 just as in America, the college itself be 

 added to the national system as a free and 

 independent institution. Hamburg would 

 need a real Harvard, but I know many a 

 lovely town in my Fatherland where an 



