Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

Interchange
of
¡Professors

EDITORIAL.

In connection with the leader by Professor Francke in the present issue, it may be well to clear up some of the misconceptions held by outside journals, notably the AMERICAN REVIEW OF REVIEWS, concerning the origin and development of the idea of an international exchange of professors. In an article entitled "America and Germany: an Academic Interchange," by Mr. James H. Canfield, librarian of Columbia University, published in the REVIEW OF REVIEWS for December, 1905, the statement is made that "at his official diplomatic reception on New Year's Day, 1904, the German Emperor suggested to the American ambassador in Berlin the desirability of an exchange of professors between German and American universities," and the reader is forced to believe that this was the first public mention of the important matter. PRESIDENT ELIOT'S REPORT for the year 1904-05, however, states clearly (page 46) that in the spring of 1902 (a year and a half previous to this reception, mentioned by Mr. Canfield) Professor Kuno Francke of Harvard University, in a meeting called at his suggestion in the Königliche Kunstgewerbe Museum in Berlin "to consider ways and means for bringing about some kind of popular gift to the Harvard Germanic Museum as an appropriate supplement to the gift of the Emperor, phasized the hope that in course of time endowments should be attached to the museum which would make it possible for the University to invite German scholars to give courses of lectures at the museum on German art, literature and philosophy." Dr. Althoff, the director of the Prussian universities, strongly approved of the undertaking. "Later in the spring," the REPORT continues, "Professor Francke had

em

several conferences with Dr. Althoff which contributed to form in Dr. Althoff's mind the plan for an exchange of professors which two years later was carried into execution." In November, 1904, Dr. Althoff submitted to President Eliot "the draft of an agreement between the University of Berlin and Harvard University concerning the mutual exchange of professors." This Harvard University immediately accepted, and a month later "opened negotiations with the rector of the University of Berlin for the exchange of one Harvard professor for one German professor in the year now current." The exchange was in every way official, arranged by the president of Harvard University, on the one hand, and the rector of Berlin University, on the other, and confirmed for an indefinite period by a formal treaty between the two institutions. The writer of the above-mentioned article, however, was apparently not informed of the transactions which had taken. place. He does not once mention them, and recognizes Professor Peabody's activity in Berlin, though the reference applies as well to the activity of Professor Wendell or Professor Santayana at the University of Paris, only in the words: "We have, at least, one example of the occupant of an American chair lecturing abroad; but," he continues, "nothing was done to meet the definite thought of the Emperor." The latter statement reveals an incredible ignorance of the facts in the case. For Dr. Althoff could, of course, make no arrangements for an interchange of professors without the full permission of the Emperor any more than Dr. Muck, without the Emperor's consent, could engage himself to direct the Boston Symphony Orchestra; and, as we have pointed out above, the transactions between the University of Berlin and Harvard University had been for a year definitely settled, and Professor Peabody was already installed as American visiting professor at Berlin, and Professor Ostwald as German visiting professor at Harvard, at the time the article was written.

Later in the article the writer says: "The authorities at Columbia hope that this is but the first of a number of similar professorships to be established as opportunity and means are afforded." Exchanges with at least one English University and with the University of Paris are projected, "the experiment, however, will begin with the Berlin chair." Here Mr. Canfield, in his partisanship for Columbia University, seems again to have lost sight of the Harvard professorship, already firmly established and in operation.

As Professor Francke remarks in his article, it is gratifying to see other American universities taking up the idea of international exchanges of professors. Let us hope that the universities which have since entered the field may find it as productive in the furtherance of amicable relations between the two countries as Harvard has found it. At the same time, however, let credit be given where credit is due: to Dr. Althoff of Berlin and Professor Kuno Francke of Harvard, the originators of the plan.

In the REPORT OF PRESIDENT BUTLER to the trustees of Columbia University, advance sheets of which appeared on Nov. 10, 1906, the

Purpose of the Exchange

existence of the Berlin-Harvard agreement is recognized. President Butler continues: "A personal or institutional exchange of this sort has significance and value. of its own, but it seemed clear that something more must be provided for if the full benefit of the interchange of professors was to be gained. What appeared to be most needed in Germany, for example, was a systematic presentation, by authoritative teachers, of the history and institutions of the American people. Public interest in this

.

undertaking has been very great, and properly so, for what is being created is a new force to guide and instruct public opinion in international affairs. The nations of the world are clearly coming into closer sympathy and relationship. . . . The universities, always alert when great public interests and great tendencies are concerned, may lend their powerful aid to the promotion of peace and good-will between nations by seeing to it that the youth of each is given opportunity to know and to understand the point of view of the people of the others. It is not only as a mere academic interchange that this undertaking is important. It has far-reaching national and international significance."

Thus President Butler conceives the interchange of professors as having a political significance. This, then, represents the attitude of Columbia University. The danger, however, of giving political importance to a purely academic interchange has been shown by the result of Professor Burgess' opening lecture in Berlin. The German people, if not the German government, regarded the statements made on that occasion as entirely official. In response to the storm of protest aroused by his remarks, the lecturer has declared that he was merely uttering his own opinions. Since these were not those held by the government or the majority of the people of the United States, he was not interpreting the "point of view" of Americans, but merely his own. He has an undoubted right to do this, as long as it is clearly understood by both nations that his lectureship is the result of "a mere academic interchange," and not of "far-reaching national and international significance."

Harvard has always insisted, and insists emphatically now, that her agreement with the University of Berlin is a purely academic one. It has no "national or international significance" whatever, save as the activity of German professors in America and of American professors in Germany means to the student-bodies of Harvard and Berlin a broad

ening of vision and a deeper insight. During the period of his activity the visiting professor merges himself with the faculty to which he has been sent. Politically and socially he is in the same position as his temporary colleagues, the resident professors. Harvard hopes as sincerely as any other university that the interchange may be a "powerful aid to the promotion of peace and good-will between nations"; but not through direct reference to the "cementing of international friendships" does Harvard believe that the interchange will fulfill that aim. The immediate importance of it lies in the contributions it will bring to the learning of both countries, in the fellowship it will establish between German and American scholars, and in the further uplifting, at least in the younger of the two nations, of the standard of scholarly achievement.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »