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14
ELIOT
1913 , '
From an address delivered b G
Charles Eliot at the dinner
TIHE FAT-I-I-ERLAND
ELIOT VS. ELIOT so
ELIOT
1915
From the book,
“The Road Toward Peace,"
of the German Publication by -
Society Charles W. Eliot
May 9, 1913, Houghton Mifflin Company,
New York. Bostoniand New York.
Published by the Irving Press,
New York
1913 1915
Liberty.
“Two great doctrines which
had sprung from the German
Protestant Reformation had
been developed by Germans
from seed then planted in Ger-
many. The first was the doc-
trine of universal education,
developed from the Protestant
conception of individual re-
sponsibility and the second was
the great doctrine of civil lib-
erty, liberty in industries, in
society, in government, liberty
-with, order under law. These
two principles took their rise in
Protestant Germany; and Amer-
ica has been the greatest bene-
ficiaryof that noble teaching.”
“The Government of Ger-
many is the most autocratic in
Europe. . . . The German ‘peo-
ple do not know what political
and social liberty is. They
have no conception of such
liberty as we enjoy.”
Universities and Academic Freedom.
“The German universities.to
which the tirst American stu-
dents resorted were in part re-
cent creations and in part recon-
structions on old foundations,
but how rich they were, how
free and how strong. . . . The
American pioneers in Germany
brought. back various knowledge,
various'skills, and many preg-
nant doctrines.
“The variety of knowledge
and ‘skill which could be pro-
cured at the German universi-
ties was something astonishing
to these American youths, some-
thing indescribably rich and va-
rious. With their own personal
experiences and gains they
brought back also to America
the structure of the modern
German university, then young
in Germany, and in America not
yet conceived of. They had,
moreover, absorbed that noble
policy of academic freedom.
freedom for the student and
teacher alike.
‘ “This academic freedom meant
emancipation from tradition and
prejudice and from authority,
whether ‘GOVERNMENTAL or eccle-
slastl'cal."
“The Germans are fond of
mentioning their ‘Academic Free-
dom,’ the freedom of their
learned men; but that is much
exaggerated in German descrip-
tions of their university life.
The German universities are
chiefly supported and ruled by
the Government and there are
no free endowed institutions to
compete with them. For any
vital teaching of civil and relig-
ious liberty one must go back to
individual German teachers and
preachers of an earlier time."
Literature, Science, Art.
“The educational ‘obligations A
of America to Germany are in-
“There is another tield of hu-
man activity-the development
deed wide and deep. They re-
late to literature, science, art,
education .and religion. . . . The
pioneers from New England in
the first half of the 19th century
have been followed by a stream
of American youth, going over
to enlarge their experiences, to
make new observations, to put
in practice the instructive meth-
od of arriving at truth, and to
learn to think profoundly and
accurately in the German uni-
versities. That stream has
flowed backward all over this
country, fertilizing it with Ger-
man thought and German meth-
ods. These thousands have ab-
sorbed in Germany that splendid
spirit of scientific research now
developed in all fields of knowl-
edge on the same method and in
the same spirit. Scientific re-
search has been learnt through
practice in Germany by thou-
sands of American students and
teachers. It is impossible to de-
scribe or even to imagine what
an immense intellectual gift this
has been from Germany to
America. It is, of course, true
that America is indebted not
only to Germany but also to
other countries . . . but Amer-
ica is more indebted to Germany
than to any other nation, be-
cause the range oi German re-
search has been wider and deep-
er than it has been in any other
nation."
“The Teutonic peoples set a
higher value on truth in speech,
thought, and action than any
other peoples. . . . They love
truth, they seek it; they woo it.
They respect the man who
speaks and acts the truth even
to his own injury. The English
Bacon said of truth: "It is the
sovereign good of human na-
ture.” That is what all the Teu-
tonic peoples believe. They
want to found their action on
fact not fancy; on the truth, the
demonstrated truth, not on im-
aginations. 1 say that there is
a fine bond of union, a real like-
ness of spirit, a community in
devotion and worship among all
the Teutonic peoples.”
of great pioneers in thinking
and imagining-in which ‘the
Germans are accustomed to claim
leadership; but that claim is
without warrant. In the first
place, German literature and
philosophy are, like German in-
dustrial development, compara-
tively young. That they should
become preeminent so soon was
not to be expected. In the next
place, the German race has not
yet developed leaders of thought,
in literature, philosophy, poetry.
who can bear comparison with
the supreme."
Ethics.
“Germany has developed and
accepted the religion of valor
and the dogma that Might makes
Right. In so doing it has re-
jected with scorn the Christian
teachings concerning humility
and meekness, justice and mercy.
brotherhood and love. The ob-
jects of its adoration have be-
come Strength, Courage and
ruthless Will-Power; let the
weak perish and help them to
perish-; let the ‘gentle, meek and
humble submit to the harsh and
proud; let the shittless and in-
capable die; the world is for the
strong and the strongest shall be
rulers. . . .
"The civilized world can now
see where the‘ new German mo-
rality-be efiicient, be virile, be
hard, be bloody, be rulers-
wauld land it. . . . Germans do
not know how free peoples re-
gard the sanctity of contract, not
only for business purposes but
for political‘ purposes,’ to’ 505!
nothing of honorable obligation."