CURSE OF THE GERMAN UNIVERSITIES

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 121, 15 February 1919, Page 3

CURSE OF THE GERMAN UNIVERSITIES

PROFESSORIAL BRAVOES FOR THE ' KAISER

PERVERTED LEARNING

(By "An Englishman." in the "Daily Mail.")

Before the war began, and in those dark days when pessimists and pacifists prophesied unceasingly the triumph of Germany, we wore urged to admire the German universities, to fall down in worship before the German professors. We could be saved only, we wero told, by tho flattery of imitation. It was our duty, according to tho wise men, to abolish our existing colleges, and to establish everywhere professorial chairs, paid by the State, and controlled sternly by the Governmcnf of tho day. And now; when wo have disappointed the pessimists by winning the war, the same cry 19 still raised. Education is to be overhauled from top to bottom, it is 6,lid. The heel of the State is to be put upon high and low alike, upon every school and university in the kingdom, as well' as upon the board school. Jn 'brief, if our Education Office has its/ way, England will be grimly Prussianised, and will accept the drill sergeant is her master in arts as in arms.

Bu.t, while wo wait for the promised reforms, it would l>e well if wo considered what boons the German professors have conferred upon their country. They have been obedient Civil Servants; they have echoed patiently the harsh voices of the rulers who appointed them and who have fed them.

Just a? the Lutheran pastors invented "a German, a national God" of their own, so the professors invented a German, a national, learning, whose object: was to glorify the Kaiser and to prove to tho whole world tho virtue and valour of the German Empire. Now science and scholarship cannot "be nationalised any more than the Deity can be nationalised, and the State-fed learning of Germanybecame perforce a. dangerous mixture ot pedantry and politics.

Professorial Bravoes. It was tlie first business of the professors, as loyal servants of the Stale, to applaud-tho policy of their patron. Eagerjy they renounced tho habit of reijcnrch, tho observation of facts, upon which their learning should have rested, and became violent distorters of tho truth. They signed such manifestoes as they thought might encourage their own countrymen and strike fear into the hearts of their enemies. They explained to an -amazed universe how much territory tlier were resolved to snatch from France aiid Russia and Belgium. In brief, they put off, without scruple, the robes of' science and scholarship and came forth in tho cape and sword of armed bravoes. Such was the instant and inevitable effect of learning fostered 'by the State. s ' .. The episode of the German professors is a darkly sinister episodo.in a sinister war". To read their utterances is to be transported into a world of bonstfulness and falsehood. At a bound they Tid themselves of all the respect for truth which should have been their ideal. lhey said.whatever tlicy thought might bo acceptable without reflection aid without inquiry. . • • ,■ . ' To take an example: Horr llamovitzMollewlorf was known before the war as a blameless student of humane letters, tic had publicly acclaimed the debt lie owed to England, nnd had praised in the loftiest terms the ideal of learning which the scholars of all nations should cherish in common.' And tho war converted him into an unbridled distorter of plain facts. _ "See what the war has laid bare in others!" ho'exclaimed. "What have we ■learned of the soul of Belgium? Has it not revealed itself as the soul of cowardice and assassination? Tlicy have no moral forces within them;. therefore they resort (o the torch aiul the dagger. Thus did tho professor write after tho outrage upon Louvain; thus did he prove that, if his sense of' humour were. deficient, at' any rate ho paid willingly the debt of his nurture; lie recognised plainly 1 that he owed less to learning than to the State which supported him. If you will turn over the pages of Mr. Archer's anthology of German thought you cannot but be bewildered ]iv tho nerverseness of Germany's professors. Here is Dr. Alois Brandi, who has given his life to the study of English literature; and the war inspires him to this vise utterance: "Milton, Uiqu ehoudst bo living at this hour. Then wouldst thou understand the German championship of freedom, care of justice, and love of truth." • I wonder if to-day the professor regrets his fantastic absurdity? JHe serves another master now than the Kaiser, and maybe he will receive direct orders to change his 'i'jiie, The two favourite themes of the processors, obviously dictated, are the nobility of Germany and the wickedness of 'England. Professor Eucken, for instance, assures us that the Germans will busily nnd cheerfully work at the elevation of the whole human race." They have been busy indeed! Professor Ham-» utters a sad, involuntary prophecv. "If we are beaten," says lie, "which God and our strong arm forhid, all the higher Kultur of our hemisphere, which it was our mission to guard; sinks with us into the grave." They are beaten, and the world is already a wiser, cleaner place."

Perverted Intelligence. To Professor Haeckel, on the other hand, was entrusted the task of abusing England, and very prettily ho acquitted himself. "The blood-guiltiness of . this greatest crime in world-history lies at the door of England alone"—that is one gem of ray serene among the pearls of ,his thought. With a fine discretion, and let us hope a full knowledge of Germany's torturing of her prisoners, he condemns "Great Britain's barbarous and infamous conduct of the war, the unexampled massacres, the shnjneless political falsity and hypocrisy,. the cowardly' ill-treatment of prisoners' and wounded." The indignation is noble—that must lie admitted. We may regret that Herr Haeckel, a . State-paid professor, should send it to the wrong address.

I have not quoted these examples of perverted intelligence from mere curiosity, but because their perversion contains for us a grave warning. As I have said, the conduct of the German professors can best be explained by the fact that they are the servants of the Stale. They have taken their wages, and they must prove their zeal in earning them. Had they been free to follow learning for its own sake they would not have contorted the plain truth at tho bidding of any mnstqf. Yet, in spite of theirwieked folly, tliev are still held up to us as models of science and of scholarship. And eagerly the. interference' of the State is invited by many of our learned pedants. One candidate goes to the poll with "Reform of the Little-Go" emblazoned, upon his fusty banner. Does he see, I wonder, that if he asks the State to 'reform, an ancient university he will in the end replace the spirit of learning by the spirit of self-interested politics, such as breathes in the utterances of Harnack and Haeckel? Truly for learning there is but- one path of safety-the path which leads us far away from Whitehall and the intorfercnco of Ministers. We liavo a noble tradition of our own. Let. us not sacrilico it to a mad worship of the State, a madder respect for discredited Germany. All that learning asks is to be left alone. Existing'for its own sake, it must be free to follow ils own way, to reach its own goal. So long as it is pure from the dross of politics it will not fail to achieve its end. -Happily in this country wo have universities which are various in type and purpose. Their lack of uniformity is their virtue, because it. ensures in tliose educated within them a variety of talent and accomplishment. If the State were permitted to enter tho domain oi learning it would clip and cut all our schools and colleges to its own lifeless pattern. Therefore let us take warning bv Germany, and say to our politicians who would limner with what they cannot understand: "Hands off the universities!"