Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-01-28
EXCHANGE OF PROFESSORS.
Ambassador Sternburg to Present Mat
ter to the President.

BERLIN, January 2S-Emperor William
|. has directed the ambassador to the United
states, Baron Speck Won Sternburg to lay
before President Roosevelt in official form
the suggestion for an exchange of profess
Sors between Germany and America that
the emperor mentioned to Ambassador
Tower on New Year day. The ambassador
who sailed on the Kaiser Wilhelm der
Crosse January % only carries an outline
of the project, which the President will be
asked to approve and cooperate in making
workable plan. The emperor has invited
several German professors to present him
with their ideas on the subject.
Prof Adolph Harnack, one of those in
vited, writes in the Preussische Jahrbuecher
that the great scholars of the middle ages
were not tied fast to any one country They
lectured at Naples Bologna, Paris Cologne
and oxford, and their students followed
them Professor Harnack explains the ad-
vantage to students of spending part of
their period of study abroad. An exchange
of students, he adds, necessarily suggests
an exchange of professors. Only a few stu
dents can now have the advantage of study
abroad, but larger numbers will get tina
advantage when the professor himself goes
abroad to lecture. He refers to Lord K ell
vim, Sir William Ramsay and Nansen, the
explorer, as having lectured in Berlin
Prof. Max Mueller, Professor Harnack
also points out, came to Strassburg to give
lectures while retaining his Oxford profess
SorSh1p, and adds that Professor Gregory of
Leipzig is American by birth and a profess
sor at German university and has given
course of lectures in America The SIM
pleSt means to 1naugurate professional in
terchange, according to Professor Harnack
is to invite distinguished profe, sors from
abroad to give courses of four to eight lee
lures. But this is not enough The best
thlng, II 1t can be done, is to call for an en-
tire six months tour, even longer In
DONG so. of course, no country will import
a professor when it has a better one at
home. 1t will always be best to let the STU
dents hear the language of the literature
and economic and social affairs of another
country from a professor of that country
No~amount of industrious study will give
German students the insight into these
| things that they can get from a native of
America. 1t is of all the civilized states
the most remote from Germany in space.
but intellectually the nearest and most
closely rela ted.
In exchanging professors continues
Professor Harnack, I'VE think i.\ the first
instance of America. Harvard and Berlin
are already negotiating a plan. and will
have to begin with caution and within mod
est limits. If TIL idea is sound it will then
grow of itself. Difficulties will have to be
overcome, like the six months tours begin
ming and ending at different dates and no
university will be readily willing to let a
favorite professor off for even a short time
But the difficulties are not insurmountab ble
Distance hardly counts any longer The
conviction that international duties have
arisen for men of science will carry the plan
to success, and this will aid in disseminat- t.
ing, leavening and strengthening the bond
OF fraternity"