Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-10-24
The British Educati onal Mission

XNTE ARE just beginning to realize the
w abysmal depths and the ingenious
subtleties OF the German world propaganda
during the last forty years, its repetitious
boastfulness as to all things German its
studied depreciation as to everything else.
Those who know anything smile when
they hear it declared that but for trivial
accident, the nature of which is not quite
clear. the American Declaration OF Inde.
pendence would have been written in Ger.
man. and even the unlearned laugh when
they are told that it has been sagely argued
in Germany that Napoleon was Teuton.
But many other lies have been reiterated
so often that they have come to be ac-
cepted in a species Of tolerant half-belief
and have long since ceased to be combated
One OF these is that nowhere in the
world can a thorough higher education be
acquired except in German universities,
and that this applies to all subjects, no
matter what with which the scholarly
world has ever busted itself.
YOUR skepticsl Gownsman never quite
l. fell to this fetish of German university
education 1t has always seemed prepos-
ferrous to him that an American youth
should journey through England, for
example, and go far into the Continent
to acquire with difficulty an imperfect
acquaintance with grabbed German in
order to have the language and literature
of his own tongue exploited for him by
a learned man who spoke English inn
perfectly, whose education was in many
respects antithetical to English ideas
whose very nature and character were
bound to leave him unsympathetic. But
even in English language literature and
thought. German scholarship has long
claimed preeminence. And many scholars
in America have taken that claim, as the
similar claim for all the sciences, at its
face value.
TT is not TO be denied that in conse-
l. quence American higher education has
been GermanZed to a very considerable
degree in the last fifty years. And that is
not all In thus accepting Germany at her
own preposterous valuation we lost
France and England and much that these
civilizations. so much more akin to our
own, could have done for us. 1t Is some
times cited to their discredt that the educa-
tional institutions OF neither OF these
countries. seem TO have taken much pains,
until comparatively recently, to attract
and hold American students. To put II
another way: neither France nor England
| commercialized their higher education for
| the foreign market. No Englishman holds
| it his mission TO make foreigners English
| no Frenchman holds a brief to justify and
| explain France. The education OF each
country had developed into a nice adjust
| ment to its own conditions. Education was
| not business, and other nations had their
| own systems suited TO their conditions.
Least OF all could French or English uni.
versities have conceived Of such a trades
mems trick as has unquestionably been
practiced in some German universities: the
| granting OF an inferior degree to foreigners
| while maintaining a rigorous standard at
home, though using for both the same
| label.
| Tn VIEW Of these past conditions the
4 visit Of the British educational mis-
sion to the United States is to be hailed
| a. a happy augury for the future This
mission Genes TO Us ON the invitation Of