The Oskaloosa herald., 1918-08-08

those taking certain technical sub
jects, such as chemistry, will be
obliged to study German after enter
ing, as much valuable material is to
be obtained only through knowl-
edge of this language" DR.. Mac
laurin is not the first college president
or professor who has said substan-
TALLY this during the last forty or
fifty years. In view of the present
awakening of the world to the shall
lowness of German claims to super
lelarning and super-efficiency, there
is justification for the hope that he
may be one of the last.
The inference to be drawn from the
statement is that, somehow or other,
the Germans have succeeded in lock-
ing up certain technical knowledge in
their language, and that if you do
not learn that language you will be
shut out from important results of
research, discovery, and invention.
The fact is that less than any other
of the great nations of the earth today
can Germany lay claim to extraor-
applied natural science. In techni-
cal matters she is a borrower rather
/ than a creator. She does not COM
| pare with Italy, with France, with
Great Britain, or with the United
States in discovery or invention. She
! has initiated and sometimes improved
! in fielGo abandoned to her by coun-
tries lacking her patient application
and low-priced labor, but even in
| this respect she has not kept pace
with Japan.
| The steam engine is not hers, nor
the locomotive, nor the steamship.
She did not invent the telegraph or
the telephone. She did not give to
the world the sewing machine, the
harvester, the cotton gin. She had
nothing to do with the spinning jen-
ny. She has never been a leader in
the development of electricity. Wire
less telegraphy is not hers, nor is
wireless telephony, the X-ray, the
typewriter, the Monograph, or the
fountain pen. She has eXcelled in
certain technical branches, especially
in chemistry, only because France,
the United Kingdom, and the United
States practically conceded certain
fields to her. being preoccupied in
other fields themselves. What she
has accomplished in the perfection of
dyes, during half a century, England
and the United States have, in tho
main, accomplished in less than four
years She made Roadway in com
merce, between 1870 and 1914, by
underselling rather than by eXcelling
her competitors. Even in the one
line which she has regarded as wholly
her own, that of producing implements
of destruction, she, is a borrower and
Iimitator. She has nothing to do,
nearly or remotely, with the inven-
ton of the submarine, the aeroplane,
or the tank" After four decades
of drilling and reviewing for the
present war, she did not, in 1914,
have a gun equal to the French "Sev-
enty-five." She has not put out an
explosive or a gas that the Allies have
not rendered Immediately ineffective.
She still moves her troops in mass
after the medieval fashion. Only
brute force seems to appeal to her.
Germany can teach the English
speaking people little or nothing that
is worth knowing, Notwithstanding
that she has long enjoyed another
reputation largely as the fruit Of
sheer pretense Her claim to Sit
| lypo,ulo1uo ho haon
sham; her assertion that the infOrma-
ton she has accumulated can be COM
municated only through her language
is shameless fiction.
The French Ecole Polytechnique is
older khan any technical school in
Germany 1t is asserted by scholars
that the United States is indebted to
Russia more than to any other ma
tion for some of the most important
and valuable features of its schools
of technology. Technical schools
gave England prestige in manufac-
reaching beyond her own borders, and
made British wares famous through
out the earth. England has not cap
italized her great technical schools
and colleges during these latter
years as has Germany, but German
technical education or achievement
has never been able seriously to iEF-
| pair English commerce.
There is nothing in the German
technical textbooks that may not he
found essentially in English or Amer
lean textbooks. Germany has no
special means of access to technical
knowledge, any more than she has
to music or theology. 1t is time the
technical institutes of the United
States abandoned the illusion, begCt-
ten of German psychology, that the
youth of the country can be taught
things worth knowing better in Ge"-
man than in English, and time also
that educators were throwing the
German textbooks out of the window.
The superstition of German Superior
ity in education has gone far enough,
and done harm enough.-Christian
Science Monitor.
-
AMERICAS GIFT TO FRANCE.
II is TO b hoped that the exigencies