Evening star., 1941-03-21
knowledge and Freedom

DR.. Raymond B. FoSdlck, president
of the Rockefeller Foundation, re-
leases his annual report today. The
document is important because it
expresses truth which great num-
bers of Americans undoubtedly have
felt but which not many perhaps
have thoroughly comprehended. A
fundamental relation between cul-
tural progress and liberty is the
principle demonstrated. The doc
trine set forth may be summarized
in the words: "It is only in an
atmosphere of freedom that the
lamp of science and learning can be
kept alight. In all the history of
the race, knowledge has never flow
cred in a subject people. 1t is only
free men who dare to think, and it
is only through free thought that
the soul of a people can be kept
alive"
At the start of his statement, DR..
Fosdick observes that, for an organ
ization like that over which he pre-
sides, these are unhappy days"
More specifically, he says: ITO sit by
and watch the disappearance or de-
cadence or, worse, the perversion of
institutions of learning which in
earlier and better years we were
privileged to assist Is not an easy
assignment" In the period which
followed the first World War, "these
institutions gave high promise in
public health, in medicine, and in
the natural and social sciences" The
foundation gladly extended finan-
cial help to the worthiest and most
notably deserving enterprises. Now,
"the brilliant men with whose work
we were associated" are driven from
the posts for which they were trained,
debarred from their laboratories,
some Of them fugitives, some in con-
centration camps, many of them
separated from their families or lost
in foreign countries where they
sought haven"
Dr.. Fosdick records with unfeigned
sorrow "the fact that it is no longer
possible, under regulations of the
United States Treasury Department,
to make payments on appropriations
for work in the occupied areas of
Europe" Projects In Norway, Bel
GUM, Holland. Denmark, France,
1ic%@
not now be assisted" 1t may be
regarded as lone of the tragedies of
the present situation that even a
little money that might help an out
standing scholar to keep his
work alive cannot be sent"
The plight of the isolated savant
is further bit of evidence
of the breakdown in international
solidarity which, in the realm of
scholarship at least, had become a
vital factor of progress"
In a portion of the report headed,
Into the Night" the author para
phrases Earl Grey's pronouncement
of 1914, declaring: ''The lights of
learning are fading one by one. The
conception of knowledge as an inter-
national responsibility has vanished.
The free flow of ideas across
boundary lines between laboratories
and universities has dried up. Every
where the exigencies of the war have
erased the possibility of intellectual
and cultural life as that term was
understood a few years ago."
Yet there are exceptions to the
prevailing disaster. Dr. Fosdick tells
how refugee scholars from Con-
tinental Europe are being brought to
America to continue their studies.
He also explains how young British
medical students are being aided to
complete their training in the United
States, returning home after gradua-
ton. Thus it cannot be conceded
that the cause of free culture is
everywhere lost. Rather, providen-
TALLY, its fulfillment may be stimu-
lated by the ordeal through which
humanity is passing. There will be