ADDRESSES 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE DINNER 
 OF THE 
 
 GERMAN PUBLICATION SOCIETY 
 
 GIVEN IN HONOR OF THE 
 
 COMMITTEE OF PATRONS 
 
 FRIDAY EVENING, MAY 9, 1913 
 PLAZA HOTEL, NEW YORK 
 
AFTER-DINNER ADDRESSES WERE MADE BY 
 
 His Excellency, Count Johann Heinrich von Bkrnstorfe, German Ambassador to the United States ; Chari.es W. Eliot, President 
 Emeritus of Harvard University; .John Grier Hibben, President of Princeton University; Hugo Munsterberg, 
 of Harvard University; Calvin Thomas, of Columbia University; Kuno Francke, of Harvard 
 University; Hugo Reisinger, New York; and Theodore Sutro, New York 
 
^30>fe 
 
 HE GERMAN PUBLICATION SOCIETY celebrated its 
 first year of existence by a dinner at the Hotel Plaza, 
 New York, on May 9, 1913, in honor of its distinguished 
 
 Committee of Patrons. 
 
 The presence of His Excellency, Count Johann Heinrich von 
 Bernstorff, the German Ambassador to the United States, Dr. 
 Charles W. Eliot, President John Grier Hibben of Princeton, 
 and other distinguished speakers, and of three hundred guests 
 from Chicago, Boston, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and 
 New York, gave the highest possible testimony to the value of 
 the aims and work of the Society. It was probably the most 
 remarkable gathering ever assembled in this country to voice 
 approval of a literary enterprise. 
 
 The speeches made on that occasion appear elsewhere in 
 this booklet and are worthy of the most careful reading, for 
 they reveal the mature judgment of men who know the greatness 
 of German thought and how valuable its influence will prove to 
 the thought and life of English readers. 
 
 The Society appreciates the strength of this approval, and 
 is confident that its work will prove of national and international 
 interest and an important contribution to English literature. 
 
ADDRESS OE THE TOASTMASTER 
 
 Professor Calvin Thomas 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 We are assembled this evening as the guests of the German 
 Publication Society to testify our interest in a large literary enter- 
 prise of international scope and international importance. It is 
 proposed to publish twenty volumes of modern German literature 
 in good English translations. Naturally, an effort will be made to 
 exhibit the literature at its best ; and it is hoped in this way to 
 create a larger opportunity than has hitherto existed for persons 
 who do not know the German language to become acquainted with 
 some of the current notable treasures of German literature. 
 
 Now we are here, as I understand it, to celebrate the interna- 
 tional aspect of this undertaking, which looks toward disseminat- 
 ing in the English-speaking world a fuller knowledge of what I, 
 at any rate, may be permitted to call the noblest aspect of German 
 civilization. But whatever makes for better knowledge of a nation 
 at its best, of its literary masterpieces, of its ideals and aspira- 
 tions, its way of thinking, its u Gerniit,” makes inevitably for inter- 
 national comity and good will. And that is what all desire. This 
 subject, in one or another phase of it, will be the theme of nearly 
 all the speakers who are to address you. 
 
 But what is German literature? “Was ist des Deutschen 
 Vaterland?” It is to be found wherever good books are 
 written in the German language. The man or the woman — 
 we must not forget the woman in these days — the man or the 
 woman who writes the language of Luther and Goethe and Bis- 
 marck, and writes it well, and has something important to say in 
 it, makes a contribution to German letters, no matter whether he 
 lives in Berlin, or Weimar, or Vienna. Literature is not a great 
 respecter of national or political boundaries. It is not stopped in 
 its course by rulers, or tariffs, or the police. That is a part of its 
 glory. 
 
 Now, it so happens that one of the greatest German dramatists 
 of the nineteenth century was an Austrian, and long before his 
 time the greatest medieval lyrists were Austrians. One of them 
 
 m 
 
was one of the most illustrious masters in our day of German prose 
 fiction ; some regarded him as the greatest German story-teller 
 since Goethe. So you see that when you begin to think of German 
 literature by itself, we are brought to the international point of 
 view. Let us recognize this fact at the beginning of our pro- 
 ceedings. 
 
 I wish to propose a toast, a triune toast, to the German 
 Emperor, the Emperor of Austria-Hungary, and the President of 
 the Swiss Confederation. Will you please rise to drink this toast, 
 and when you resume your seats I am privileged to call for a 
 response from the Imperial German Ambassador to the United 
 
 States. 
 
 [ 4 ] 
 
COUNT JOHANN HEINRICH VON BERNSTORFF 
 German Ambassador to the United States 
 
ADDRESS OE THE GERMAN AMBASSADOR 
 
 Count Johann Heinrich yon Bernstorff 
 
 Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 I have the honor to address you with a few words and to 
 thank the toastmaster for his cordial welcome, and for the friendly 
 words which he addressed to the sovereigns of Germany and 
 Austria-Hungary and to the President of the Swiss Eepublic. 
 Austria-Hungary has been united to Germany in various forms 
 for a thousand years, and the friendship which has always existed 
 has perhaps never been so great as during the last few years. 
 And as to Switzerland, I might say that nobody in Austria or 
 Germany would speak of a German literature without thinking of 
 Gottfried Keller, and of Conrad Perdinand Meyer, whose u TJlrich 
 Hutten ?? is perhaps one of the most patriotic poems. 
 
 When I was kindly invited to this banquet I instantly 
 accepted with the greatest pleasure, because I always wish to 
 participate in any movement which is inaugurated for the purpose 
 of forming a new bond of friendship between Germany, my own 
 country, and the United States, which I am happy to regard as 
 my second home. 
 
 I was at first asked to speak about the relations between 
 Germany and the United States. I answered that if I spoke 
 about these relations I would have nothing to say at all, because 
 we have a German proverb which says that those wives are the 
 best of whom one never speaks. And I have found that, amongst 
 political relations, those are always best, those are generally per- 
 fect, of whom one need say nothing at all ; and this is the case 
 between our two countries. 
 
 Then it was suggested that I should change the name of my 
 address and speak of cultural relations between Germany and the 
 United States. That also seemed to me a rather difficult problem, 
 when I am sitting here at the table with some of the foremost 
 leaders of education in the United States as well as some of the 
 most prominent professors of the German literature and history. 
 I feel already, at this table, like Saul among the prophets, and 
 this feeling was rather increased when I opened the gift which we 
 
 [ 5 ] 
 
have received tonight, and saw that it was a pen. I was afraid 
 that the German Publication Society might demand of its guests 
 that we should write something for publication, and, as yet, I must 
 confess that I have never written anything but reports, and those 
 only if I could absolutely not help myself. 
 
 Amongst the links which bind countries together, the foremost 
 is the intimate knowledge of the culture of the two countries. If 
 we aim to be purely reciprocal in the literature and culture of our 
 two countries, we shall readily recognize their interdependence and 
 be ready to promote their friendship. 
 
 We hope that the voice of German idealism will be heard with 
 pleasure by the American people, and that they will greet this new 
 foundation in a spirit of friendship and with the intention to keep 
 in touch with the most intensive toil of the German mind. All of 
 us here — those who are not Americans — enjoy the traditional, 
 celebrated hospitality of this great country, and I cannot express 
 this better than in proposing to you to drink to the health of the 
 President of the United States. I have, during the past year 
 which I have been happy to spend in this country, witnessed for 
 the first time a fight for the presidency ; and I may say that I 
 have witnessed it, naturally as an impartial, but highly interested 
 spectator, and may add that nothing has impressed me in this 
 great self-governing country as the hearty acquiescence of the 
 whole people in the processes of the government. From the 
 moment that the change took place, the President was the new 
 representative of the whole American people, and received the 
 support of the entire nation. 
 
 Gentlemen, I propose the health of the President of the 
 United States. 
 
 [ 6 ] 
 
THE DEBT OF AMERICA TO GERMANY 
 
 Address by Charles W. Eliot 
 
 Mr. Toastmaster, Mr. President, Your Excellency, Ladies 
 and Gentlemen : 
 
 America’s debt to Germany is the subject assigned me, and 
 the remarks of the toastmaster have already suggested that I may 
 most appropriately treat chiefly of the educational debt of America 
 to Germany. 
 
 The educational obligations of America to Germany are 
 indeed wide and deep. They relate to literature, science, art, 
 education, and religion. The German gifts were first communi- 
 cated through a few persons, young pioneers from America who, 
 after having received a partial education here, went over to 
 Germany to study more deeply and intensively. They have also 
 been communicated directly from German to American institu- 
 tions. The German universities to which the first American 
 students resorted in the early part of the nineteenth century were 
 in part recent creations, and in part reconstructions on old 
 foundations ; but how rich they were, how free, and how strong ! 
 
 I recall a small group of young men who went in the first fifth 
 of the nineteenth century from the neighborhood of Boston to 
 German universities. One of them was George Ticknor, who 
 subsequently became the historian of Spanish literature and 
 author of a book which is still the best book in English on that 
 subject. Another was George Bancroft, who returned home to 
 become first a teacher, and then the writer of an elaborate history 
 of the United States, and later in life was the American Minister 
 at Berlin. Another was Frederic Henry Hedge, also from New 
 England, who, after his student days in Germany, became first a 
 teacher, then an author on religious themes, and then a professor 
 of German literature in Harvard University. This was a charac- 
 teristic group of young Americans going over to Germany, full of 
 intellectual enterprise, to see what they could learn there of 
 letters, science, and art ; to study the educational institutions of 
 Germany in the hope of bringing home good educational seed 
 which might be planted here in this comparatively undeveloped, 
 
 [ 7 ] 
 
commercial land, where a scanty border of civilization was cling- 
 ing to the edge of an unmeasured wilderness. All three of these 
 men influenced for good the policies of Harvard University. 
 
 The American pioneers in Germany during the first half of 
 the nineteenth century brought back various knowledges, various 
 skills, and many pregnant doctrines. The variety of knowledge 
 and skill which could be procured at the German universities at 
 that early day was something astounding to these American 
 youths, something indescribably rich and various. With their 
 own personal experiences and gains they brought back also to 
 America the structure of the modern German university, then 
 young in Germany and in America not yet conceived of. They 
 had, moreover, absorbed that noble German policy of academic 
 freedom, freedom for the student and the teacher alike. This 
 academic freedom meant emancipation from tradition and preju- 
 dice, and from authority, whether governmental or ecclesiastical. 
 They saw, also, how two great doctrines which had sprung from 
 the German Protestant Reformation had been developed by 
 Germans from seed then planted in Germany. The first was the 
 doctrine of universal education, developed from the Protestant 
 conception of individual responsibility ; and the second was the 
 great doctrine of civil liberty, liberty in industries, in society, in 
 government, liberty with order under law. These two principles 
 took their rise in Protestant Germany ; and America has been the 
 greatest beneficiary of that noble teaching. 
 
 The pioneers from New England in the first half of the 
 nineteenth century have been followed by a stream of American 
 youth, going over to enlarge their experiences, to make new obser- 
 vations, to put in practice the inductive method of arriving at 
 truth, and to learn to think profoundly and accurately in the 
 German universities. That stream has flowed backward all over 
 this country, fertilizing it with German thought and German 
 methods. These thousands of American students have absorbed 
 in Germany that splendid spirit of scientific research now devel- 
 oped in all fields of knowledge on the same method and in the 
 same spirit. Scientific research has been learnt through practice 
 in Germany by thousands of American students and teachers. 
 It is impossible to describe or even imagine what an immense 
 intellectual gift this has been from Germany to America. 
 It is, of course, true that America is indebted not only to 
 Germany but also to England, Scandinavia, France, Italy, and of 
 
 [ 8 ] 
 
CHARLES W. ELIOT, LL.D. 
 President Emeritus of Harvard University 
 
late to Russia, for this perfected spirit and method of research 5 
 but America is more indebted to Germany than to any other 
 nation, because the range of German research has been wider and 
 deeper than has been seen in any other of the nations mentioned. 
 
 There is another bond of union between Germany and America 
 which may come some day to the stage of practical efficacy. To 
 be sure, it is nothing but a sentiment or feeling ; but sentiments 
 often supply the motive-power for vigorous action. The Teutonic 
 peoples set a higher value on truth in speech, thought, and action 
 than any other peoples. Germany and America, England, Scan- 
 dinavia, and Holland are one in this respect. They all love truth 5 
 they seek it ; they woo it. They respect the man who speaks and 
 acts the truth even to his own injury. The English Bacon said 
 of truth, u It is the sovereign good of human nature.” That is 
 what all the Teutonic peoples believe. They want to found their 
 action on fact, not fancy ; on the truth, the demonstrated truth, 
 not on imaginations. I say that here is a fine bond of union, a 
 real likeness of spirit, a community in devotion and worship 
 among all the Teutonic peoples. Let us hope that at no distant 
 day this common worship, this common devotion, will result in 
 common beneficent action. 
 
 r 9 1 
 
THE COMMERCE OE THOUGHT 
 
 Address by President James Grier Hibben 
 
 Mr. Toastmaster, Your Excellency, Mr. President, Ladies 
 and Gentlemen : 
 
 Tonight I am confirmed in a view, which I have long held, and 
 I am sure that you all join with me, that it is not necessary to have 
 a common language in order to unite two great peoples in one bond 
 of sympathy and of spirit. We have not a common language, it 
 is true, but we have a common interest, and a common nature, and 
 a common love of reason, and I take it that this explains our 
 presence here tonight. It is often true that a common language is 
 a very convenient thing to have in our intercourse with our fellow- 
 men, as we go about the earth, and if you will allow me to interject 
 a Princeton story of one of our professors traveling recently in 
 Germany it will illustrate this point. This man had himself been 
 educated in Germany, but he was returning with his wife and 
 daughters, none of whom was able to speak the English language, 
 and at a station where a change of cars was necessary the father 
 and husband and protector was left by the train, and these women 
 alone, with nothing to stand between them and this foreign 
 language but a small pocket dictionary, out of their extremity 
 evolved a sentence that they sprung at the guard when he next 
 came around, and it was this — u Unser mann is links.” That was 
 not a common language, and was not understood. I thought 
 tonight, for the few moments that I have to appear before you, 
 that I would speak of the commerce of thought between these two 
 great nations. We are well aware of that material commerce 
 which has brought to our shores, year after year, many of the 
 necessities and luxuries of life, with that well-known stamp upon 
 them, “Made in Germany.” We have benefited by this material 
 commerce; we trust that, in some measure, Germany also has 
 benefited. Yet it is not of that material benefit that I shall speak 
 tonight, but of this commerce of thought, this interchange of ideas, 
 this traffic in the things of mind. As President Eliot has this 
 evening pointed out to you so forcibly and eloquently, our teachers, 
 at the present time in this country, the great majority of them, 
 
 [ 10 ] 
 
1. Hugo Munsterberg, Ph.D., LL.D., Litt.D. 3. John Grier Hibben, Ph.D., LL.D. 
 
 2. Calvin Thomas, LL.D. 4, Hugo Reisinger, A.M. 
 
 6. Theodore Sutro, A.B., LL.B. 
 
particularly in our higher schools of learning, are indebted to 
 Germany for a part of their training, and for that part of their 
 training that came to them in the years when they could best 
 appreciate what they were gaining from this great source of life 
 at the fountain-head of modern learning in Germany. Germany 
 gave to these young men who went to her universities ideas which 
 had essentially an instrumental value. They were tools that the 
 men, upon returning, could use year after year, until their record 
 had been fully made. It was by these tools that they were able 
 to go into the fields of research and find the truth at the source. 
 It was not a body of knowledge that Germany gave to our young 
 men, but it was a method, a method of discovering truth and of 
 testing truth, and there is no gift that any individual, or any 
 institution, or any nation, can give to another, that is of such 
 incalculable value as the gift of a method, of putting something in 
 a man’s hands that he can use in his daily study. And it is to 
 Germany that we owe this great debt of gratitude, that our great 
 men of the past generation and of the present there in Germany 
 learned the secret of scholarship. 
 
 To become a great world power intellectually, Germany, by an 
 inevitable law of nature, was compelled to transcend herself. That 
 which was written in poetry, in philosophy, may have had at its 
 first inception in the brain of the author, and, indeed, must have 
 had, a local and a temporal significance, but it attained in German 
 letters, as in all literature, a universal, world- wide significance by 
 transcending all of the particular boundaries of time and of space. 
 Goethe today does not belong to Germany, but to the whole world, 
 wherever there is a living soul who can appreciate the spirit of his 
 message to mankind. He belongs to the world, as Shakespeare 
 belongs to the world, and no one complains that Shakespeare is no 
 longer an Englishman. Goethe, Schiller, Kant, Hegel, if you 
 please, all have passed through a process of denaturalization, and 
 they have become the property and the precious possession of the 
 whole world. And that, I take it, is the reason that this German 
 Publication Society exists — the recognition of the universal note 
 that has been sounded in German letters and in German philosophy. 
 You have heard tonight of the great debt that the scholars of the 
 United States owe to Germany, in what they have gained in a body 
 of ideas and in a method ; but, more than that, Germany has opened 
 up to us the very sources of life in the thought that it has given to 
 the world. It has given us ideas which pertain to that which we 
 
 [ 11 ] 
 
value most, and by which man is able to form a Weltanschauung . 
 They become the basic principles of a true, living philosophy. 
 For of Germany we have learned of the things that are good and 
 true and beautiful. We have learned of Germany a great theory 
 of conduct, of following the right because it is right, and in scorn 
 of consequence. We have had our aspirations stimulated, and our 
 eyes lifted to something that is above mere material advantage 
 and material welfare. 
 
 That, after all, is our great debt to Germany, and, gentlemen, 
 in this day, when we hear on all sides the earnest, pressing call to 
 us, in this new age in which we live, to cut ourselves loose from 
 the past, and let it be forgotten and out of mind — when we hear 
 that word spoken to us, let us think of Germany and what we owe 
 to her, and of the patient labor of her scholars. We indeed belong 
 to this generation. We must take our place in it and do our work 
 in it, to the best of our ability, but there is a tremendous responsi- 
 bility resting upon us, as we are immersed in the things of the 
 present, not to forget the past, and, as we move on into the future, 
 may God help us to carry the past with us. It is our possession 
 forever, and when we think that the old order changeth, giving 
 place to the new, and all about us may seem confused and 
 unfamiliar, let us remember that we can again turn to Faust , and 
 read there of the temptation and the struggles of our own souls, 
 and that, as we look out upon the world about us, if we desire to 
 obtain a timeless view of all the shifting scenes of life, we 
 can give ear again to the great philosopher of Konigsberg as he 
 speaks to us of God, our freedom, our immortality, and points us 
 to the starry heavens above, and the moral law within; or we can 
 hear, again, Fichte rallying the force of righteousness once more 
 in the cause of eternal truth, and the cause of the Eternal God. 
 
 [»] 
 
THE IDEALS OF GERMAN SCHOLARSHIP 
 
 Address by Hugo Munsterberg 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 Our two great university presidents have spoken with most 
 impressive and inspiring words about German scholarship through- 
 out the century to the young academic generations of America. 
 They left me with a feeling that, as usual, university presidents 
 had the better of us professors, and did not leave me anything, 
 because it was about that which I intended to speak to you. I 
 wanted to speak about those inspirations which came throughout 
 the century from those great philosophers and those great scientists, 
 and how they got impetus, and how they got ideas, and how they 
 got the scheme of research, and so on, and so there remains for 
 me, then, probably nothing else but to leave the past, and, going 
 to a more dangerous ground, to ask how is it today. After all, 
 since those days when President Eliot and his friends went, as 
 young students, to the German universities — since that time great 
 wars have been fought, great industries have been built up, 
 Germany has become rich and strong, and many men ask, “In 
 scholarship, why that marvelous change from the quaint old seats 
 of learning and poetry to the over-modern market-place where 
 there are turmoil and hustle V’ We very often hear nowadays the 
 voices of those who speak with a certain condescension of modern 
 German scholarship. There are the admirers of French brilliancy 
 who claim that German scholarship is nowadays lacking fineness 
 and sharpness of thought, and there are friends of English culture 
 who insist that German scholarship is narrow and pedantic. And 
 there are vicious pioneers of Western science who claim that 
 German scholarship is too impractical, too abstract. Well, I feel 
 sure that much of the blame is suggested as clumsy dissertations 
 of beginners, rather than by those of masters. And yet it can 
 easily be understood how a certain distrust arose, how a reaction 
 against old masters came in, when the new independence of the 
 graduate schools after German pattern arose here. Moreover, it 
 must be acknowledged, Germany has today not so many great 
 schools as it had thirty, or fifty, or one hundred years ago. It is 
 the unfolding of the political and economic energies that have 
 
 [ 13 ] 
 
sapped the available sources of leadership, and it may even be 
 said that science today is no longer to rely so much on individual 
 genius, but rather more on team work. The methods of industrial 
 efficiency have somewhat touched scholarly reproductions, too, 
 and above all, surely the distance between American and German 
 scholarship has more and more been reduced, and, in many fields, 
 has disappeared entirely. And yet, if all that is acknowledged, 
 there remains a conviction that there is an element in German 
 scholarship today which is still unique, and which, it almost seems, 
 cannot be imitated. I think it is not the question of research, of 
 method, of any special ideas ; it is something far deeper. Two 
 years ago, when I was exchange professor in Berlin, I sent, in the 
 name of the American Institute, inquiries to the three hundred 
 American students who were at that time matriculated at German 
 Universities, inquiring as to what had attracted them, and what 
 was the greatest profit they believed the German universities had 
 taught them. 
 
 The unanimity of the students’ replies that they did not con- 
 sider any element of mere instruction to constitute the important 
 feature of German university life was most surprising. They felt 
 that they could get that essential at home, as well. But they all 
 said that there was an element of enthusiasm for knowledge, an 
 attitude of scholarly devotion, and a setting for scholarship, which 
 they had never known in such intensity at home; and I think that 
 their instinct led them right. This faithful belief in the eternal 
 value of knowledge and scholarship — that is, after all, the secret 
 spring of the German scholarly achievement. American students 
 read just as much as the Germans, but among the German students 
 are more individuals who are glowing from the desire to know, 
 who plunge all their resources into research, and who spend 
 wonderful nights in excited debates with their friends on scien- 
 tific problems. 
 
 I feel sure that, just as every young artist ought still to make 
 his pilgrimage to the sacred soil of Italy, so every young American 
 scholar ought still to go to the German universities, not in order 
 to learn their particular method of research or anything else, but 
 to come into contact with that unique spirit. The crown of intel- 
 lectual mastership can come to this nation only if that spirit shall 
 ever fully penetrate its intellectual atmosphere. 
 
 Gentlemen, a few days ago a leading New York newspaper 
 had an editorial about the disesteem in which Americans held the 
 
 [ 14 ] 
 
profession of teachers and scholars and professors. The New York 
 Times pointed out that the average American teacher or professor 
 is not a man who is necessarily superior, according to the American 
 idea of literature, but a man who is impractical and almost gro- 
 tesque. As the Times said, the chief reason for that is evidently 
 the certainty that most of the members of that profession remain 
 in or near poverty throughout their lives, and that therefore the 
 more enterprising and ambitious young men would not enter it. 
 !Now, I have the feeling that that is unjustified, that that is 
 strongly exaggerated. To a certain degree it may prevail still — 
 this prejudice in regard to the school teachers — but the American 
 nation has learned to discriminate nowadays between the school 
 teacher and the productive scholar, who is the only true teacher of 
 a real university, and the culture of the nation has reached the 
 point where public opinion, on the whole, knows how to discrimi- 
 nate between those who do not earn money because they lack the 
 power for it, and those who do not earn money because they have 
 much more important things to do. But while that pessimistic 
 picture seems to me exaggerated, I do not think that any one has 
 a right to deny that there is a core of truth in it. Scholarship has 
 not yet reached that standing in our country which it ought to 
 have. And it is no chance that the standing of the university 
 professor has always attracted the finest and noblest minds just 
 by its social character and by public appreciation, and I think 
 such a condition is based just on that difference of attitude. It is 
 not a question of efficiency and achievement of research and 
 method — just a question of attitude. The highest standing and 
 great scholarship cannot develop itself as long as scholarship is, 
 on the whole, considered from an individualistic point of view — 
 from a point of view from which scholarship has this meaning and 
 well defined effect, that it is useful for man’s life-work, that it is 
 useful for the individual in his achievements and in his battles. 
 In Germany exactly the opposite idea prevails. Scholarship and 
 beauty and morality are valuable in themselves, and to serve them 
 means a goal which is not to be praised on account of its useful- 
 ness. The Americans are still too much inclined to scholarship 
 in order to master scholarship, while the Germans try to serve 
 scholarship. For the Americans scholarship is a tool, but for the 
 Germans an altar. And therefore to the Americans the scholar 
 is an artisan, and to the Germans the scholar is a priest 5 and 
 artisans can never be the leaders of a nation. 
 
 [ 15 ] 
 
• Slow, gentlemen, some may be inclined to say that such may 
 be the true situation, but that we have to accept it — that the 
 German view belongs to the Germans, and that the American 
 view belongs to the Americans. But does such an idea really fit 
 our present-day view of the American nation? Certainly that 
 nation was for a long time satisfied with an arbitrary construction 
 of American history, in which the English descendants were the 
 hosts and all the other national elements were the guests, and that 
 the guests had naturally only one duty — to assimilate themselves, 
 to accept the ideas of the host, and to help them along. But the 
 idea has slowly changed ; we understand more and more that this 
 nation is a blending of all the strong nations, held together, not 
 by the common past, but by a common belief in the future, and 
 that not England but the whole of Europe is American country. 
 And if that is your view, then surely it changes the attitude, it 
 liberates the non-English elements from that artificial duty and 
 artificial task, to suppress their characteristic traits, and, instead 
 of them, to put on their shoulders their very best, as the highest 
 present duty ; that is, their highest and noblest ideals are made 
 serviceable to the country in which they lived. And I think we 
 German- Americans, we Germans in America, surely should not 
 forget, on the eve of the day on which the Carl Schurz monument 
 will be unveiled, that we have our peculiar duties, and one of 
 them is that we cannot look silently on the development of ideas 
 of scholarship and attitudes towards scholarship which can never 
 lead to the highest goal. However much we may learn from the 
 characteristic American ideals in all other fields, we Germans 
 have the duty to remain loyal to our ideals of scholarship and 
 knowledge which we have brought over the ocean ; and we know 
 and ought never to forget that we cannot bring anything nobler 
 and finer to the country whose progress we want to serve, than 
 just this religion of scholarship, this belief in the eternal value of 
 truth and of beauty. 
 
 [ 16 ] 
 
THE GERMAN IDEAL OE ART 
 
 Address by Ktjno Francke 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : 
 
 After all that has been said tonight here in praise of German 
 scholarship, of German philosophy, and of the German universities, 
 I feel almost as though, for the sake of artistic contrast, it was for 
 me to take the part of Mephisto and to make of German literature 
 as bad a case as possible. If I were to confine myself to some 
 extremist tendencies of the most recent German literature, this 
 would be not so very difficult a task either. For I am free to 
 confess that the cult of so-called individuality seems to me to have 
 led in much of the most recent literary production of Germany, as 
 it has, indeed, in most countries, to a disintegration of literary 
 standards, and to the practical application of principles destruc- 
 tive of all true individuality ; principles which I heard, a few days 
 ago, by an American apostle of Futurism, expressed in these 
 words : u Thus far artists have represented things as they looked 
 to them . A painter, for instance, would sketch a staircase as it 
 looked to him . It is for the Futurist to represent a staircase as it 
 looks to a staircase ! ” Or, as another devotee of this school has 
 recently put it: “It is a matter of utter indifference whether a 
 poem or a painting is very ugly or very beautiful, very charming 
 or very repellent, very refined or very coarse — enough if it is very.” 
 
 But I am not concerned here with these extreme tendencies of 
 the day, which, however much noise they may make, or however 
 much notoriety they may bring to their authors, are after all 
 bound to remain superficial and ephemeral. I am to tell you 
 something of the fundamental things in German literature, some- 
 thing of its abiding qualities, something of those qualities which 
 have made German literature great, which have made it a force in 
 the development of mankind, and which make it a help and an 
 inspiration to American democracy. Inasmuch as I am to do this 
 within ten minutes — preferably less — I shall concentrate my atten- 
 tion upon one single point among these fundamental things in 
 German literature. 
 
 I think it can truly be said that the great German writers of 
 the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries have held nobler and 
 
 [ 17 ] 
 
more exalted views about the mission of literature and art for 
 human society than the writers of almost any other nation. To 
 none of the great German authors was their Art merely a matter 
 of technical skill or of clever composition. To all of them it was 
 a matter of deep conviction and moral aspiration, a sacred concern 
 of life, a religion. Schiller, when he defines beauty as the perfect 
 blending of the spirit and the senses, of instinct and reason ; 
 Schelling, when he describes the beautiful as the infinite in finite 
 form ; Goethe, when he finds in poetry the highest expression of 
 free human activity; Schopenhauer and Eichard Wagner, when 
 they find in the enjoyment of Art the redemption of man from the 
 blind will to exist — they all make a distinctly religious appeal 
 for Art. They all make an appeal to the best in man, to man’s 
 striving for harmony with himself, for mastery of himself, for 
 completeness and universality of culture. 
 
 Schiller, in his letters on the Esthetic Education of Man, has 
 spoken a word on the effect of true Art on the public which I 
 wish might be inscribed on our leading theatres, opera houses, and 
 museums, and, what is more important, in the hearts of our poets, 
 composers, and painters. u The state of mind,” Schiller says, “ in 
 which a true work of Art should leave us, is a high equanimity 
 and freedom of the soul, combined with power and zest for activity, 
 and there is no better criterion of the true worth of a work of Art.” 
 Now, that seems to be a somewhat antiquated point of view, doesn’t 
 it, if we listen to the impressionistic criticism of today ? Indeed, 
 a student of mine with whom I discussed this the other day told 
 me so with frank finality. But if this be an antiquated view, I 
 think it is one of those antiquated views which, like wine, grow 
 better and more precious with antiquity. For does this statement 
 of Schiller’s not express an incontestable truth — the truth that 
 there would be no meaning to Art if it did not help in the upbuild- 
 ing of life ? Do we consider any other human activity without 
 regard to the question whether it adds to the sum of our existence 
 or detracts from it? And should we consider Art alone, the 
 most productive human activity, without regard to the question 
 whether its effect is weakening or strengthening, upbuilding or 
 disintegrating ? Should Art alone have no mission to perform for 
 human society ? 
 
 Art has a mission to perform for human society. Art is not 
 meant as an opportunity for clever tricksters to startle by unwhole- 
 some sensations, to shock by the loathsome, to hypnotize us into 
 
 [ 18 ] 
 
KUNO FRANCKE, Ph.D., LL.D., Litt.D. 
 
 Professor of the History of German Culture and Curator of the Germanic Museum, 
 
 Harvard University 
 
 Editor-in-Chief of The German Classics 
 
languid inertia. Art is to add to the feeling of life. Art is to 
 give us an intensified sense of our own powers. It is to stimulate 
 our moral and mental activity ; it is to give us glimpses of the 
 mystery of life ; it is to deepen our sympathy with suffering ; it is 
 to strengthen our faith in the spirit; it is to heighten our joy in 
 the universe — this is the message of the great German poets and 
 thinkers. This is the effect produced by such works as Wallenstein 
 and William Tell , Iphigenia and Faust , Fidelio and Tannhduser . Can 
 it be that this ideal of Art, as an active upbuilding force, has no 
 meaning for us today ? Is not this an ideal which should be of 
 particular service to the active, hopeful, aspiring democracy of 
 America $ 
 
 [ 19 ] 
 
THE GERMAN CLASSICS 
 
 Address by Hugo Reisinger 
 
 Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 As chairman of the Committee of Patrons, I have both the 
 privilege and the duty, on behalf of the German Publication 
 Society, to thank the patrons for the valuable assistance and 
 encouragement they have given us. Their illustrious names on 
 this committee testify to their personal approval of and their 
 earnest desire for the success of this great enterprise. No publica- 
 tion in this country has ever been honored with such a distinguished 
 list of sponsors. I assure the Committee of Patrons that the 
 Society deeply appreciates the valuable service rendered, but I feel 
 that we can best show our appreciation and thanks by making 
 every volume of The German Classics a monument of literary 
 interpretation. I am sure that, if we do this, we shall feel 
 abundantly justified in having asked you to become its sponsors, 
 because The German Classics will, we sincerely believe, become 
 a valuable factor in the great modern movement of intellectual 
 exchange between nations. I myself have worked hard for the 
 enterprise, hoping that it will be the crown of my life’s endeavor 
 to further good feeling between the German Empire and the 
 American nation. If you will understand the Germans, you must 
 read the message of their poets. The soul of the German nation, 
 — its thoughts, its dreams — is in its literature. For that reason 
 The German Classics should be a welcome gift to the American 
 nation. 
 
 A perfect translation is pictured by Swinburne as a flow of 
 gold from one precious vessel into another precious vessel. I do 
 not know, of course, if all the translations in these volumes will 
 come up to this $ but the name of the splendid scholar, my dear 
 friend Dr. Kuno Francke, editor-in-chief, gives assurance that 
 nothing will be left undone to make them as perfect as possible. 
 May the work be a stepping-stone by which the two great nations 
 that claim my allegiance — the land of my birth, the land of my 
 choice — shall be brought into a closer intellectual fellowship 
 
 [ 20 ] 
 
The old saying is, that if you want to understand a poet you 
 must travel in the poet’s country — 
 
 “ Wer den Dichter will verstehen. 
 
 Muss in Diehters Lande gehen,” 
 
 But not all of us can afford to go to foreign countries to study 
 the language. Comparatively few are able to study literature at 
 its source of inspiration, and only a comparatively small number 
 of us are able to read the language of Goethe, Schiller, and 
 Nietzsche. Millions of our citizens speak German, but their sons 
 are more at home in the language of Shakespeare than in the 
 language of their forefathers, and for that reason I think The 
 German Classics will afford to Americans a real insight into the 
 splendid literature of the Germans. 
 
 We owe to England our laws and our language. To Germany 
 we owe our system of education. To make the great storehouse 
 of German literature accessible to the American reader in English 
 translations will, we believe, confer a present and everlasting 
 benefit, and do much to bind the German and American nations 
 together in intellectual sympathy and appreciation. 
 
 [ 21 ] 
 
THE GERMAN PUBLICATION SOCIETY 
 
 Address by Theodore Sutro 
 Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 The distinguished speakers of the evening have told us of 
 the richness of German literature, of the high ideals of German 
 scholarship, of the debt we as Americans owe to German educa- 
 tion and training, and it only remains for me to add a few words 
 concerning the purpose and scope of our Society. 
 
 The German Publication Society has undertaken what we 
 conceive to be a very important program, namely, to give to 
 English-speaking people the literary masterpieces of modern Ger- 
 many — the greatest intellectual storehouse in the world. It is 
 from this almost inexhaustable storehouse that we have culled the 
 choicest productions of intellectual Germany, and we feel sure 
 they will immensely enrich our own national life as they have 
 that of the Fatherland. The masterpieces we have embodied in 
 an epoch-making work of twenty splendid volumes, under the title 
 of The German Classics, which affords a splendid foundation 
 for a better understanding of the work and ideals of one hundred 
 leaders of the world’s culture, and will prove a most important 
 link in the chain of mutual endeavor to promote a closer and more 
 cordial relationship between the United States and the German 
 countries, for no ties are more binding than those of common 
 ideals set forth in great literatures. 
 
 When you consider that the greater part of the work of the 
 authors included in The German Classics has never before been 
 translated into English, you may gather what a vast field of 
 knowledge we are now for the first time opening up to English 
 readers. If we look through the libraries of the cultivated classes 
 here in America and in English-speaking countries generally, we 
 find that the authors of modern Germany have but a very small 
 representation, not because the fame of these authors is unknown, 
 but simply because up to the present time it has been impossible 
 to obtain their works in the English tongue. 
 
 What we desire is, therefore, to bring home to the English- 
 speaking world the acknowledged masterpieces of German litera- 
 ture in such accurate translations and in such perfect form and 
 
 [2a] 
 
interpretation that their real spirit and meaning will be preserved. 
 We believe that The German Classics will offer to the great 
 body of English readers the first practical opportunity to become 
 acquainted with whatever in German countries is greatest and 
 best in thought and achievement. 
 
 All Germany is celebrating this year the hundredth anniver- 
 sary of its liberation from the Napoleonic yoke. During that 
 century progress has been the distinguishing feature of her whole 
 national life and thought. If she stands today second to none 
 among the great nations, it is because the Mind of Germany has 
 been at work. It has not been so much imperial power as intellec- 
 tual and moral power which has transfused and ennobled and 
 made successful the life of her whole people. What more fitting 
 testimony to the progress of Germany than that, in this her jubilee 
 year, there should be given to the world in English translation the 
 ripest and best thought of her master minds ? And if the work of 
 the German Publication Society shall add, as we believe it will, a 
 stimulus to the intellectual life of our own people by putting within 
 reach of the English reader the achievements of modem Germany, 
 it will confer a benefit and a blessing that is beyond all calculation. 
 
 We are living in an age when an intimate knowledge of the 
 life of all countries as represented by their national and interna- 
 tional activities and relations is of the utmost practical importance. 
 Exchange professorships and scholarships, the international meet- 
 ings of learned societies and of commercial and industrial organ- 
 izations, are the outward and visible signs of the modern desire to 
 become better acquainted with whatever will add to the power and 
 efficiency of the professional, the industrial, or the individual life. 
 
 No nation lives to itself — its life, its thought, its work and 
 achievements are of vital interest to every other nation, and to the 
 whole “ family of nations.” The literature, the art, the laws, the 
 scientific knowledge, the educational methods, the political, indus- 
 trial and commercial movements of a great nation, are not subjects 
 to be studied by students only, but matters which appeal to intel- 
 ligent people everywhere who desire their own advancement and 
 who wish to understand the laws of national growth and prosperity. 
 
 The German Classics is the Society’s premier work in the 
 carrying out of its great program. It brings to the English reader 
 the highest and best expression of modern German thought. Poets, 
 Dramatists, Novelists, Philosophers, Statesmen — men and women 
 whose ideals have nourished and influenced the life of their own 
 
 [ 23 ] 
 
nation and whose reputations are international — are represented 
 by the productions most characteristic of their genius, thus making 
 The German Classics a contribution to English literature of 
 unusual interest and importance. 
 
 All that competent scholarship and intelligent editorship 
 could do to make this work a triumph of literary achievement has 
 been done, and the publishers have spared no expense in its illus- 
 tration and general manufacture. 
 
 To all who love books of human interest and of permanent 
 character The German Classics appeals, for it is the revelation 
 of the spirit and soul of a great nation whose progress is the 
 marvel of the world. 
 
 And now, in conclusion, it is but proper to say that to the 
 men who have so far contributed to the successful realization of 
 the first venture in our general plan — to the Committee of Patrons, 
 the Board of Editors, the European and American Advisory Coun- 
 cils, the Consulting Executive Board, and last, but not least, to 
 the speakers of the evening and to all of our guests, the German 
 Publication Society owes and herewith tenders its full apprecia- 
 tion and sincere thanks. 
 
 [ 24 ] 
 
WHAT LEADING GERMAN AND AMERICAN 
 
 PAPERS SAY 
 
 FRAENKISCHER KURIER, NUERENBERG, GERMANY 
 
 In the presence of a splendid festival assembly, in which German and 
 American society in general, and the academic world of America in 
 particular, were represented by some of its most illustrious names, the 
 German Publication Society celebrated its first annual dinner at the 
 Hotel Plaza. Owing to the particularly favorable circumstances under 
 which this Society has been called into life, and the character of its 
 purpose, this Society has become a powerful factor in the cultivation of 
 the intimate relations between Germany and America, and indeed the 
 pointing out of this friendly relationship between the two countries 
 formed the keynote of all addresses. 
 
 BERLIN TAGEBLATT 
 
 Under the direction of the well-known German -American, Professor 
 Kuno Francke, of Harvard University, a literary undertaking on a large 
 scale is being prepared in New York, the object of which is to make 
 known to the American people the masterpieces of German Literature of 
 the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, by means of good translations. 
 
 GERMAN SUNDAY GAZETTE, AUG. 81, 1913 
 
 The German Classics, which will contain the masterpieces of German 
 Literature in standard translations, and will be illustrated by more than 
 one hundred beautiful pictures executed in photogravure, will reveal the 
 rich treasures of our native poetry to the American public, and will 
 certainly contribute to arouse in this country a still livelier interest in 
 German literature and at the same time in the German language. . . . 
 The plan of the edition of The German Classics has met with the enthusi- 
 astic approval of the most prominent men of the country. . . . The 
 German Sunday Gazette has treated of the work in detail, because it is 
 the best proof of the high importance attached to German Literature in 
 cultured American circles. From the endorsements, German parents 
 may see what value is attached to the knowledge of the German language 
 and German literature. 
 
 GERMAN HERALD, NEW YORK, MAY 12, 1913 
 
 Seldom, doubtless, has a higher tribute been paid to German genius 
 than by the large banquet of the German Publication Society on May 9th, 
 at which were present the bearers of the most illustrious names in the 
 realms of science and commerce. Whoever was favored enough to hear 
 all the good and beautiful things said by men of such eminent importance 
 as Charles W. Eliot and John Grier Hibben about the influence of 
 German culture on the development of the United States, undoubtedly 
 had the right when he left the festively decorated banquet hall of the 
 
 [ 25 ] 
 
Plaza to return to his quiet cell with a feeling of great pride in his 
 German descent. Much that was flattering and agreeable was said in 
 praise of the German Fatherland by the American s&vants, and in 
 enthusiastic terms they spoke of the great debt of gratitude that America 
 owed to German genius in all departments of human endeavor. And 
 these speeches were certainly pronounced before “ an audience made up 
 of kings of the intellect.” For at every table in the great hall, savants, 
 statesmen, judges, authors were to be seen, who would have graced the 
 table of honor at any other banquet. 
 
 All the great universities of the East had sent their most celebrated 
 representatives. But certainly the most interesting for us Germans was 
 the delegation from old Harvard, a triple constellation of unusual bril- 
 liancy : Professor Hugo Miinsterberg, Professor Kuno Francke and 
 
 Professor Edmond von Mach. From idyllic Cambridge, which harbors 
 America’s most illustrious alma mater, the three well-known savants had 
 come to New York to take part in the ceremony of homage paying to 
 German science and German poetry. 
 
 DEUTSCHES JOURNAL, NEW YORK, MAY 10, 1913 
 
 An endless amount is spoken and written concerning the rapproche- 
 ment between the great cultured nations of the world. Innumerable 
 earnest men everywhere on the globe are working to attain this praise- 
 worthy end. On the whole, however, extremely little is accomplished. 
 For not counting the economic obstacles for which the Peace Societies 
 have not yet found a remedy, there stands between the nations of the 
 world the great dividing barrier of the difference of language. This is 
 now to be let down between Germany and America, if the plans of a 
 large number of the most highly cultured men on this side of the water 
 are fully realized. 
 
 The accomplishment of the first march along this road, the first vic- 
 tories, which are shortly to be followed by others, were celebrated May 9th 
 at a banquet given by the German Publication Society — whose President 
 is Mr. Theodore Sutro— in the large banqueting hall of the Hotel Plaza, 
 at which the flower of New York intelligence assisted. This society has 
 made it its mission to publish the most beautiful and important works of 
 German literature in standard English translations. 
 
 THE NEW YORK TIMES, MAY 10, 1913 
 
 The dinner of the German Publication Society was attended by some 
 300 men who have been prominent in various movements to bring about 
 closer relations between the great nations. The principal speaker was 
 Count Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador to this 
 country, and among the others who spoke were Dr. Charles W. Eliot, 
 President Emeritus of Harvard ; President John Grier Hibben of Prince- 
 ton, and Prof. Hugo Miinsterberg of Harvard. Calvin Thomas of Columbia 
 was toastmaster. At the speakers’ table were Hugo Reisinger, Kuno 
 Francke, Comptroller Prendergast, Congressman Richard Bartholdt, Rod- 
 man Wanamaker, Thomas Carmody, Herman A. Metz, T. R. Lounsbury, 
 Charles S. Huntley, and others. 
 
 [ 26 ] 
 
NEW YORK SUN, MAY 10, 1913 
 
 America’s obligations to Germany in art, science and literature were 
 gracefully acknowledged last night by some of the foremost scholars of 
 our universities who gathered at the Plaza Hotel to help the German 
 Publication Society celebrate its first annual dinner and to herald the 
 issuance in the English language of The German Classics. The acknowl- 
 edgments of educational indebtedness paved the way for declaring the 
 friendly political relations between the two countries. 
 
 NEW YORK TRIBUNE, MAY 10, 1913 
 
 Many distinguished educators and diplomats attended the first annual 
 dinner of the German Publication Society at the Plaza Hotel on May 9th. 
 Count Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff, German Ambassador to the United 
 States, was the guest of honor. He brought the felicitations of the German 
 Emperor and his earnest wishes for the success of the society in accom- 
 plishing its immediate purpose of having the German classics translated 
 and published for distribution among the American people with a view to 
 binding the two nations closer together in a spirit of peace and good will. 
 
 BROOKLYN CITIZEN, MAY 10, 1913 
 
 Germans, German-Amerieans, Americans, and later in the evening 
 the English peace delegates, too, fraternized in a banquet given by the 
 German Publication Society at the Hotel Plaza, Manhattan. The object 
 of the gathering was to call attention to the work of the society, which 
 seeks to make the standard works of German authors better known to 
 English-speaking people. The committee of patrons is headed by Presi- 
 dent Wilson, Count von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador, and the 
 former English Ambassador, James Bryce, and includes some of the most 
 eminent men in political, commercial, educational, and literary circles. 
 
 MUSICAL AMERICA, MAY 17, 1913 
 
 The recently organized German Publication Society gave its first 
 annual dinner last Friday evening at the Plaza Hotel, under the most 
 distinguished patronage, as well as under the most successful auspices. 
 The purpose of this society is to introduce to the English-speaking public, 
 for the first time, in systematic form, and on the broadest scale, the entire 
 intellectual, political and commercial life of Germany and of the German 
 parts of Austria-Hungary and Switzerland. 
 
 POUGHKEEPSIE STAR, SEPT. 13, 1913 
 
 While German literature in science and philosophy is sometimes so 
 profound as to appear to other nations almost unfathomable, in the pure 
 literature of its poetry and story it is sweet enough for infants. The 
 translators and editors may be trusted to supply their clientele with con- 
 tributions suitable to its taste. 
 
 The wealth, therefore, of fine feeling which this English rendition of 
 the German classics will give to a large part of the civilized world must 
 tend greatly to elevate the race in sentiment and in reason. The depriv- 
 
 [27] 
 
ation of it has been exclusion from some of the walks in paradise which 
 should be free to all seekers. The little that we know of these treasures 
 of the great German mind and heart assures the promise of much that 
 remains. . . . The exchange lectures of this country and Germany 
 have done much to let us know that the German people are not a nation 
 of warriors ruled by a warlord. The translation of the German classics 
 will help us to comprehend the beauties of their spirit and the value of 
 their understanding. 
 
 SPRINGFIELD DAILY REPUBLICAN, SEPT. 6, 1913 
 
 An announcement of literary importance is made by the German 
 Publication Society, with headquarters in New York, that it has under- 
 taken the publication of The German Classics of the Nineteenth and 
 Twentieth Centuries in a series of twenty illustrated volumes, with a 
 general introduction and biographical essays concerning the authors 
 whose works are thus reproduced in translation. The editor-in-chief of 
 the series is Professor Kuno Francke of Harvard, who has perhaps been 
 the leader in the movement for the spread of a knowledge of German 
 culture in America. There will further be an effort to present for the 
 first time a complete and faithful pictorial survey of the literary genius 
 of modern Germany. 
 
 NEWS SCIMITAR, MEMPHIS, TENN., SEPT. 5, 1913 
 
 The lovers of choice literature will be gratified over the announce- 
 ment made by the German Publication Society of New York that it has 
 arranged to publish English translations of the masterpieces of German 
 literature. This will be welcome news to many appreciative admirers of 
 the German classics, who are not sufficiently familiar with the original to 
 read them intelligently. Particular attention will be given to the German 
 classics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the corps of 
 editors and translators, under the general direction of Editor-in-Chief 
 Kuno Francke, Ph.D., LL.D., Litt.D., professor of the History of German 
 Culture, and curator of the Germanic museum of Harvard University, 
 gives all assurance that the work contemplated will be performed in a 
 thorough- going manner. The publication will deal with the masterpieces 
 of German literature, and their publication is, therefore, an undertaking 
 of national and international significance, not only to scholars and men 
 of letters, but to all educated men and women who desire to become 
 acquainted with the best and ripest thought of modern times. 
 
 The authors selected will range from Ludwig Anzengruber down to 
 the most modern writers of the present day, and will include every known 
 form of the drama, poetry, novels, short stories, travels, essays, orations, 
 parliamentary addresses and down to and through music, history, philos- 
 ophy, religion, and sociology. The wealth of German literature has been 
 drawn upon frequently, but only by desultory and individual efforts. No 
 general or elaborate attempt has ever been made to furnish the English- 
 reading public the treasures which are locked up in the vast storehouses 
 of German learning. The open sesame has been found, and in a few 
 months those who may desire may enter and feast to their heart's content. 
 
 [ 28 ] 
 
SONNTAQSPOST, CHICAGO, SEPT. 7, 1913 
 
 The German Classics is certainly a praiseworthy undertaking. . „ . 
 Although the work is intended primarily to enrich our fellow citizens who 
 are not of the German race in the strict sense of the word, it will doubt- 
 less in the end hear good fruit also for Germanity. A better acquaintance 
 with German literature and the life of German thought, which is what the 
 work seeks to bring about, must certainly, one would think, lead up to a 
 better comprehension of German ways, and greater appreciation of 
 German worth, German labor and German endeavor. Therefore good 
 luck to the enterprise. 
 
 HAMBURGER FREMDENBLATT, SEPT. 5, 1913 
 
 The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth 
 
 Centuries 
 
 This is the title borne by an American enterprise, the importance of 
 which, for Germany and for the furtherance of a peaceful understanding 
 between Germanic peoples, it is not easy to rate sufficiently high. It is 
 a cultural work of the noblest order, prepared with the greatest amount 
 of thought and circumspection, and the idea has found a sympathetic 
 welcome from all the leaders and dignitaries of the American nation. 
 President Woodrow Wilson says, for example, “l think the purpose 
 admirable, and I believe that there would be a very wide-spread interest 
 in the books themselves.” 
 
 What is the purpose in question ? 
 
 A large society of German and American scholars has been founded, 
 the object of which is to place the masterpieces of modem German Liter- 
 ature within reach of the branch of the Germanic people speaking the 
 Anglo-Saxon tongue, by means of translations of artistic perfection 
 and conscientious fidelity. England and America have always readily 
 acknowledged that the leading spirits of Germany, from 1800 to the pres- 
 ent day, have made extraordinary achievements in literature, philosophy, 
 religion, and art. But there were never more than a few chosen ones who 
 could gather up these treasures, for, on the one hand, but few of the 
 works had been satisfactorily translated, and, on the other hand, only a 
 few English and Americans had mastered the German language sufficiently 
 to enable them to study the works in the original. Therefore German 
 Literature up to this time had remained inaccessible to the great majority 
 of cultured laymen. 
 
 In addition the undertaking has made sure of the protectorship of a 
 large number of influential statesmen, diplomats and scholars, as well in 
 America and Canada as in Germany; and in both America and Germany 
 historians of literature and philosophers have gladly promised to further 
 the undertaking with word and deed. 
 
 From a business point of view also — could one expect anything else 
 of an American enterprise ? — it has been carefully calculated ; but, as we 
 see, the Yankees, so much decried on account of their worship of the 
 almighty dollar, can also place their wealth at the service of the Ideal. 
 
 [ 29 ] 
 
Twenty volumes — each one containing 512 pages — are contemplated, 
 in order to accommodate the standard works of German writers of the 
 last two centuries. 
 
 The word “ classics ” is not conceived in a narrow sense. Goethe 
 and Schiller, as is proper, stand at the head of the undertaking, hut the 
 modern world of letters will also he fully represented, and although we 
 — with all due respect for their achievements — would not call Gustav 
 Frenssen or Hermann Sudermann or Ludwig Fulda classical writers, we 
 do not need in this case to take offense at American largeheartedness. 
 On the whole the list of authors forms a selection which furnishes a cor- 
 rect reflection of the manysidedness and depth of German literature 
 within the limits of the time designated. The choice from the works of 
 these authors is also, on the whole, a happy one, and every volume will 
 moreover contain a detailed biographic and critical introduction. Finally 
 the volumes are to be ornamented with illustrations which will in many 
 ways help the American reader to gain a clearer comprehension of the 
 text. 
 
 Thus the opinion that many leading spirits have expressed in their 
 letters to the editor is fully justified: namely that this undertaking will 
 substantially enrich the culture and the literature of English-speaking 
 peoples. 
 
 FREE PRESS, DETROIT, MICH., SEPT. 6, 1918 
 
 Never before have the masterpieces of a foreign literature been 
 presented to the English-speaking world on so broad a scale and with so 
 masterful an execution, both from the literary and artistic standpoints, 
 as in this splendid collection. . . . The German Publication Society 
 by placing within reach, in such an attractive garb, the literary treasures 
 of Germany, is rendering a great and valuable public service and its 
 promoters fully deserve the moral support which has been extended to 
 them by the illustrious members of the committee of patrons, among 
 whom are President Wilson, Vice-President Marshall, Count Bernstorff, 
 the German Ambassador, Cardinal Gibbons, James Bryce, Joseph H. 
 Choate, and the presidents of our leading universities. 
 
 [ 30 ] 
 
IRVING PRESS 
 NEW YORK 
 
COMMITTEE OF PATRONS 
 
 OF 
 
 THE GERMAN PUBLICATION SOCIETY 
 
 HON. WOODROW WILSON, Ph.D., LL.D., Litt.D. 
 President of the United States 
 
 COUNT JOHANN HEINRICH VON BERNSTORFF 
 German Ambassador to the United States 
 
 DR. C. DUMBO 
 
 Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to the United States 
 
 WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT, LL.D. 
 
 Former President of the United States 
 
 RT. HON. JAMES BRYCE, B.A., D.C.L., LL.D., Litt.D. 
 
 Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary 
 of Great Britain to the United States 
 
 PAUL RITTER, LL.D. 
 
 Minister of Switzerland, Washington, D. C. 
 
 HIS EMINENCE, JAMES CARDINAL GIBBONS 
 
 Baltimore, Md. 
 
 HON. JOSEPH H. CHOATE, LL.D. 
 
 Former United States Ambassador to England 
 
 HON. ANDREW D. WHITE, LL.D., L.H.D., D.C.L. 
 
 Former United States Ambassador to Germany 
 Former President of Cornell University 
 
 DAVID JAYNE HILL, LL.D. 
 
 Former United States Ambassador to Germany 
 
 CHARLES W. ELIOT, LL.D. 
 
 President Emeritus of Harvard University 
 
 HON. HENRY CABOT LODGE, Ph.D., LL.D. 
 United States Senator 
 
 A. LAWRENCE LOWELL, LL.D. 
 
 President of Harvard University 
 
 NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER, Ph.D., LL.D., Litt.D. 
 President of Columbia University 
 
 ARTHUR TWINING HADLEY, A.M., LL.D. 
 President of Yale University 
 
 JOHN GRIER HIBBEN, Ph.D. 
 
 President of Princeton University 
 
 WILLIAM H. P. FAUNCE, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 President of Brown University 
 
 DAVID STARR JORDAN, Ph.D., LL.D. 
 President of Leland Stanford Jr. University 
 
 BENJAMIN IDE WHEELER, Ph.D., LL.D. 
 President of University of California 
 
 RICHARD C. MACLAURIN, LL.D. 
 
 President of Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
 
 JAMES H. KIRKLAND. Ph.D., LL.D. 
 Chancellor of Vanderbilt University 
 
 HARRY B. HUTCHINS, LL.D. 
 
 President of University of Michigan 
 
 ALEXANDER C. HUMPHREYS, M.E., Sc.D., LL.D. 
 President of Stevens Institute of Technology 
 
 RT. REV. WILLIAM LAWRENCE, LL.D., D.D. 
 Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts 
 
 ELMER E. BROWN, Ph.D., LL.D. 
 
 Chancellor of New York University 
 
 MARION LEROY BURTON, D.D., Ph.D., LL.D. 
 President of Smith College 
 
 WILLIAM DOUGLAS MACKENZIE, D.D., LL.D. 
 President of Hartford Theological Seminary 
 
 PHILANDER P. CLAXTON, Litt.D. 
 
 United States Commissioner of Education 
 
 WILLIAM H. CARPENTER, Ph.D. 
 
 Provost of Columbia University 
 President of the Germanistic Society of New York City 
 
 EDWARD D. ADAMS, M.A., LL.D. 
 
 Financier 
 
 Former President of the Germanistic Society of New York City 
 
 DAVID FRANKLIN HOUSTON, A.M., LL.D. 
 Chancellor of Washington University, St. Louis 
 
 RT. REV. THOMAS J. SHAHAN, D.D. 
 
 Rector, Catholic University of America 
 
 RT. HON. ROBERT L. BORDEN 
 Prime Minister of Canada 
 
 HON. THOMAS R. MARSHALL, LL.D. 
 Vice-President of the United States 
 
 JOHN WILLIAM BURGESS, Ph.D., LL.D. 
 
 Professor of Political Science and Constitutional Law 
 Columbia University 
 
 HON. ALTON B. PARKER 
 New York 
 
 HON. CHAMP CLARK 
 Speaker of the House of Representatives 
 
 THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY, LL.D., L.H.D., Litt.D. 
 Professor Emeritus English Literature, Yale University 
 
 L. S. ROWE, Ph.D., LL.D. 
 
 Head Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania 
 
 BLISS PERRY, L.H.D., Litt.D., LL.D. 
 
 Professor of English Literature, Harvard University 
 
 HON. SIMEON E. BALDWIN, A.M., LL.D. 
 Governor of Connecticut 
 
 HON. MARTIN A. KNAPP, LL.D. 
 
 Presiding Judge of the Uni ted. States Commerce Court 
 
 JACOB H. SCHIFF 
 Banker, New York 
 
 A. B. HEPBURN, LL.D., D.C.L. 
 
 President of Chase National Bank, New York 
 
 JAMES SPEYER 
 Banker, New York 
 
 HON. JOHN WANAMAKER 
 Merchant, New York and Philadelphia 
 
 OTTO H. KAHN 
 of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., New York 
 
 HON. G. E. FOSTER 
 
 Minister of Trade and Commerce, Ottawa, Canada 
 
 DANIEL M. GORDON, LL.D. 
 
 Principal, Queens University, Kingston, Ont., Canada 
 
 T. CHASE CASGRAIN, K. C. 
 
 Montreal 
 
 HUGO REISINGER, A.M. (Columbia) 
 Chairman