296 ʌ League of Learning
either more useful or more sacred than that of a scholar-
ship in memory of fallen heroes in the war, established in
order that our youths may know one another better and by
the lasting influence of their college experiences in the two
countries bring the two branches of the great English-speak-
ing people into closer community of beneficent purpose.
The flow of students from the other side to this will, I be-
lieve, be slow at first. We do not catch up new ideas as
quickly as you do. Moreover, you have already formed a
fairly general custom of sending your students and your
teachers East. For reasons, some of them obvious and
some subtle, some springing from your circumstances and
some from your national disposition, you will cross the At-
lantic about as readily as you cross the street, while we think
twice before doing so, and, in the end, must have some very
cogent reasons. It is for us something of an adventure.
And, lastly, money, so far as the spending of it is concerned,
seems to have a lower value with you than with us in Scot-
land—you part with it with less searching of heart, even
though you may not be one whit more generous for great
objects. But one thing I can say emphatically—the colleges
and universities of the British Isles recognize too clearly the
public good that would flow from the mingling of your in-
fluence with their own, not to enter heartily with you into
a lasting “League of Learning.”
Now, a League of Learning, compared with more material
bonds and formal covenants, looks impotent, fragile, and
impractical. How can a “League of Learning” help to unite
two great nations? It is an “academic” affair, as we say
when we wish to imply ineptness and innocent helplessness.
The academic mind, like your “high-brow” man and his
“high-brow” affairs, is a thing that the “practical man”
speaks of with kindly and humorous tolerance. He will say