366 Extracts from Addresses
of professors of eminence, of world-wide reputation, there is another
kind of interchange of teachers that might be very valuable, and might
help to get the two countries to understand one another, and that is
the interchange of younger teachers. Although I am afraid I am no
longer young, I have a profound belief in the young. If I had not had
that belief before this war, this war would have taught me to believe
in the young and to respect them, and I have particularly strong respect
for the virtues of the young teachers. Now, let us take our side of the
case. Let us take one of our best, ablest young teachers, a man of
thirty or thirty-five, a man who has been teaching five or ten years.
He has arrived at that stage very often that what he wants is a shaking
up. He wants to be taken out of his present surroundings and put into
new surroundings. He wants a new experience. Now, if he could come
over here for a year to study, and take part, if possible, in teaching in
one of your colleges or universities you would do him incalculable good,
and you would learn from him a great deal about England, and about
our English universities, and he will come back having learned an
immense deal, not only about American universities, but about the
American character.
Similarly, let us take one of your younger teachers, I think you call
them assistant or associate professors, a man also about thirty or
thirty-five. Take particularly the case of a teacher who may be teach-
ing in a college in a rather remote part of the country, where he is
dependent for his society upon the society of that college, and where
he has not at his command any great library. Suppose you could send
him over, give him an opportunity of coming over to one of our uni-
versities for a year and becoming familiar with our methods, having
access to our libraries, going into daily conference with people on the
subject of his teaching. I think when he came back, it is likely he would
be a better teacher than he would if he had never had the experience.
I think he would come back understanding the English character, hav-
ing penetrated even through the thick crust of the English reserve,
understanding the English character a great deal better than the tran-
sient understands it, and he would come back, I doubt not, a mis-
sionary of a good understanding between the two countries.
Now, how is that going to be effected? I think of all forms of inter-
change that have been suggested, that is the one that presents the
fewest difficulties, and it has this great advantage, that it presents no
financial difficulty. I think it can be very simply arranged. For in-
stance, some of our colleges (and may I explain here, you must not be
shocked), I think, propose to send you young college teachers like my-
self, a lecturer often of a college, in exchange for an associate pro-