Extracts from Addresses
375
VII
AT THE TRUSTEES’ DINNER IN HONOR OF THE MISSION,
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 9:00 P.M.
SIR HENRY JONES: I have been asked to-night to give some
reasons for the fact that, in the past, American students, especially
those who aspire to such degrees as the Ph.D., have gone to German
rather than to British universities. I shall only mention one or two of
the reasons.
The first, no doubt, is the very general assumption that, except as
regards the Rhodes Scholars, the British universities are practically
closed against American students; and that even as regards the Rhodes
Scholars there are regulations which are more irritating than useful.
I am quite sure that our visit has helped to dissipate these false assump-
tions. The welcome that the British universities are eager to give to
American students will be very nearly—I do not know whether it will
be possible for it to be quite—as warm as the welcome you have given to
us, and to our projects of interchange of students and teachers between
your country and ours.
We are possibly to blame for not having much sooner given evidence
of our eagerness for this interchange of academic gifts and privileges.
But we are less capable of expressing our emotions than we should be,
and than you are—we have a colder outside, especially in Scotland. It
is said that a true Scot, so far from wearing his heart on his sleeve,
will not even confess that he has ever loved his wife; but he will go so
far, during the last five minutes of his life, and with his last breath, as to
say that he has rather liked her all along.
This reticence we would have you regard as temperamental modesty:
though the situation is rather comical. No one ever accused a Scotsman
of modesty, and as to the Englishman he is quite fond of bragging that
he is modest: it has delighted me more than once to witness that self-
contradictory phenomenon. But, whether we are verily a modest people
or not, this is certain—that so far as our places of higher learning are
concerned, and in comparison with Germany, we are very poor at propa-
ganda. The trick is that we have not tried to propagandize. By our
silence we are in great part responsible for the all too common notion
that our colleges and universities have set up regulations which render
it difficult for foreign students to avail themselves of their resources.
Had the light we give been a misleading light, or had our men of learn-