376 Extracts from Addresses
ɪng, like Carlyle’s professors, been “radiating darkness,” we could not
more carefully have hidden them under bushels.
To-night, were there time, I might be tempted to dwell a little upon
the attractions of the British universities. I am not an Englishman;
nor am I a Scotsman, though I had a very narrow escape; for I have
lived long in Scotland, studied and tried to teach there, and married a
Scottish wife; and I was born on St. Andrew’s Day. Being neither an
Englishman nor a Scotsman, I might praise the British universities and
British achievements in the Arts and Sciences, without committing a
breach of good taste or violating any one’s modesty. But instead of
praising, I am tempted to invite you to look for yourselves, and make
your own comparison between the British and the German nations in
these respects.
I believe, in the first place, that you will find no difficulty nor shade
of unfairness in admitting that English Literature has all along moved
on a higher level of excellence than German Literature. I neither forget
nor undervalue their Goethe; but he is not Shakespeare. I would not
dare to define the limits of German hardihood, but I believe it would
stop short of maintaining that they have had a series of poets which
could for a moment compare with that which began with Chaucer and
ended (if it has ended) with Wordsworth and Browning.
And what would you say of the physical sciences in Germany and
England? They have, of course, had their great mathematicians and
physicists, and especially chemists. But can you name one scientific dis-
covery or invention by the Germans which has changed the character
of modern industry, as the discovery, say, of the uses of steam or elec-
tricity has done? We can acknowledge with gratitude what Saxony
and Austria have done for the world through their musical composers;
but the Prussians, to whom primarily we owe the war and the spirit of
barbaric aggression which brought it upon the world, the Prussians have
been prolific only in autocrats. But the characteristic of the Germans
in all other matters is, not their genius as originators or inventors, but
their patience as commentators, and their perseverance as exploiters of
things already discovered and invented by other nations.
They are also great organizers, you will be tempted to add; and I
would agree, in some respects. But they have not learned that the
strongest organizations are those which are based upon freedom and fair
play and respect for individuality characteristic of genuine democracies.
Even they themselves will admit that, so far, they have not been remark-
able for their political wisdom.
He is not a wise man who would object to finding foreign nations
setting a great example to his own fatherland in intellectual attain-