ranted interference with student rights. Thus our university men are living in a fictitious past, instead of in the present. They cherish old sentiments and ideals which do not pass current in the present age. This has an obvious historical explanation. The days when reactionary governments had reason to fear a free and progressive student body lie far behind us. Long before the war the students formed a separate caste, bound by many ties to the governing classes and the military. This made them conservative. Politics were banished from the universities. Socialist instructors were not permitted to teach; Socialist students were regarded askance and often persecuted. Now, added to all this is the fact that most German students fought in the war and eventually became officers. They have brought back from the colors the military conception of personal honor and the peculiar mental slant of the army man. Students who remained in the ranks are more rational and matter-of-fact in their judgment of militarism. The great majority who were officers felt keenly the collapse of the army and of the nation behind it, and the disintegration of the military system. During the revolution they were in many instances exposed to insult and mistreatment by the mob. They feel that they have sacrificed more than four years of their strength and health for nothing. Their professional prospects have darkened, so that they see little hope in the future. They discover that the revolution has suddenly bereft them of their privileges as a favored social class. Another rival class, which hitherto they have regarded with contempt, now stands above them. No one cares about them. The sweep of history has passed them by. They stick in their own places, learning nothing from the course of events. Their old prejudices and their

lack of political training make mental readjustment difficult. The men whose task it should have been to open a path for them into the new era-I mean their instructors and professors - are for the most part imprisoned in the same narrow prejudices as their students, and merely confirm the latter in their dissentient attitude.

However, these sentiments and opinions are not held by every student. A quite different spirit inspires many of those who do not belong to the student corps, especially the so-called 'Free Germans.' The latter likewise fought in the war and for the most part as volunteers; but they have learned something from their experience. Partly they carried different ideals into the war with them, partly their army experience has changed their attitude.

One meets the greatest variety of opinion among these people. They range from fervent German patriots to internationalists and fanatical pacifists. Some are Democrats, some Social-Democrats, and others refuse to be tied to any party. Even in the 'German Christian Students' Union' the new ferment is working. A pacifist-communist movement has appeared there, in marked contrast with the old orthodox social opinions of that body. Naturally this liberal wing of the student body includes many-harebrained enthusiasts and impractical idealists. But it also counts among its members clear thinkers and resolute doers. As a whole they are high-grade men, who are distinguished from the reactionary students of the old school by two qualities of very great importance under present conditions. First, they accept the new order. They never were closely allied with the old régime, and can devote themselves to the new one with courage and idealism. They have the further advantage of being the only ones able to bridge over the

deep gulf between university men and the common people. Their practice of moving about from one institution to another has prevented students of this class from losing contact with the workingmen and the peasants. They have learned how to live happily and contentedly with slender means. When labor unrest became acute as a result of the military insurrection in Berlin, so that the students had to be summoned again to volunteer for military service, the 'Free Germans' responded in great numbers, but they manifested none of the noisy jubilation with which the corps students went forth to civil war. They did not conceive of themselves as marching out against a national enemy. They were deeply impressed with the fearful seriousness of the situation. A couple of my acquaintances among them asked me to visit them at their barracks one evening. They were celebrating their success at a recent 'snap' examination, with cakes and horrible army coffee. Then they brought out a fiddle and a mandolin, and we sat in front of the fire and watched the flames to the accompaniment of their music. We began with soldier songs and then sang folk songs. It was a strange picture on the eve of a civil war, but it was not an unpleasant one.

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This shows how little real unity there is after all in the German student attitude toward political and social questions. It is not fair to speak of students as a unit. The same profound differences which exist among the people at large repeat themselves at the universities, although the older mental type is more strongly represented in these institutions than outside their walls. At a time when political controversies rage so bitterly, it is not easy to prevent conflicts among the students or between them and instructors with whom they do not agree. We some

times hear radical students criticizing the political utterances of conservative professors. On the other hand the Nikolai case shows how the Nationalist students of Berlin were able to make it impossible for a pacifist instructor to continue his courses.

So all in all the university situation is a confusing one. At times we might almost despair of Germany's future, when we witness the conduct and attitude of those who are preparing to be its intellectual leaders. Still we may hope that they too will be blessed with clearer vision, in the day when the enmity which still divides nations at length subsides, when the present student body, which still recalls the glories of the old days before the war, is displaced by the next generation, and when the last traces of war hysteria have disappeared even from the preparatory schools. For in those institutions also teachers show the same political prejudices and limitations as the university professors, and continue to exercise an evil influence over their pupils.

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Another cause for hope strange and barbarous as it may appear economic pressure. Even to-day a monthly allowance of three hundred marks will not support a student on the meagerest scale. In addition tuition fees have been raised, the price of books has doubled and trebled, and laboratory and clinical charges have increased at an equal rate. At the same time the prospects of a good position after graduation are worse than formerly. We have a supply of higher teachers already which will suffice for twelve or fifteen years. These considerations and the fact that the academic caste has lost much of its former prestige, will cause a general drift into better paying pursuits. Our newly-rich are not likely to attach much importance to a college educa

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tion for their boys. The men who will devote themselves to university pursuits hereafter will be a selected class inspired by genuine interest in study. 11 Economic pressure has already made a considerable change in student ways. Men who formerly prided themselves on wearing clothes of the latest cut now content themselves with their military uniforms. Leggings and puttees are as common as mountain shoes and riding boots. Soft collars and knit gloves are also permissible student wear. These may seem trifling matters, but they have their importance in undermining old traditions. Such economies will become increasingly necessary, and the old student romanticism will vanish with its externals. A day approaches when a university course will mean only labor and privation, without prestige and a generous income for their reward, when studies will be pursued solely for their own sake at personal sacrifice, when every book will be a costly treasure. This is going to strip student life of many harmful incumbrances. We can recall from the period before the war a type of Russian student who obtained his education only by surmounting untold difficulties, and won his degree at the cost of hardship and privation. It was a type of student whose idealism and modest claims upon life were pathetic. Some of our newspapers at that time held up these men as an example for German students. These exhortations are now likely to be heard. Instances are already occurring in Berlin where students are paying their way by working as waiters. Others spend their vacations working on farms. What German student before the war-in contrast with his American and Russian colleagues would ever have demeaned himself by vocations so compromising to his student honor! Undoubtedly such double duties interfere

DURING the brief interval between the overthrow of the Kapp-Lüttwitz régime and the beginning of the struggle between the German workmen and the restored government I called on Germany's most famous and fearless publicist, Herr Maximilian Harden, at his home in Grünewald, in the west of Berlin.

Herr Harden began by asking me what had particularly impressed me in my experience of recent events. I told him that to me the German people seemed to have no idea of the meaning of liberty.

He almost jumped from his chair to agree with me. 'You are right,' he cried. 'German intelligence has never grasped the meaning of the word. It is the explanation of all that is happening here, and of all the evil which is about to happen. His inability to understand it shapes fundamentally the German character.

'In England liberty is a tradition. It expresses itself in the "live and let live" character of the people. England's first blows for liberty were struck when Germany was still a land of