* * * * *

Moreover, I do not think that this foundation could continue isolated.
No longer, to-day, can the internationalism of culture remain the luxury
of a few privileged persons. The practical value of an Institute of
Nations would be small, unless the masters were associated with their
disciples in the same stream, unless all the levels of culture were
permeated with the same spirit.

That is why I greet, as a fruitful initiative and a happy symptom, the
recent foundation in Zurich, by the university students of that city, of
an International Association of Students (Internationaler
Studentenbund). Let me quote from its program.

"Painfully affected by the great ordeal of the war, academic youth has
realised the peculiar social responsibilities enjoined by the privileges
of a studious life, and desires to find a remedy for the deeper causes
of the evil.... The Association will endeavour to bring together those
of all countries who are in close touch with university life, to unite
them in a common faith in the advantages of the free development of the
mind. It groups them for the struggle against the growing empery of
mechanism and militarism in all the manifestations of life.... It hopes
to realise the ideal of universities which shall remain centres of
higher culture, in the service of truth alone, unsullied shrines of
scientific research, absolutely independent in matters of opinion,
paying no attention to selfish aims or to class interests."

This demand for the freedom of scientific research and for independence
of thought, this organisation of young intellectuals for the defence of
a right so essential and hitherto so incessantly violated, seem to me
matters of primary necessity. If you desire that the cooperation between
the teachers in different countries should not remain purely
speculative, it is not enough that the teachers should associate their
efforts. It is further essential that their thoughts shall be able to
spread freely and to fructify in the minds of the young intellectuals
throughout the world. Let us have no more of these barriers erected by
the states between the two classes, between the two ages, of those who
are engaged in the search for truth--teachers and students.

* * * * *

My dream goes further. I should like the seed of universal culture to be
scattered, from the very beginning of education, among the pupils of the
primar