iminishing the value or
independence of any of them. Witness his effort at the reunion of the
Catholic and Protestant Churches. After Leibnitz came Kant. He certainly
was very much of a German. He owned, nevertheless, that he had learned
from Rousseau to honor the common man who, not being a savant, possesses
moral value far above the savant, who has no merit but science. And,
starting from the principle that every person, so far as he is capable
of moral value, is entitled to respect, he urged men to create not a
universal and despotic monarchy but a republic of nations in which each
should possess a free and independent personality.

This willingness to put liberty before unity, and respect and honor the
dignity of other nations while at the same time serving its own, was not
extinguished in Germany with Leibnitz and Kant. Permit me, my dear
Director, on this subject to indulge in some personal reminiscences.

*Treitschke Versus Bluntschli.*

In January, 1869, I was sent to Heidelberg by the Minister of Public
Instruction, Victor Duruy, to study the organization of German
universities. Germany was for me the land of metaphysics, music, and
poetry. I was greatly astonished to find that outside of the lecture
courses the only thing discussed was the war which Prussia was about to
make on France. Invited to a soiree, I heard it whispered behind me,
_Vielleicht ist er ein franzoesischer Spion_--"Perhaps he is a French
spy." Such were the words as I caught them. At the beer garden a student
seated himself near me. He said to me, "We are going to war with you. We
shall take Alsace and Lorraine." That night I could see from my window,
looking out on the Neckar, the students clad in their club costumes
floating down the river on an illuminated raft singing the famous song
in honor of Bluecher, who "taught the Welches the way of the Germans."
And at the university itself the lectures of Treitschke, attended by
excited crowds, were heated harangues against the French, inciting to
hatred and to war. Seeing that nothing was thought of but the
preparation for war, I came back at the Easter vacation of 1869
convinced that hostilities would ensue. I returned to Heidelberg some
time later and became acquainted with other persons, other centres of
ideas. I understood then that opinion in Germany was divided between two
opposite doctrines. The general aspiration was for the unity of Germany,
but there was no agreement as to the way