FAVORS ADOPTING PLAN TO EXCHANGE PROFESSORS

Dr. Julius Klein, instructor in history, who has just returned from extensive travels in South America as a Sheldon Travelling Fellow in Spanish-American History and Economics, stated in an interview with a CRIMSON reporter yesterday that an exchange of professors between Harvard and the South American Universities is highly desirable and that it would be a great advantage if Harvard were the first university in the United States to adopt this plan, which he considers inevitable.

In the first place, Dr. Klein said, now is the most opportune time to initiate a regular exchange of lecturers. There is a considerable number of distinguished Latin Americans who would be instructing in France and Germany, were it not for the war. If we should begin our reciprocal visits now, a larger number of the southern continent's distinguished educators would come to the United States than when conditions abroad were normal.

It is especially important that Harvard should be the first North American university to enter the new field. For, though it may seem peculiar, Harvard is practically unknown in South America, outside of the highest educational circles. As a rule, people of high standing in general public affairs either do not know of the University's existence, or else have vague ideas concerning it. To them, education in the United States connotes Columbia, Yale, and Pennsylvania; for in past years the lecturers which these universities have sent to South America--at very indefinite intervals, to be sure--have given the well-informed classes their only knowledge of our university activity. Professor Bingham of Yale, Professor Rowe of Pennsylvania, and Professor Shepherd of Columbia are the men whom the Latin Americans know. Harvard has sent very few men, and these few have gone to investigate and collect, not to lecture. Consequently, outside of a few of the larger educational institutions, Harvard is unknown. "At one of the smaller universities," said Dr. Klein, "I was asked if Harvard was a branch of Columbia."

Some steps have been taken recently to spread the University's reputation in the southern continent. Probably the greatest influence has been the fact that out of the three United States ambassadors in South America, two--Professor Frederic Jesup Stimson '76, of the Department of Government at Buenos Aires, and Edwin Vernon Morgan '90, at Rio de Janeiro--are Harvard men. Again, Professor Lima's visits to Cambridge have been useful in promoting the proposed system. As an additional step the University is contemplating the issue of an edition of the regular catalogue in Spanish for distribution in Latin America. But the University's greatest chance to rise rapidly in reputation and position among the South Americans lies in being the first institution of the United States to adopt the plan of regular inter-American professorial exchanges.

In speaking of the other advantages which the University would obtain from a regular exchange, Dr. Klein emphasized especially the fact that the average educator in South America takes a more active part in public life than is common in the United States. Professor Lima, for instance, is one of Brazil's most noted diplomats. Thus Harvard would almost always receive, as a visiting lecturer, some man especially qualified to speak on the affairs of his country