LAST OF THE HOHENZOLLERNS

The birthday of the Kaiser Wilhelm II has passed quietly at Doorn and perhaps the royal exile did not wholly miss the gala festivities which the occasion formerly brought to the Fatherland. While many continue to censure him as a sabrerattling militarist, the war has passed, and with it should go the lingering animosities which it provoked.

The last of the Hohenzollerns is not the blunt uncultured Prussian delineated by caricaturists. The more attractive side of the former emperor, his genial nature and intellectual propensities, have rarely been recognized in this country.

He resembled Theodore Roosevelt in his ability to meet everyone in his own field whether it were theology science, history, or engineering, but he outdid the American in the fluency with which he spoke other languages. It was a love of learning that led Kaiser Wilhelm to send the wonderful collection of casts to the Germanic Museum as a token of his interest in Harvard.

However tenacious old memories may be, the University should not lose altogether a certain sense of gratitude. In an era of world peace enthusiasm Americans might leave the question of his guilt to the perspective historians and relinquish the bitterness toward the woodchopper of Doorn.