THE MEERSCHAUM OF PEACE

Fact and fancy have painted a conventional picture of German student life--set in pleasant green gardens, surrounded by the aroma of bear, sausage and aged cheese. Yet out of this easy environment have come great geniuses and famous systems of education. Before the war, musicians considered a German "degree" the better part of talent, philologists founded their learning on German teachings, no scientist was a scientist without his two or three years in Germany.

The interlude of the war disturbed this scheme of things. Instead of the old, conventional picture, people saw only Mark Twain's students of Heidelberg, bloody and scarred with duelling. Reputations are more easily ruined than made, and German university life is recuperating slowly in foreign eyes. Yet the universities are determined to overcome prejudices. Leipzig, Heidelberg, Frankfort are again throwing open their doors with special summer lecture courses for Americans. This renewed opportunity for hearing great German lectuerers in literature, art music, and economics, together with all the advantages of a vacation in Germany, where the dollar still has magic power, is inducement enough in itself. And beyond this the cheerful picture of the old student life, with its foaming steins and meditative meerschaums, doubtless still exists.