HEIDELBERG

The University authorities have made a splendid distinction in accepting the invitation of Heidelberg University to participate in the celebration of its 550th anniversary. It was unfortunate that the invitation was connected in so many minds with the Hanfstaengl affair. The scholarship offers of Dr. Hanfstaengl were rejected because the donor was "too closely allied with a government which had seriously interfered with educational liberties."

But Heidelberg University is not the Nazi government; it is older than a hundred Nazi governments. Anyone who has travelled in Germany and talked with students, especially those of Heidelberg, knows that the Universities strongly resent the violations of their age-old privileges and liberties.

The British institutions, which refused the invitation, not for lack of scholastic respect, but because they insisted on dragging politics in, lost an excellent chance to express their disapproval by honoring an institution which, as they well know, has opposed the same policies they condemn. But politics should not enter.

Harvard's acceptance has been astutely applied to the particular situation. The "ancient ties" uniting universities of the world are indeed "independent of the political conditions existing in any country at any particular time." There is a great distinction between the temporary administration of a fascist organization and an institution whose founding in 1385 preceded even the conception of intense nationalism or of the modern totalitarian state. As such it is right that it be honored.