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A short while ago Harvard University for the second time rejected an offer of a German scholarship from Ernst Hanfstaengl, or "Putzy" as the Columbia Spectator prefers to call the Nazi Press Chief, who has become renowned as the musician who soothes the worried Hitler to sleep.
This year Putzy renewed last year's scholarship offer with an increase from $1,000 to $10,000. He probably argued to himself that Americans were interested only in the almighty dollar anyway, and that by raising the ante the Harvard authorities would jump at the offer. But Harvard's smiling President Conant understood Putzy's motives and swiftly replied:
"Harvard University has not changed its position in regard to accepting a gift from Dr. Hanfstaengl!"
Here were his reasons, given the year before:
"We are unwilling to accept a gift from one who has been so closely associated with the leadership of a political party which has inflicted damage on the universities of Germany through measures which have struck at principles we believe fundamental to universities throughout the world."
And Princeton's President Dodds, speaking a week ago at Pennsylvania's mid-winter graduation, took an almost identical stand upon the Nazi educational program. Said he:
"German Nazism with its frank contempt for the intellectual life is driving the nation back into savagery."
Harvard, then, has the standard of educational independence, a standard which American universities must maintain if the cause of education throughout the world is to continue its objective and unprejudiced progress. As President Dodds remarked, America especially faces the need today for "educated personalities" for the man who will not fear to take a determined stand upon a conclusion which he has reached through his own intelligence, not through an education which predetermines how and what he shall think, as is the case in Germany today. --The Daily Pennsylvanian
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