IN THE late summer of 1938 I made my last visit to France previous to the outbreak of the present war. I was engaged in writing some reports and settled with my daughter and her husband at a small hotel on beautiful little Lake Aiguebelette in Savoie. We were the only foreigners there, the other thirty guests being bourgeois Frenchmen. They were all engaged in business of some kind, except for a colonel from Algiers and his wife and son, with whom we became well acquainted. Hitler was dictator in Germany and the propaganda for Anschluss with Austria was in full swing. The immediate future in Europe was one of the topics of general conversation at the little hotel. I was not surprised that my fellow guests usually gave a negative answer to my inquiry as to whether they believed France would act to prevent Anschluss with Austria. But when they similarly replied in the negative to my question whether France would act were Germany to attack Czechoslovakia, I was amazed considering what that might mean for the growth of German power and prestige. "But you have a treaty of alliance with Czechoslovakia which obligates you to go to her defense," I said to one of my neighbors. "Circumstances alter alliances," he answered and proceeded to explain what I later discovered to be a quite general attitude. I was greatly shocked at this contemplated betrayal of an ally---an attitude wholly foreign to French character---and determined to seek an explanation. I found that to understand it I would have to go back to the Revolution of 1789.

The French Revolution marked the triumph of the bourgeoisie in French life. They have been in control ever since, and they intend to remain in control if they can. France was until yesterday the most bourgeois of the great civilized countries, and an appraisal of her virtues and weaknesses means an evaluation of almost a century and a half of dominance by the bourgeoisie. The Revolution of 1789 had a wholly different effect upon French society from that which the English Revolution of 1688 had upon English society. It definitely divided French society into two antagonistic and almost irreconcilable groups. The first consisted of those whose position had been reduced socially and materially by the Revolution, the nobility, the aristocracy, and the clergy, whose privileges had been abolished and whose estates had been sequestrated. These classes never accepted the Revolution and its logical consequences. They and their adherents have since always supported the conservative political parties. The second group was made up of those who profited by the Revolution: the middle class which was freed from many absurd restrictions upon individual initiative to undertake the development of commerce and industry; the worker who learned very slowly the need of collective effort for his own welfare, and the peasant who became a small landed proprietor and who cultivated his farm himself with the aid of his family. There was really a third group, small but of much importance, the intellectuals devoted to the Declaration of the Rights of Man.

These classes not only accepted the Revolution and its principles but became its guardians. The chief crises in French politics down to World War I were due to a belief on the part of the second general group that the principles of the Revolution were in danger and must be safeguarded. A long period elapsed between the Revolution and the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, during which it was questionable whether the conservative forces would not win out, but the failure of the attempt of the second President of the Republic after that war, Marshal MacMahon, to restore the monarchy gave the Republic a strong start. It maintained itself and whenever its security was endangered parties coalesced for its defense as in the case of the republican bloc in the Dreyfus affair and the Union Sacrée at the outbreak of World War I. By the time that war took place, the principles of the Revolution had been adopted. Liberté had been won for the individual, liberty of thought and expression. Egalité of rights for all men had been secured. And fraternité, at least in the conception of brotherhood in a glorious nation, nationalism par excellence, had become practically universal. But to the believers in the principles of the Revolution, the Revolution was incarnated in the Republic. Had France suffered defeat in World War I, in all probability not only would the Republic have disappeared but loyalty to the principles of the Revolution would have been greatly diminished. Twenty years later both events took place. A description of the experiences I had during the five visits I made to France within those twenty years may throw some light upon the steady moral deterioration that took place there, ending in the débâcle of 1940.

After World War I, Security became an obsession with the French. It dominated all aspects of French life: political, economic, social and cultural. In 1918 France emerged successfully from a terrible trial. Allowing for the aid of their allies, the French believed that their success in the war was due to the strength of their institutions built up during the previous century and a half, which were to a great extent products of their system of education and culture. Before World War I, there was one school for the children of the peasant and worker, the école primaire, and another for the children of the bourgeois, the lycée. In the former, which was free, the child began his school career at six or seven and finished it at thirteen or fourteen, when he went to work on the farm or in the factory. In the latter he began at the same age and finished at eighteen or nineteen. The fee charged in the lycée was small, but it was sufficient to be a real obstacle to the entrance of the child of the worker, though a liberal system of scholarships enabled a gifted child to enter. As entrance to all the professions and the higher civil service required the baccalauréat of the lycée, it is easy to see that the controlling positions of society were filled chiefly by the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie intended to continue to fill them, if possible.

Shortly before World War I a movement had started for the establishment of a school in which the children of all classes should study together---the école unique, the common school. It made little headway. Lack of financial resources was undoubtedly one of the causes for the failure of the state to establish to a greater extent the école unique. Many of the lycée professors were also unfavorably disposed because of a genuine fear that the change might result in a lowering of intellectual standards. The antagonism of conservative people, however, was the chief influence in the failure of the movement. They did not intend to share the control of society with the lower classes. But the new spirit introduced into French life by the idealistic pronouncements made by Allied statesmen and the need to safeguard all national resources, human as well as material, in the face of international peril could not be withstood. Socialists and extreme radicals made the école unique part of their political program. A law was passed providing for the gradual elimination of all fees in the lycée so that in 1936 it became wholly free. When I discussed this movement with conservative people they complained that it endangered the existence of the intellectual élite---the great pride of France. They regarded with anxiety the relative decline in the influence of the old studies and in the number of students pursuing them. Mathematics, science, and modern languages were slowly but surely supplanting the Latin, Greek, and philosophy which formed the staple of the traditional culture. The real cause of opposition to these changes was that in them the conservatives saw the destruction of a bulwark against the rise of the lower classes. Egalité did not mean real equality of opportunity in the new law.

During the past two centuries France has been one of the greatest contributors of new ideas in politics, literature, art, and other fields of human thought---ideas which have sometimes had revolutionary effects. Nevertheless, her culture has been founded upon the classical tradition, the heritage of Greece and Rome, so greatly strengthened by the Revolution and Napoleon. However radical an intellectual might be in his political, social, or religious views, he was usually, like Anatole France, an enthusiastic adherent of the classical training. It is difficult for other people to understand the devotion of the French to their own culture. The most outstanding men of the radical parties in France have been men of as high cultural attainments as were those of the more conservative parties. Monsieur Herriot was a professor of French literature and historian of French letters. Monsieur Painlevé is a great mathematician. The most leftist of all, Monsieur Blum, is a man of letters and a book lover. Not nearly so many of the leaders of socialism in France have been workers as has been the case in Great Britain. The contributions of the scientists have been chiefly in the domain of pure science, like mathematics, rather than in the mechanical sciences, like engineering. Partly because of their economic system of small industries the French have not been so active as other peoples in the application of the results of their scientists' speculations, although, of course, there have been notable exceptions as in the case of Pasteur.

France reached a position of stabilization and contentment at the close of World War I. Whether she would continue to contribute new and revolutionary ideas to humanity was a question. In the field of politics and social organization the French bourgeoisie became very cautious and little progress was made. In the field of ideas proper, philosophical, literary, artistic, Frenchmen were still bold, destructively so, conservatives maintained. But there could be hardly any doubt of the desire of all Frenchmen to maintain leadership in the domain of culture. Paris was in process of resuming the place of leadership in the field of education and culture that it maintained during the later Middle Ages. In 1935 its university had almost half of the students of all the French universities, and almost one-quarter of its students were foreigners. After the war the beautiful Cité Universitaire was established on the outskirts of the city. In it there have been erected eighteen dormitories of which fifteen were built by nations other than France, to house their students in association with French students. Nearly all these buildings are of fine architecture and the central building, provided by Mr. Rockefeller, has under its roof a commons, reading room, lounging room, library, theatre, gymnasium and swimming pool. It was a splendid addition and rendered a great service to the students, French and foreign.

We usually think of the English as supremely indifferent to what other people think of their civilization but that is as nothing compared to the complacency with which the French regard the superiority of their culture. I repeatedly met evidence of this attitude. The American University Union, whose origin was described in the previous chapter and which was the representative of the Institute of International Education in France, was always my headquarters when visiting Paris. The Director of the Union, Dr. Horatio S. Krans, during his twenty years of service had done more to develop real understanding between the French and the American people than any individual American I know. He was, indeed, an unofficial ambassador of culture and had become an institution in Paris so well known was he to all official and cultural France. Whenever I visited the city Dr. Krans arranged a luncheon in my honor in cooperation with the Rector of the University and the Minister of Public Instruction.

On one of these occasions, after some of the usual complimentary remarks about French and American civilization, the toastmaster said, "Now, Dr. Duggan, is there not some aspect of your culture from which we may learn?" I was not aware at that time that no Frenchman would expect an answer in the affirmative. After a moment's hesitation I replied, "Yes, we have so much to learn from other peoples that I hesitate to mention it but in the domain of library economy I think we Americans have made the greatest progress." Attention around the table immediately became acute. I described the remarkable efficiency of our methods of cataloguing and distributing books and informing the public of new additions. I grew quite eloquent in explaining how no town and, even few villages were without a public library to whose shelves people had access. When I finished the toastmaster said, "Ah, yes, I am confident that in your civilization what you describe is true and necessary. But you see in France every family has its own library and the children are brought up in the traditions of our literature. We are not so dependent as you upon public libraries." Of course, what he said was nonsense. It applied only to the haute bourgeoisie and not to the petite bourgeoisie nor to the workers. There are some libraries in French towns but the librarian usually regards the library as his own personal perquisite and sometimes looks askance at the entrance of a prospective borrower.

The French are the greatest exponents of cultural imperialism. Almost everywhere I have visited, whether in China, Brazil, Czechoslovakia or elsewhere I found Instituts Français and the Alliance Française propagating French culture. Distinguished professors from the Sorbonne especially in literature, philosophy, and history, gave lectures at the Instituts, which were usually attended by the élite of the community. This propaganda was not carried on in the offensive manner sometimes shown by German professors of deriding the culture of another country. The belief of the French in the superiority of their culture rendered that wholly unnecessary.

That belief did not affect their hearty cooperation with the Institute of International Education in developing cultural ties between France and the United States. I have described at length in Chapter II the modus operandi of the exchange of students and teachers between the two countries. There were many other ways in which this cooperation was carried on. In 1922 the French Office National des Universités et Ecoles Françaises, the organization with which the Institute collaborated, offered to provide ten---later increased to twenty –postes d'assistant at boys' lycées in France to American men, preferably teachers. These were not fellowships but they partook of some of the aspects of fellowships. The holders of the postes were to be college graduates who had some knowledge of French. They were asked to give two hours each day to the teaching of oral English. They were to receive no salary but were provided with board and lodging in lycées, usually in towns near universities so that the holders might pursue courses while engaged in teaching. The postes were held in high esteem by young American college graduates as providing unusual opportunities to obtain a fluent command of spoken French, and to secure a knowledge of the French people, their customs and institutions. They also imparted a more correct impression of American civilization and culture than that previously held by the French students. The Office National provided twice as many postes to Englishmen as to Americans, for the French frankly admitted that they preferred the English speech of England to that of the United States.

Of even greater importance was the institution known as the "Junior Year Abroad". The University of Delaware requested the cooperation of the Institute of International Education in organizing in France a program of studies which Delaware could accept in lieu of the regular work of the junior year. The students selected were men and women of excellent scholastic standing, especially proficient in French, and of a temperament which gave promise of quick adaptability to a strange environment. They went directly after the close of the college term in June to the University of Nancy where for three months they participated in an intensive course in French designed to give an ability to understand spoken French so that they might attend lectures and to speak French so that they might discuss in class. In October they moved to Paris and matriculated at the Sorbonne. Here they pursued a carefully organized program of studies known as the Cours de Civilisation Française which was designed to give the foreign student an adequate knowledge of French civilization and culture. At Nancy and Paris each student lived in a carefully selected French family usually as the only foreign member of the family. He pursued his studies under the immediate daily supervision of an American professor. In addition to their daily studies the students attended the best operas and plays, visited under competent guides the museums, libraries, and churches, and made week-end trips to places of interest outside Paris.

The Junior Year Abroad was an immediate success. The students, the French educational authorities and the faculty of the University of Delaware were enthusiastic about the results. In 1923, nine students were enrolled in the Delaware group studying at Paris. Ten years later the number had increased to ninety. In subsequent years the University of Delaware accepted among its groups students from other institutions. and one hundred and twenty colleges were eventually included. In 1925 Smith College established for its own students a Junior Year Abroad which became equally popular. In that year about thirty-two attended the preliminary courses at the University of Grenoble and later the Cours de Civilisation Française at the Sorbonne. By 1932 the number of students in the Smith College group had risen to 49. The success of the Junior Year Abroad in France inspired the German educational authorities in 1931 to establish a similar program at Munich, although it had by no means the success of the French experiment because it was animated more by propagandist than by cultural motives.

World War I struck a hard blow at the bourgeoisie. The rentiers, the people living on dividends, the professional classes, and the teachers in lycées and universities, found their incomes cruelly reduced. Many of the bourgeoisie could no longer support their children through the secondary schools and universities. Their sons and daughters were turning to trade and industry. Yet it was those very sons and daughters who were the heirs of the so highly prized cultural heritage. Before World War I the great majority of the advanced students in French universities were full-time students and remained so until they "conquered" all their diplomas. Since then a large proportion have had to work their way by taking such odd jobs as they could get. This situation constituted a real danger for the future of higher studies in France. Adding to this an increased economic pressure, higher standards of living or an ambition to live more comfortably than in the past, the result might well be a decrease in the number of men who give themselves entirely to disinterested studies. The increase in the number of scholarships made by the government was no effective remedy. It could not encourage the maintenance of the genuine culture which springs from society itself. This was really one of the biggest problems which confronted the French. The change in the situation caused considerable change in their outlook upon life. It embittered many of the sons and daughters of the bourgeoisie. To be compelled by necessity to fall into the ranks of the ouvriers, the workers, was regarded as a personal tragedy.

The effect of World War I in intensifying the competition for the prize positions in the professional, administrative, and social life of France was profound and had a great influence upon education in the lycée and university. As France is a stabilized country with a stationary population, the prize positions are not numerous and increase but little. The competition for them can be described best by the term fierce; hence no time in the period of preparation---in the lycée and university---can be lost. The French lycée is a place of work, even of grind. There are no extra-curricular activities, no dramatics, debating societies, musical clubs or magazines, which form so large a part of the life of the American college. Students work from early morning to late afternoon at their studies and then are given much work to prepare for the next day. To engage in any activity other than study is to endanger one's standing in the examination at the end of the course and possibly one's position in life.

The lycée is, therefore, a place of intellectual discipline par excellence. Little attention is given to physical training. Young men secure this during their period of military service, though since World War I sports have assumed an increasing importance. Moral education has a place in the curriculum, but it is nevertheless considered primarily a matter for the home. As in the United States, the French educational system permits of no religious exercise in the schools. Hence the conservatives in France like some in the United States regard the public schools as "godless". The splendidly trained teachers in the lycée give excellent instruction in the comparatively narrow curriculum, into which no "fads and frills" have a chance of entrance, as have also no such innovations in school administration as student self-government and parent-teacher associations. Mature and experienced professors who have graduated from the lycée, concentrated on their specialty in the university and taught at first under supervision, are supposed to know how to administer education. It is easy to understand why the graduate of a French lycée has a disciplined mind and a knowledge that is thorough and accurate. One has only to listen to an "explication de texte" to become convinced of this. This minute, detailed, intensive study and mastery of a few masterpieces or parts of masterpieces of French literature constitutes a lesson in criticism which gives students a kind of critical method applicable to all literary works. It enables the French lycée student to distinguish the first-rate from the mediocre and the third-rate, and this discerning judgment is in itself an element of culture.

I once suggested to a French educator that this proficiency might be bought at too great a price, that I saw very little attention given to the health of pupils in the schools and that practically no physical exercise was provided as a relief from mental strain. He answered, "Dr. Duggan, have you ever known of soldiers who fought as ours did at Verdun?" It was no proper answer. It did not explain the many whose health was affected by the strain and who failed to fight at Verdun or anywhere else because they did not measure up to the physical standards of the army, which were certainly low enough. My suggestion was prompted by the experience of a friend who went over with our army in 1918 as a bacteriologist. He placed his son of eleven or twelve in a lycée. One afternoon the boy was stricken by a bad toothache and had to have the tooth extracted in the evening. The next morning his mother accompanied him to the lycée and explained the circumstances to the Directeur. "When was his tooth drawn out?" asked the Directeur. "At dinner time," answered the mother. "Why didn't he do his home work then?" demanded the Directeur.

It is worth while to digress sufficiently long to contrast the educational situation in our own land with that in France. We are a young country with immense natural resources and room for more people. Our population actually increased in the decade 1920-1930 by 14,000,000. In other words, we had to provide all kinds of services not only for the population of a decade before, as did France, but for the great increase also. Moreover, during that decade, in addition to the remarkable expansion of industry generally there was the astonishing growth in our comparatively new industries, the automobile, cinema, radio, and aeroplane. These required initiative, self-reliance, creativeness, and pluck, qualities that were often as well developed by the extra-curricular activities as by the regular studies of the college. Then why be a "grind" and devote oneself to things purely of the intellect? Up to 1929, it was a poor American college graduate who could not get a job fairly early after leaving college. This was not true of the European graduate. Since 1929 the favorable condition no longer has existed to the same extent in the United States, and the possibility of the development of an intellectual proletariat now confronts us. One good educational result of the depression has been the greatly increased serious attention of our students to their intellectual as contrasted with their extra-curricular activities.

The legal requirement introduced at the time of the Revolution that property be divided equally among a man's children resulted in the peasant's restricting the size of his family so as to secure to a few children a proper livelihood on the farms of reduced size. In this the peasant imitated the bourgeois who, in addition, demanded an easier life. The result is that from being one of the most populous countries of Europe at the time of the Revolution, relatively speaking, France is now one of the least populous. The fonctionnaires employed by the centralized state grew to a veritable army, making the French government one of the most overstaffed in Europe. The great majority of these fonctionnaires received very small salaries, but they had permanent jobs and each was entitled to a pension at the close of his official career. Their security was assured. Security was the touchstone in business life also. A young Frenchman inheriting a business would bring disgrace not only on himself but on his family were he to fail in his business and not to conserve it at least as he inherited it. Hence caution marked his activities and he grew rich slowly. Contrast this attitude with that of the young American in business, who is ever ready to take a chance. If he fails, there is no disgrace incurred, nor is he usually discouraged. He simply tries again in the same business or in another, in the same place or elsewhere.

Security plays a far greater rôle in family life in France than in Anglo-Saxon countries. Though a more lenient attitude toward masculine defections probably prevailed than among Anglo-Saxon peoples, the belief that existed quite generally among the ill-informed before World War I as to the moral laxity of the French was very inaccurate. The foreigner has usually made the mistake of regarding the boulevard life of Paris as typical of France. As a matter of fact, in no other country is the family so strong and carefully guarded an institution. The reason why the foreigner has known so little about it was because he has so seldom been admitted into it. In the family, tradition has a large place. The respect for parents is unquestioned, and control is still in their hands. Chaperonage for daughters was always more pronounced than with us though it is now in process of rapid disappearance. Security for daughters in marriage is still usually assured as the result of long and direct negotiations between both sets of parents. My own experience with French families taught me that their family life was very enjoyable, more formal than ours and perhaps with less intimacy between parents and children but nevertheless a very closely knit unit.

It was inevitable that when daughters of the common people entered the munition and other factories during World War I, family life would be much influenced. The relation of the sexes toward each other became much freer than ever before, particularly among the middle classes. Moreover, France had two million more women than men, and as marriage was out of the question for many women, they demanded the right, even before that war, to enter vocations hitherto reserved for men. They are now found in all the professions. This insistence compelled the state to provide greater opportunities for women's education. There have been lycées for girls since 1882, and French universities had women students before World War I. Since then girls have also been admitted occasionally to boys' lycées. All this makes for a distinct break in the traditional place of women in French life, in which they have been the center of the family but not an active force outside of it.

The chief moral influence of the Revolution was an extreme emphasis upon individualism. This has been manifest in the domain of industry also. The French employers almost to this day have remained small industrialists, not inclined to merge into large corporations. French objects of export, mainly articles of luxury, are largely the results of individual workers' efforts, not of machines. Conservatives were united against the introduction of American methods of mass production in industry as destructive of the true spirit of French life. But after World War I it became a question how much longer France could hold out against greater general concentration into larger corporations. In addition to her Briey iron resources France acquired more by the transfer of Lorraine to her at the close of the war. She was also given the use of the coal mines of the Saar until 1935, while her own coal mines of the Nord were being rehabilitated from the damage inflicted by the Germans. These improved conditions suggested a change of policy. The change took place, but with characteristic French conservatism---with the consequence that French industry was unable to meet the necessary demands upon it when the present war broke out.

Individualism was also characteristic of the other factor in the industrial process, the worker. The Law of Coalitions of 1791 was passed in the interest of individualism. It abolished guilds and corporations, and established freedom of contract for individuals only. Trade unions among workers as well as combinations among employers were made illegal, but as time passed employers were easily able to evade the law. The law was not repealed till 1884 and in the meantime the worker had become a thorough individualist. Throughout the nineteenth century he suffered from low wages because to a great extent he was unwilling to be submerged in a labor union. Trade unions were, however, rapidly expanded and federated into the C.G.T. (Confédération Générale du Travail) in 1895. During all these years and down almost to the opening of World War I, Communists formed only a minority of the workers, though as everywhere a noisy minority.

France has been basically strong because of the stabilization of her national economy. Her population is fairly evenly divided between agriculture and industry. While the Bolshevik politicians in Russia were building a new social system in that country in favor of the proletarian worker and on the back of the peasant, the French politician has been in mortal terror of the peasant and feared to place upon him even his just share of the burden of the state. Because of the distribution of the land into small farms and the love of the farmer for his fields, most Frenchmen took the "Communist peril" lightly before World War I. Moreover, this attitude was justified not only by the existence of the landowning peasantry, but also by the fact that there was little concentration of wealth in a few hands, no real plutocracy. Nevertheless, many Frenchmen professed to be alarmed at the appearance of Communism as a menace to national tradition, national solidarity, and national security.

Britons and Americans familiar only with the two-party system and unfamiliar with French political life have always expressed amazement at the possibility of carrying on government with the multiplicity of parties which characterized France. Political parties were really only groups held together by very tenuous ties. It was often hard to tell to what group a deputy belonged, he changed so often. He became irresponsible and one of his chief functions, somewhat like a Congressman in the United States, was to secure benefits for his constituency, especially jobs for his constituents. The consequence of the "group system" was that the ministry governing the country at a given time was the result of bargaining among these groups. If one group did not like what the ministry did, it withdrew its support. The ministry then no longer commanded a majority in the Chamber of Deputies and had to resign. The explanation for the existence of this unstable system was historical. Napoleon I overturned the First Republic; Napoleon III, the Second Republic; and President MacMahon tried to overturn the Third. Hence the fear on the part of millions of Frenchmen of strengthening the executive power. All the political powers of government up to the recent débâcle were in the hands of the elected parliament. The President had been reduced to a figurehead. It became a political commonplace to say that in England the King reigned but did not rule; in the United States the President ruled but did not reign; in France the President neither reigned nor ruled.

Since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 France has had a wonderful history. During a large part of that time she has been the predominant power in Europe. The glory of her arms, the prestige of her diplomacy, and her historic rôle in world affairs have been very dear to her citizens. France would never voluntarily accept a position of permanent inferiority to any other European nation like Germany, no matter what the facts of population and birth rate might indicate. After the close of World War I she resorted to various devices to combat the German peril, but each of them was futile owing to the growing European disbelief in collective security. The building of the Maginot Line was the final supreme effort of the French to maintain security independently. But with the passage of the years security for France began to look more and more dubious as much because of internal decay as because of foreign peril.

The success of the Popular Front in the general election of 1936 marks the turning point of the French conservatives away from real support of the Republic. They did not hesitate now to cooperate with their old enemies, monarchists and clericals, who had never been willing to accept the principles of the Revolution. And at the other end of the social scale, the workers were determined to maintain the advantages they had gained and extend them by every means at their disposal. This attitude is entirely understandable, but it was taken regardless of foreign competition in industry or even of national defense. The sit-down strike and sabotage were used in munition factories working for the government. A large minority of the workers had become Communists and their leaders were more interested in the security of the Russian system than of the French. This attitude was taken with the knowledge of the ruthless suppression of all labor unions by Hitler in Germany.

The times were full of menace for French civilization. By the agreement of most of the political parties in 1934, Monsieur Doumergue, a former President of the Republic, was called at seventy-two from his retirement to form a ministry of truce. Under the French political system the Premier had no right to dissolve Parliament and demand a general election, that is, to appeal to the country unless he had the consent of the Senate. M. Doumergue demanded three reforms: 1) the Constitution be amended so that the President would have power to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies without the consent of the Senate; 2) the Chamber of Deputies retain its right to strike out items in the budget presented by the ministry but lose its right to add items; and 3) he hinted that the Premier or Ministry should have the right to dismiss from the civil service any civil servant who goes on strike and thereby endangers the efficiency or possibly even the existence of the administration of government. But M. Doumergue, who was being increasingly accused of Rightist tendencies, was compelled to resign on a budget technicality. Everyone knew that his defeat was really due to his demand for the reforms which he insisted could alone save France from dissolution.

The French people now became utterly wearied of party programs and would gladly have turned from the miserable stupidity and incompetence of the politicians to a real leader. But there was none. The German people had had a similar experience a few years previously and the majority turned to Hitler for relief. About the same time the American people gladly accepted the personal leadership of Franklin Roosevelt because of the bankruptcy of the programs of the Republican and Democratic parties. And some years later, in the desperation born of war and defeat, the British people rejected the palsied ineptitude of the Conservative party to accept the brilliant leadership of Winston Churchill. Each of these leaders was able to count on the support of many younger, able assistants in responsible administrative posts. In France during the 1920's and 1930's, however, the development of potential leaders from the strong middle classes had been stifled by the confusion of educational ideals, the restricted curriculum of the French lycée which failed to prepare for leadership in practical affairs, and the increasing inability of the bourgeoisie to pay for secondary schooling and university training. The French had no system of adult education and therefore the masses of the people were not sufficiently well informed to insist upon a strong purposeful government in the developing crisis.

In this crisis the French press was worthless. French newspapers provide their readers with excellent articles on literary, artistic, and philosophical topics, but unlike British and American newspapers they give little information about events taking place in foreign countries. The newspapers of Great Britain and the United States do not differ from those of France in representing various interests but they differ greatly in making some attempt to present the views of the opposite side. In recent years the opposite side in the French press was usually the object of bitter and unjustified diatribes. The press was not an educative influence on the French people in political, economic, and social matters, especially when these matters were of a controversial nature. Paris, moreover, has always had a reptile press which was purchasable and which even before June 1940 became the creature of Germany.

The scene in France was like that of a Greek tragedy, the inevitable approach of impending doom. The French people entered the present war in a spirit of discouragement, with ignorant military leaders, and incompetent civilian administrators. The war was lost before it began. The débâcle came swiftly.

Immediately following the armistice a new government was established at Vichy with Marshal Pétain as Chief of State. The Constitution of the Republic was abrogated by the National Assembly and a Constitutional Law adopted giving all power to the Marshal. For the old motto of the French state, "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité" was substituted, "Travail, Famille, Patrie", indicating the replacement of individualism by paternalism. The Marshal, in whom the French people at first placed great confidence as the one who would lead them out of their chaos, regarded himself as in loco parentis and as such justified in ruling by authority and discipline. He was a known and pronounced Rightist who surrounded himself with men of his own views. In a short time the majority of office-holders having opinions not in conformity with those of the Marshal were removed and the administration of government, central and local, was placed in the hands of his adherents.

The Marshal understood the importance of using the school as the instrument to realize his views, and he personally assisted in drawing up reforms of a reactionary nature. The elective element in educational organization was abolished and teachers' unions prohibited. Religion was made a compulsory subject in the schools and Catholic schools received state support. Manual training was emphasized in the elementary school, a good thing in itself, but so implemented as to emphasize the division between those who work with their hands and those who work with their heads. The old classical curriculum of the lycée was restored in full vigor and the modern subjects limited in scope. The fees abolished by the Republic in 1936 were restored and, as in the universities, Jewish teachers were removed.

These "reforms" practically restored the conditions that existed in education when the Republic was founded after the Franco-Prussian War. The chief effect of the "reforms" was to accentuate the unfortunate divisions that already existed among the French people. The press, because of its very unfair and dishonest partisanship, was an obstacle to the development of a public opinion that would rally the people around a leader determined to work solely for the welfare of the Republic rather than for any class within it. In other words the institutions of the country which are of primary educational influence functioned badly and the really noble ideals underlying French civilization lost their grip upon the people. Similar conditions in any other country can be expected to bring about equally tragic results.

Can France survive this greatest defeat in her history and resume her place as a first class power? She has done so after major defeats in the past, in 1815 and in 1870. But in 1815 her population was greater than that of Germany and in 1870 it was the equal of Germany's. France was bled white in World War I. Since then she has continued to practice birth control, something to be applauded for Japan but deplored for France. Today she has fewer people than when World War I began. It is a question whether she has the manhood necessary to maintain the status of a first class power. Great Britain with a population not much greater can probably still rely upon the Dominions inhabited by her own sons. But for France the question is whether, in the face of such a defeat, she can maintain prestige in colonies populated by peoples who admire military power.

Moreover, France suffered tremendous losses of wealth in World War I. At the close of the present war she will be greatly impoverished. The Germans have taken everything they could seize and as the result of devious methods of economic penetration they have a stranglehold on the economic life of France. Today the status of a first class power necessitates immense resources. France was partially dependent upon her colonies for those resources. Will she be able to exploit them in the future as she did in the past? Material resources, however, are not the first consideration in a possible French renascence. That will be a matter of morale. At the present moment there is no such thing. The French in the homeland are dazed, confused, discouraged, characterized by an almost complete lassitude. In 1871 there was not only the desire but the determination to recover the former French position in European affairs. That was also true at the close of World War I. But in 1871 the French had Thiers and Gambetta, and in 1918 Clemenceau and Poincaré. Will a leader emerge to unite and inspire France today?

IN 1935 I visited the University of Leipzig, among other institutions, and was entertained at dinner by Professor X,(2) who had brought together a number of friends among the teachers of the University. After dinner he said, "Dr. Duggan, we frankly do not understand the resentment of other nations at our announced policy of rearmament. Admittedly it is a unilateral denunciation of the Treaty of Versailles but Germany cannot be accused of having commenced the process of violating treaties. That began with the repudiation of Czarist debts by Soviet Russia, now the bitterest critic of Germany. Poland's seizure of Lithuania's city of Vilna was a simple case of force majeure, overlooked by the Allies and the League of Nations. The evident intention of the European governments not to pay their war debt to the United States is hardly an evidence of a high regard for the sanctity of commitments. The action of Japan in Manchuria was a flagrant violation of several treaties. None of these states is a friend to Germany. Is it because we are friendless that we are condemned?" These fine men did not seem impressed by the probable evil consequences of the Nazi propaganda already in full swing in the schools and universities. The rest of the evening was spent chiefly in a discussion of the reasons for the position maintained in international affairs by Germany at the time and the inability of Germans to understand the dislike of them by other peoples. It was a most interesting analysis of the historical background and is worth repeating here.

Germany was almost destroyed in the religious wars following the Reformation. She lost almost half her population and had imposed upon her by the diplomacy of Richelieu a condition of impotence that lasted for two centuries. Richelieu inaugurated the French policy of keeping Germany divided into a large number of weak states faced by a strong and united France. From that time down almost to Bismarck no one referred to Germany but to "the Germanies". Germany became to a great extent the battleground of Europe. Louis XIV and Napoleon fought most of the battles on German soil. Russian, Austrian, and Swedish armies traversed German territory. When the French Revolutionary armies marched over Europe calling upon peoples to cast off allegiance to kings and give their loyalty to the nation, it was natural that the Germans would want to see their many states transformed into a united nation. Bismarck was admired by Germans because he was the architect of United Germany. Professor X considered that all these statements made by him were justified.

I did not fail to point out that while it was true that French armies fought their battles largely upon German soil, the Prussian armies of Frederick the Great also fought theirs on foreign soil; that while France conspired to keep Germany disunited, the same Frederick was the leader in the total destruction of another nation, Poland; that while Germans owe a debt of gratitude to Bismarck for the unification of their country, they must perforce admit that in accomplishing it, like Frederick the Great, he showed a ruthless disregard of the rights of peoples in his treatment of such states as Denmark and Hanover, and used some very shady methods such as the doctoring of the Ems telegram; and that though up to the time of my visit they were guiltless of violating engagements since the close of World War I, it was the Germans who inaugurated in recent times the whole bad practice by their sudden attack upon helpless Belgium in 1914 in violation of the treaty to protect Belgian independence, and afterward referred to that treaty as "a scrap of paper". My friends were fine men and admitted the truth of these statements but they did not have much difficulty in pointing out that other states had also been guilty of similar practices. They were particularly insistent that the Allied Powers promised at Versailles a program of disarmament for themselves and that this was not carried out, leaving Germany the only great power to be disarmed.

The establishment of the German Empire in 1870 was welcomed by liberals generally. Germany was then populated by an intelligent and industrious people. Her universities were the rendezvous of students from other European countries and from the United States. Her attractive culture was tinged with an element of romanticism that appealed to the liberalism prevailing in the West at that time. Germany in the mid-nineteenth century was essentially the land of the poet and the thinker. But the Germany of 1870 was based primarily upon an agricultural economy that could not support her rapidly growing population. Tens of thousands of the most virile people emigrated annually. They were saved for the Fatherland by the industrialization which had begun in the decade 1850-1860 but which was much enhanced by the increased vitality that accompanied unification.

Industrialization meant competing with Great Britain which for a half century had been building a magnificent plant and a technique of financial, commercial and industrial administration that came only with long experience. [t meant competing with the United States whose apparently inexhaustible resources enabled her to carry on regardless of waste and extravagance. Germany did not have these advantages and deliberately determined to rationalize her national life. She developed scientific education on a remarkable scale. She applied science to all forms of industry, studied the methods of business administration of her competitors and improved upon them, sent her agents to all quarters of the earth to learn the psychology of other peoples so as to provide for their needs. In a generation she had forged ahead to a position in the world of industry second only to that of Great Britain and even menacing British primacy. But industrialization brought in its train additional conflicts of classes. As in England it arrayed the agrarian and industrial interests against each other and the workers against the capitalists.

It is fashionable among some writers in Allied countries today to maintain that ruthlessness and brutality have been characteristic of the Germans throughout their history to a greater extent than is true of other peoples. These writers emphasize the influence of the legends of Valhalla, afterwards incorporated in the Nibelungen operas of Richard Wagner. They point to the extermination of Slavs during the Middle Ages by the Teutonic knights and the butcheries that took place in the conduct of the opposing armies in the religious wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. And they point to the deceits practiced by the Germans during the Bismarckian period and since. They forget, it seems to me, that Wagner also composed Parsifal, Lohengrin, and Tannhäuser, which present a different attitude toward life than does his Nibelungen cycle. Chivalry existed in Germany throughout the Middle Ages as it did everywhere in Western Europe. The religious wars in Germany were certainly characterized by fanaticism and cruelty but no more so than the wars between Catholics and Moors in Spain. Coming nearer to our own heritage, students of history will not forget the inhuman treatment of Catholics in Ireland, including clergy and civilians, by Cromwell's soldiery. Die Aufklärung, the period of Goethe, Schiller, Heine, and Lessing, and the first half of the nineteenth century saw the growth of a spirit of a fine humanism and liberalism particularly in Western and Southern Germany.

Cruelty and brutality were the characteristics rather of Prussian militarism than of all Germans, and the ruthless disregard of human rights and international obligations became a part of German military policy as the national forces were solidified under Prussian leadership. The deceit and violence practiced by Frederick the Great became the tradition inherited by Bismarck, who incorporated it into his policy of "Blut und Eisen." The long reign of Wilhelm II was characterized by repeated alarums caused by his speeches and posturings but not by cruelty and brutality. Those are the recent contributions of Nazis to German life.

The remarkable development of Germany after 1870 had been made under a constitution by which the King of Prussia was German Emperor, and Prussia had the determining voice in the government of the Empire. In Prussia in turn it was the Junker agrarian nobility that had the deciding influence. They officered the army and navy and filled the chief positions in the diplomatic and civil service. The civil service which was organized in both the imperial and state governments was founded upon merit. It was bureaucratic but astonishingly efficient. An official was devoted to his work, proud of his position and of the honor attached to it. Every official had his place in the hierarchy and looked up with respect to those above him. This stratified bureaucracy was an instrument of the Junker aristocracy and the industrialists in controlling Prussia through a complicated system of preferential suffrage. But it formed a bulwark against the control of society by a reckless plutocracy such as that which controlled some other industrial societies. There was no country in the world before World War I where the government so watchfully safeguarded the welfare of all classes of the population as did Germany. She was visited by experts from the most advanced countries to study her system of social legislation and municipal administration. But this remarkable progress was made at the expense of the political experience of her people. They did not govern, they were governed. At the outbreak of World War I from the standpoint of popular self-government Germany was little more than a political kindergarten.

The aristocratic control of society, moreover, was maintained by means of an efficiently organized educational system. Beginning with the reforms of Frederick the Great, German education had spread to all classes and made Germany one of the most literate countries of the world. But education was organized into two parallel systems, one for the masses, the other for the classes. The Volksschule provided an excellent elementary education for the children of the workers. In its control clerical influence played a large part. It extended from the sixth to the fourteenth year, after which the children went to work and pursued their studies in the Continuation School to increase their efficiency in their vocation. The Gymnasium and Oberrealschule, which were pay schools, provided an education for children of the classes extending from the ninth to the eighteenth year. Immediately upon entrance a student began the study of the classics or modern languages and higher mathematics. As none of these subjects was studied in the Volksschule, even if a child of the workers could afford the small tuition fee upon graduation from the Volksschule, he would have been unable to transfer to the Gymnasium. There were, however, a considerable number of stipends to enable the sons of workingmen who showed real promise to transfer from the Volksschule to the Gymnasium, at the age of nine. As graduation from the Gymnasium or Oberrealschule was a qualification for admission to the university, to all the learned professions and to the higher positions in the civil service, it is obvious to what an extent the aristocracy and plutocracy controlled German life; in 1914. Yet despite the worship of titles and the snobbishness that existed in so-called "society", nowhere were the artist and the academic and literary man more highly honored than in Germany.

The Revolution of 1918 delivered a staggering blow to this imposing political and social edifice. The Republican tradition had little strength in Germany and some of the forces that rallied to its support did so for other reasons than belief in its efficiency; for example, members of the Catholic Center Party felt that they would have much greater influence under a free Republic than under the Empire dominated by the Protestant Hohenzollern dynasty. By the Treaty of Versailles, the German navy was destroyed and the army reduced to a police force. The result was that the military caste, deprived of its position, lost greatly in political influence and became an irreconcilable element in the new Republic. The generals were replaced by the rich industrialists who after 1919 wielded a much greater influence than under the imperial regime. The industrialists were opposed by the workers who lost the docility that characterized them during the imperial regime and were determined to retain the gains made by the Revolution. The agrarians, who as in most countries prospered during the war and suffered great reverses after the war, insisted that their interests were being sacrificed to those of the industrial classes and demanded relief in the form of subsidies.

The Weimar Constitution provided for the establishment of the Grundschule which all German children were to attend for the first four years of their school life, and which was intended to be not only a common school but a nonsectarian school. It aimed at greater equality in the social life of the nation as did the abolition of all titles and privileges of birth and wealth. But it is easier to provide for a new edifice than to construct one. The Grundschule met with the opposition of conservative teachers and had little enthusiastic support from Republicans. It disappeared shortly after the advent of the Nazis.

Under the Republic I was always a welcome guest in Germany, because five years after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles the American German Student Exchange was established, largely as the result of the vision and enthusiasm of Dr. Carl Friedrich, now Professor of Government at Harvard University. I had always advocated doing everything possible to heal rapidly the wounds left by the war and gladly cooperated with Dr. Friedrich, whose headquarters were at the Institute of International Education. When he was invited to teach at Harvard in 1927, the Institute took over the administration of the Exchange. The Institute became the sole representative of the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst in the United States, and the Austauschdienst became the sole representative of the Institute in Germany for the exchange of students. In order to avoid confusion and duplication of work, it was agreed that the Institute would consider no request from Germany for a fellowship unless it came through the Austauschdienst and that the Austauschdienst would consider no request from the United States unless it came through the Institute.

During the period of the Republic the relations between the two organizations were most happy. Dr. Adolf Morsbach, the Director of the Austauschdienst, who was a very patriotic and efficient German, visited this country several times and became so thoroughly acquainted with our system of higher education that he did a great deal in a few years to help make the American German Student Exchange the largest of any under the auspices of the Institute. He was later put into a concentration camp by the Nazis, at the time of the Roehm affair in 1934, and died soon after. During his tenure of office there was developed a modification of the exchange with Germany, and afterwards with other nations, called the Work Student Movement. This was initiated and successfully administered by Dr. Reinhold Schairer.

Under the Work Student Movement graduates of universities in Germany were permitted to enter the United States on non-quota visas, not to study in the institutions of higher learning but to secure employment in our industrial plants. These work students, as they were called, were carefully selected because it was expected that they would occupy executive and managerial positions in industrial plants at home. They wished to study American efficiency methods in industrial management and also the relations between the workers and the managers, which are on a happier footing in this country than in most parts of Europe. Although the majority were graduates of engineering faculties and wanted to enter our great industrial plants, there were some who went on farms that were scientifically worked and some who entered financial and commercial establishments. The plan was adopted with the agreement of the American Federation of Labor upon the condition that it be restricted in numbers and carefully supervised. In 1928 there were about one hundred and fifty work students, chiefly from Germany. The opportunity to come to the United States for this purpose was highly prized by the foreign students and there were always many more applications for the privilege than could be granted.

The advantages to the foreign work student were obvious. He was enabled to study our system of industrial management while actually earning his living in association with our own workers. He learned to know that important element of our social whole, the workers, often neglected in the observations of the university student. He usually returned to his own country with a valuable equipment of knowledge and skill which were real assets in his future career. Earnest endeavor was also made to acquaint the work student with the manifold activities of a cultural nature in the United States. Various national agencies appointed representatives on a central committee under the chairmanship of the Director of the Institute of International Education to meet from time to time for the purpose of exchanging experiences and discussing the problems of the work student movement. Unfortunately, with the deepening of the economic depression in the early 1930's, our Bureau of Immigration requested that the movement be given up. With millions of unemployed in our own country every job was needed for a citizen.

In the summer of 1929 a conference of returned German work students and industrialists who had helped to finance the activity was held at Dresden. The students took a militant attitude toward work conditions in German factories. They described the happier personal relations that existed between workers and bosses in the factories of the United States. They mentioned that when a foreman or superintendent entered the factory, he had a "good-morning" for the workmen whereas in Germany he walked stiffly to his office without a word to them. The students also pointed out that whereas industrialists in Germany were frightened at socialism, there was no socialism in the United States because workers there knew of the many instances of members of their class who had become industrialists themselves. Whether these and other statements of the students had any effect in developing more human relations between workers and bosses in German factories I had no way of knowing. But they certainly impressed the industrialists who attended the conference.

In the meantime a group of fine-spirited Americans, most of them of German ancestry, established in 1930 in the United States the Carl Schurz Memorial Foundation, whose sole object was to foster cultural relations between Germany and the United States. Its officers included some of the most distinguished figures in our national life. The Foundation had a splendid program of activities and was fortunately provided with funds almost adequate to realize the program. It sent specially selected groups to study conditions in Germany which were relevant to their own work and in which Germany had attained admitted excellence, such as forestry and municipal administration. It brought exhibits of modern German art, bookmaking and handicrafts from Germany and sent them around to our schools and colleges. It also contributed generously to the American German Student Exchange of the Institute of International Education, whose Director was one of its founders and became one of its trustees. In Germany a similar organization with the same general objectives was founded, namely, the Carl Schurz Vereinigung.

It is frequently stated that the Germans have been very unsuccessful in understanding the psychology of other peoples. This has been particularly true of the Nazis. Neither Hitler nor Goebbels had been abroad nor was aware of what the probable attitude of foreigners would be toward the kind of speeches and actions that had won success for the Nazis in Germany. This was even more true of the group of secondary leaders of the Nazis. Their attention had been concentrated upon winning control of Germany. Moreover, they did not care about foreign opinion. Almost immediately after Hitler became Chancellor there was established the Aussenpolitischesamt, i.e., the foreign department of the National Socialist Party under the supervision of Herr Rosenberg, who acted without any reference to the Foreign Office. The Foreign Office was often in complete ignorance of the activities of the Aussenpolitischesamt, to nearly all of which it was opposed.

But in the early days of success and elation, and of control by inexperienced youth, the Foreign Office was ignored. The result was that throughout Europe, Nazi propaganda had aroused alarm and fear. The movement was not long in crossing the Atlantic and penetrating the American republics especially the United States. It was natural that an organization like the Institute of International Education, devoted to international cultural activities, would soon become affected by this propaganda. It was when the activity was undertaken here that I became convinced of the apparent inability of the Germans to comprehend the psychology of foreign peoples.

I have mentioned that the exchange student plan met with an enthusiastic reception abroad as well as in our own country. It was carried on smoothly and efficiently, and nowhere more so than with Germany, which was still smarting from dislike and prejudice in 1924 when the American German Student Exchange was begun. Moreover, no foreign students were so popular in our colleges as the Germans, who were attractive young men and women as well as good scholars. This situation, however, gradually changed under the Hitler regime, because many Americans began to regard German exchange students as Nazi propagandists. When a good Jewish friend, Judge Julian Mack, discussed this possibility with me I determined to gather first-hand information so as not to be influenced by individual opinions. I wrote, therefore, in 1938 to the presidents of the institutions that were most accustomed to select German students, inquiring whether they or the professors who were chiefly responsible for the orientation of foreign students would let me know whether they were aware of German exchange students engaging in propaganda. Of the sixty replies, forty-nine said they knew of no such propaganda, five thought there was some suspicion of it and the other six did not think their experience justified either a negative or affirmative answer.

I believe that the curiosity of German students about American conditions helped spread the opinion that these young men and women were engaged in propaganda. They asked more questions than other foreign students about our policies and problems, about the New Deal, the Supreme Court controversy and other issues. Our own students in Germany were at the same time asking their German fellow students about the objectives of the Nazis in many fields. No one but myself was aware that some of the German students had visited me at the close of their term to ask whether there was no way of staying in the United States. Such action would be in violation of the agreement that all exchange students return to their own country when their scholarship tenure ended. I was, I think, in better position than anyone else to realize the great influence American free life was having upon German students, as upon all foreign students.

I spent some time in Germany in the summer of 1938 and as was my custom I had several interviews with the authorities of the Austauschdienst in Berlin. The Austauschdienst had sent Dr. Georg Rettig to the United States the previous year to report on the situation in higher education here. The Institute facilitated his investigation by providing him with letters of introduction to our college and university authorities. When I visited the Austauschdienst in 1938, I became acquainted with the real purpose and the results of Dr. Rettig's visits to our institutions.

Dr. Burmeister, who was then the Director of the Austauschdienst, informed me that it had been decided to open a German University Service in New York under the administration of Dr. Rettig. He was very emphatic in insisting that the project would not affect the relations between the Austauschdienst and the Institute of International Education in any way, that the Institute would remain the representative of the Austauschdienst in the United States and would continue in charge of the student exchange. He assured me that the new bureau would concern itself only with the physical and moral welfare of the German exchange students and give them advice upon personal problems. I answered, "If the other exchanges like those with France and Italy find entirely satisfactory the guidance and assistance the Institute renders their students, why is the German exchange not satisfied? As a consequence of your action the other large exchanges also will unquestionably want to establish university bureaux in the United States and that will endanger the success of the whole exchange movement. I want to tell you frankly that there is a growing dislike in the United States of the Nazi movement. The projected bureau will unquestionably be regarded as a matter of propaganda pure and simple."

My advice was not taken and in the fall of 1938 the German University Service was established. In the months following Dr. Rettig's arrival he visited a large number of colleges and universities and suggested to their administrative authorities that he would be glad to place exchange students in them, outside the regular exchange conducted by the Institute. This was in violation of the agreement between the Institute and the Akademische Austauschdienst at Berlin to centralize exchanges in each country in order to avoid duplication and confusion.

I was not surprised, therefore, when one morning in January 1939 Dean Schenk of Bryn Mawr College walked into the office with a message from President Marion Park. The Dean was obviously much upset. She informed me that their German exchange student, a fine young scholar, had become much disturbed upon receipt of a letter sent by Dr. Rettig to all the German exchange students. The part of the letter which gave most offense follows:

The Zweigstelle can be successful in its work only if individual exchange students supply it continually with short pertinent reports. Reports on the guest university are wanted from the academic as well as the political points of view. Generally speaking, there are three questions to be answered:

a) Which faculties come into question for a German student?

(b) What is the attitude of the individual members of the faculty, of the head of the institution and of the student body toward the exchange and Germany?

(c) What political and financial influences stand behind the university and influence its attitude?

Furthermore, reports are to be sent on congresses at the university in question or in the corresponding university cities. University and college papers are to be followed, and I ask you to send me all clippings from these papers which concern the academic and political relations of Germany to the U.S.A., of South America and of the Far East (Japan and China) to the U.S.A.

Heil Hitler!
                Rettig

Dr. Rettig's letter to the German exchange students was unquestionably an attempt at espionage. I suggested to Dean Schenk that the College leave the matter in my hands and not publicize it. The following day I went to the State Department and showed the letter to Sumner Welles, with whom I was well acquainted as the result of cooperating with the Department in cultural matters of an international nature. Mr. Welles stated that he thought my view of the matter was correct and asked me to leave it in the hands of the State Department. I do not know what action the State Department took but in less than a month the German University Service was shut up and Dr. Rettig was on his way home.

Rettig's activities which had aroused increasing resentment in college and university circles resulted in the following resolution's being adopted by the Board of Trustees of the Association of American Colleges at its annual meeting in 1939, which was held before his action in the espionage matter mentioned above:

The Board recommends that the Association re-affirm its confidence in the Institute of International Education and that it put itself on record as being in favor of continuing student exchanges with Germany exclusively through the Institute of International Education.

It was fortunate that Dr. Schacht's visit to the United States which is described on page 62 preceded mine to Germany in the summer of 1934. Schacht wished to have it believed in the United States not only that he was not a member of the Nazi party but that he deplored its extreme actions. He invited me to lunch after my arrival---partly, no doubt, as a return for my assistance during his visit to our country but also, I think, in the belief that I might have some influence upon the thinking of persons in university circles. There were present about a dozen others from among banking and financial groups, who questioned me about American antagonism to German autarchy. I did not know at the time how valuable the renewal of our acquaintance would be to me. When I left the United States to go to Russia my letter of credit was made out solely in my name. I simply paid the bills of my daughter, who joined me in England, by drawing the necessary amounts. There had been no difficulty in England, France or Switzerland before my visit to Germany. The Nazis have always boasted of their efficiency, but I found myself in trouble because some of their banking regulations contradicted others.

When my visit to Berlin drew to a close I secured from the hotel the bills for my daughter and myself and went to the bank to draw the amount necessary to pay them. The bank official refused to permit me to draw any money to pay my daughter's bill, because a regulation provided that amounts could be drawn on a letter of credit only for the persons in whose name the letter of credit was made out. I explained that I was about to leave Germany and must of necessity pay both bills. He was polite but adamant. I returned to the hotel and explained the situation. The official there was equally polite but informed me that we could not leave until the bills were paid. I went back to the bank and again received a firm refusal to allow me to draw the necessary funds. I asked to see the chief official of the bank who was equally polite but who also refused to accede to my request. Then I thought of Schacht. I said to the official, "I am a friend of Dr. Schacht. Will you please call him up and explain the circumstances." He was quite flabbergasted by my statement but promised to fulfill the request. In a few minutes he returned to say that Dr. Schacht had ordered that I be allowed to draw whatever I wanted. I am still wondering what I would have done save for his mediation.

The National Socialist Party was above all nationalist. From the beginning Hitler repeatedly denounced the Diktat of Versailles. It can be readily understood how his repeated enumeration of the terms would arouse the passionate resentment of the patriotic youth. I listened one night in the early days of his triumph to the screaming of these terms by Hitler in the Berlin Sport palast accompanied by the enthusiastic Heils of Berlin's youth and middle-aged. There was no one then left in Germany who would dare enumerate the far more outrageous terms imposed by Germany upon Russia in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918 or to suggest the probable nature of the peace Germany would have imposed upon the Allies had she won the war.

The Nazi party was also Socialist. The possessing classes had been almost ruined by the inflation. The lower middle class, largely jobless and hopeless, rallied to Hitler's support in the belief that his proposed economic reforms to bring industry, agriculture, and life generally under state control would provide it with a future. The periods of depression which followed World War I created a scholarly proletariat in Germany that provided a reservoir of restless young intellectuals from which Hitler drew his most aggressive followers. Intellectual man made way for barbarian man. The Socialists and Catholics, the chief supporters of the Weimar Republic, were frightened by the amazing growth of their enemies, the Communists. The timid, scared by the violence of the fighting in the streets between Communist and Nazi mobs, joined the Nazi movement in the sedulously propagated belief that the only alternative was chaos. The industrialists and financiers endowed the Nazi movement in the belief that if it succeeded, Hitler would become their creature. It was a case of both ends against the middle. The influential classes that had never rallied to the Republic but only tolerated it joined forces with revolutionists to overthrow the sole support of democracy, the Republic. Hitler succeeded and out went both liberals and socialists from all positions in national, state, and local administration.

In a revolutionary period there is always the attempt on the part of the leaders of the revolution to find a scapegoat upon whom the blame for the evils of the day may be placed. Hitler made the Jews the scapegoat in Germany. There had always existed some anti-Semitism in Germany and the Nazis built upon it to spread a hatred of Jews generally. The persecution resulted in regulations of ever-increasing ferocity and indecency. It became obvious that the Nazis were determined either to drive the Jews out of Germany or to exterminate them. The culmination of Nazi mass tyranny has been the deportation of urban Jews to unproductive parts of rural Poland where it would be almost impossible to survive.

The effect of the repetition of an evil action in sometimes finally causing a callous attitude toward it was made plain to me in my visits to Germany after the advent of Hitler. During my visit in 1934 some of my friends expressed as great disgust as I did toward the persecution of the Jews and showed active sympathy for their Jewish neighbors. Two years later the disgust was less pronounced in expression, and in 1938 I was made to feel that the subject was one which my friends did not want to discuss. Of course it had become dangerous to do so; and as by that time the censor prevented news of foreign disapproval from reaching the people, and as the official propaganda agencies continued to pour forth lies concerning the Jews, some of these friends may have been converted, but I doubt if many were. The fact that we are now at war with Germany does not affect my belief that the mass of the German people, like, the mass of our own people, are essentially decent and humane.

The one center of open and determined opposition to all that the Nazis stood for was the American Embassy. The last time I visited my old friend, Ambassador Dodd, he was more outraged than ever. "Dr. Duggan," he said, "I hope that as you attend dinners and luncheons, you will express your opinions about conditions here as freely as you have to me." This was unwise counsel. Had I done as he suggested I would have learned nothing about the situation. Dr. Dodd was a noble gentleman but as a result of his attitude the American Embassy was to a great extent ostracized and had practically no influence with either the German government or the people. Mr. Messersmith, our consul general at Berlin, was as bitterly opposed to the regime as was Dr. Dodd and practically everybody knew it, but his attitude was accompanied by more official reserve.

At a conference held at Berlin in 1938, one young representative of the Foreign Office remarked across the table, "I hear, Dr. Duggan, that you have been imitating Dr. Goebbels." "Impossible," I answered. "How?" "You have recently established a propaganda office in your State Department, which you camouflage as a Division of Cultural Relations. I hear you are concentrating its activities on Latin America. Why?" I explained that whereas we had intimate cultural relations with European countries we had unwisely neglect to develop them with our nearest neighbors and that our intention was not propagandist but that it was to get our people better to understand and appreciate the civilization of the Latin American peoples and to get them to do the same with regard to our civilization. My explanation met with derisory smiles.

Nearly all the forces that had united behind Hitler learned to regret their allegiance. The industrialists and financiers who had expected to put Hitler into their pocket found the position reversed and were gradually compelled to put their, businesses entirely at his disposal. They learned the unwisdom of financing violence. The labor unions were suppressed, their funds confiscated, and their leaders imprisoned. The unemployed had been organized into the Brown Shirts, Hitler's private army who were ready at any moment to engage in acts of violence against the Jews, liberals or persons suspected of enmity toward the regime. I was amazed at the amount of marching and countermarching in the streets of whatever city I visited. One day in Stuttgart I said in English to my daughter as we waited until the Brown Shirts passed in order to cross the street, "Certainly, the Brown Shirt is everywhere very much in evidence." A man who stood next to me and overheard me said, "What can you expect? They're well bought. That brown shirt is the only one they have, and, moreover, they get a good dinner every day." The basic reason for the consolidation of Hitler's power was the placement of even the minor leaders of the Brown Shirts in remunerative jobs.

Naturally, my chief interest was to discover the influence of the Nazi revolution upon the spiritual life of the nation. It was deplorable. The Church, the university, the theatre, the press, the radio, all cultural agencies were gleichgeschaltet, i.e., coordinated. If the machine had become the God in Russia, the State was now the God in Germany. Of all the religious groups, the Jews of course suffered most, but they were not alone in their persecution. The Lutheran Church had always been influenced by the government in Germany but now the attempt was made to control it entirely. Many Lutheran clergymen were imprisoned or put in concentration camps. Church papers were wantonly suppressed, while the neo-pagan writers were given full liberty for their attacks. The Nazis also attempted to extend their control to the Catholic Church. But in the case of the Catholic Church, the Vatican had to be taken into account. A concordat was signed between the Vatican and the German government but was very seldom honored by the Nazis. The Catholic youth like the youth of the Protestant churches had to be transferred to the Hitler Jugend. Young Catholics in the Nazi youth organizations were compelled to engage in drills and other exercises at such times as to prevent their attendance at mass and other religious duties. They were obliged to hear constant insulting remarks directed against the sacred traditions of Christianity. The Christian Church could not fail to protest against the activities of Dr. Rosenberg, the philosopher of the Nazi revolution. He regarded the Church as an outmoded institution, teaching an effeminate way of life unworthy of Germans. It was to be supplanted by the neo-pagan Nazi state, which provided a manly philosophy of life that rejected the meekness of Jesus in favor apparently of the virility of Wotan.

Other agencies of culture had less stamina in withstanding the Nazi onslaught. The press was first put under control to do the bidding of the government in providing the "right" information to the people. Only such plays could be produced in the theatre or shown on the screen as conformed with the standards of morality and patriotism of the Nazis. All Jewish musicians and artists, and others of dubious loyalty, were forbidden to engage in their professions. This was equally true of litterateurs. The writers were forced into a literary academy from which all liberal-minded elements were arbitrarily excluded. Publishers were forbidden to bring out any work, no matter how scholarly, that might have an appeal to the mass of readers unless it incorporated Nazi philosophy. Although all the agencies of culture continued to function, the result was sterility. Many of the most creative figures in the arts fled from the country and made their contributions to the culture of other nations.

But it was in the field of education that the worst of the evil was felt. The schools gave increased attention to questions of health and diet and the building of a robust youth. Brawn, not brains, was what Hitler wanted for his army. Work camps had been established under the Republic and retained by the Nazis. In 1934 I visited seven work camps, two of which were for women. The members were a cross section of German society from aristocrat to proletarian, the idea being to transform all classes into a unified whole. Like everyone else in the Nazi regime, the members were under military discipline. Some cooked and served food and made beds, others went out to drain swamps, dig ditches and clear paths in forests. All came together at night to listen to music and readings and especially to lectures pouring contempt on democracy and indoctrinating the audiences with Nazi philosophy and its accomplishments. One should not fail to mention the summer holidays, with ocean voyages, provided for working men. Although the whole Kraft durch Freude movement had its origin under the Republic, it was expanded and exploited by Hitler.

New schools for the training of leaders were established outside the regular school system and under the direct control of the Nazi party. They were characterized by an exaltation of physical fitness, a disdain of intellectualism and an emphasis upon race. They were intended to produce and did produce men devoid of weakness and humane considerations, fit instruments to supervise the worst of the Nazi policies such as mass deportation of undesirable elements in the population of subjugated countries.

The universities and Gymnasien were denuded of some of their most distinguished scholars simply because they were Jews or had been liberal in their teachings. The teachers in the sciences were least affected but all professors of history, philosophy, psychology, and economics had to make their lectures and publications conform with the views held by the Nazis in their fields of scholarship. Promotion in rank was in direct ratio to enthusiasm for the Nazi cause. Thus men of inferior quality were placed in chairs of great distinction. Bonfires were made of the books of the proscribed. Lectures and research were disturbed by the withdrawal of students to engage in political activities, to attend mass meetings and march in parades. It would be a mistake to suppose that no good work was accomplished in the German universities. In engineering, and technical work generally, the former high standards were maintained because the graduates of technical schools were needed for war purposes, but in medicine standards were unquestionably lowered. Most important, the Lern- und Lehrfreiheit of the university, hitherto the pride of German culture, had become a thing of the past.

One ought not forget, however, Nazi achievement in other fields. The country became covered with splendid motor roads, made unquestionably for strategic purpose, but opening up new areas for exploitation. Rivers were deepened, canals built and harbors improved. Berlin became to a considerable extent a transformed city as the result of the large building construction undertaken according to the standards of modern architecture. Rationalization made industry very efficient, usually at the expense of the worker, and Dr. Schacht with his economic missions in other countries developed a successful foreign trade.

The Germans accepted totalitarianism with comparative docility. This was true even among the intellectuals, induced by a sort of fixation of utter helplessness resulting from a powerful governmental censorship and from fanatical public excitement caused by constant and one-sided propaganda. The European nations at first regarded the Nazi upheaval with interest but comparative indifference. They had already endured eleven years of Mussolini's rantings and no great changes had taken place in the international sphere. The Nazi movement was more violent than the Fascist but it was expected that it would pass or, if it survived, would become like Fascism in Italy---more moderate with time. Moreover, in most countries Hitler was underrated. A man who at forty-five had been a failure in life, who had no educational background and little general experience, could not be expected to receive much attention. Mein Kampf was written while Hitler was doing time in prison for participating in the abortive Putsch of 1923, but it was not read till he became a national figure. Even then it was not realized that the book was really a blueprint of the future organization of Europe. Nor did the emphasis upon lying, deception, violence, and use of any means to attain the end do more at first than bring condemnation and disdain for such a leader.

But lying propaganda at home unrelieved by truthful information from abroad began to have effect. The German people gradually became convinced that a conspiracy had really been organized by the former Allies to keep Germany weak and prevent her from securing equality among the great powers of Europe. The series of diplomatic triumphs of the Nazis beginning with the reoccupation of the Rhineland and including Anschluss with Austria, annexation of the Sudetenland and occupation of Czechoslovakia---all made without cost to Germany---unquestionably gave the majority of the German people increased confidence in the Nazi regime. The rapid succession of Nazi military victories after the war broke out in 1939, moreover, stimulated the belief among considerable numbers of Germans that they were a Herrenvolk, a superior people destined to govern. Politically the Herrenvolk hoped to organize a New World Order which would maintain peace and stability and in which they would be the administrators. Economically the New World Order would mean that the other peoples would restrict themselves to agricultural and mining occupations to provide the Herrenvolk with raw materials for conversion in German factories into manufactured goods, largely for sale to the inferior peoples. The New World Order was put into effect at once with utter ruthlessness among the conquered nations of Europe. They were systematically robbed of their possessions, and their soldiers who had been made prisoners of war were sent to work in whatever regions they would be most productive for the German war machine. The New World Order brought neither peace nor stability, only hatred and sabotage.

The outrages inflicted upon the subjugated nations have aroused hatreds that bode ill for the German people. On the day of the armistice it will be necessary for Allied, troops swiftly to overrun all Germany, primarily to prevent the chaos that would otherwise probably follow the surrender of the German armies but also to let the German people understand through personal experience some thing of the bitterness they have aroused in other nations where their troops have taken over. The government immediately to be set up must of necessity be an Allied government, for it would be hopeless to decide at once to what German group that job should be given. Relief, rehabilitation, and re-education must follow, among which re-education is the most important and most difficult. If the fanatical attachment of the German youth to Nazi philosophy is not exorcised, there can be little hope for permanent peace in Europe. The Nazi terror must be extirpated and whatever government will be set up in Germany after its extinction must destroy the Junkerdom which has been the most continuous source of German militarism. That will take much time. But only then there may be some hope that the German people will graduate from the kindergarten stage of political development and undertake to govern themselves.