which Harvard, which has given birth to so many of your great characters of public life and science, is the most ancient and the most important. I need not mention any names; you all know them, and you all know what we owe them, especially on this day of the opening of the Germanic Museum, which will form, I sincerely hope, a new link in the chain that connects the American and German worlds of thought.
I believe that it is just because the Americans have so much in common, in blood and in thought, with the Germans, that the great men who have had a paramount influence on our history and culture are so well known in this country and have so many admirers in the United States. Let me only mention the names of Luther, who was born on this very 10th day of November; of Frederick the Great, the first monarch to establish in his realm the principle of religious toleration, which is now recognized in all progressing countries of the world, not least in the United States; further, of Goethe and Schiller, whose immortal works and poems are familiar to nearly all of you. And how many among us to-day are not admirers of the great chancellor, Bismarck, who so powerfully helped his master to build up the German Empire, an empire, the constitution of which allows to its individual States so large a part in the legislation and administration of the country, and which has many analogies with the constitution which your ancestors gave over one hundred years ago to this republic?
I was reading a few days ago, an article from the pen of your late Ambassador to Germany, Mr. Andrew D. White. He knew the Iron Chancellor personally and he declares him to be the greatest German since the time of Luther; and the way in which he speaks of him shows clearly how much he admires him, and the fact of his being so thoroughly German explains, perhaps, the great liking which he entertained for his kinsmen across the ocean, which Mr. White attributes to him in his article. In Germany, on the other hand, there exists a lively interest in the great men that founded this country, like Washington and Franklin, who laid down the principles of freedom that are still paramount in the United States.
While I pointed out before that German science had great-
