COMMEMORATION OF SCHILLER

The one hundredth anniversary of the death of Schiller was celebrated yesterday by literary exercises in the Fogg Lecture Room in the afternoon and by a theatrical performance given in Sanders Theatre in the evening by Mr. Heinrich Conried, under the auspices of the Deutscher Verein, for the benefit of the Germanic Museum. Both the exercises and the theatrical performance were very largely attended and well received.

The program in the evening consisted of four of Schiller's masterpieces. The first number, "Das Lied von der Glocke," was given with musical accompaniment and with tableaux after the paintings by Kaulback. The lines were excellently recited by two of Mr. Conried's artists, and the tableaux, by undergraduates, were enthusiastically received. Mr. Conried then recited "Das Verschleirte Bild zu Sais" and "Die Kraniche des Ibykus." His rendering was both artistic and keenly appreciative. The last number, the third act of Mary Stuart, was a disappointing anti-climax. The character of Queen Elizabeth was played in an intensely unsympathetic manner and the entire act showed the folly of taking a few incomplete scenes from a perfect whole.

In the afternoon Major Henry Lee Higginson, who presided in place of President Eliot, opened the exercises with a brief address in which he emphasized the cordial feelings existing between Harvard University and the German people.

Mr. W. R. Thayer '81 then spoke on "Schiller's Idea of Liberty."

"The vitality of Schiller's reputation," he said, "is one of the noblest facts in German literature. Goethe overtops him in almost every field, and Heine surpasses him in lyric perfection, yet it is Schiller, and neither Goethe nor Heine, whom the German people have taken into their hearts, and whom foreigners have agreed to honor as the spokesman of many of the finest traits in the German nature."

Schiller was an idealist in the true meaning of the word, continued Mr. Thayer, having as his aim an ideal which should help all mankind, a supreme love of liberty. Firm in this ideal, he passed the first part of his life protesting against the servile conditions he saw about him. From the bitter disappointment caused by the failure of the French revolution to effect the liberty and happiness he so much desired, Schiller, the true idealist, rose triumphant, and devoted the rest of his life to teaching and uplifting the character by setting up, in his works, shining examples, and by revealing the naked ugliness of tyranny.

Professor Francke spoke next on "Schiller's Message to Modern Life."

Every line written by Schiller, he said, every deed done by him, proclaims the fact that he felt himself to be the bearer of a sacred message to humanity.

Schiller lived at a time when Germany was being torn gradually to pieces by the onslaught of Napoleonic imperialism. A few great men, notably Kant, Goethe and Schiller, remained to re-awaken the national soul. Schiller strove to create perfect natures by the perfection of every quality given us, and by the conception of art as the highest of human activities. The present times, with their material, worldly tendencies, the merging of the souls of individuals into soulless machines, offer a splendid mission for Schiller's conception of art; and that art would be a tower of strength in the struggle for an enlightened, unselfish, elevated national consciousness.

Professor H. Munsterberg h.'01, the last speaker, discussed "Schiller and Goethe."

The two, he began, cannot be separated in the mind of the mature admirer of Germany's classic age in literature. In spite of the close connection between the two men, however, their views of life were very different. Yet, at times, we find them apparently exchanging their roles, "When Goethe philosophizes, while Schiller's pure genius sings unreflectingly into the beauty of the Universe." They first met in a formal way. Intimacy quickly resulted, however, and under that comradeship the two gave their finest works to the world. Theirs was a friendship to whose inner nobility and inspiration, to whose fruitfulness for the friends and for the world there is no counterpart in the history of mankind.

Professor Munsterberg then read Goethe's verses in memory of Schiller written as an epilogue for the special representation of Schiller's "Glocke," given in 1815 at the tenth anniversary of the poet's death.