OUR CHANCE IN SOUTH AMERICA.

Following on Professor Lima's opinion in the CRIMSON a week ago that exchange professorships with South America are feasible, Dr. Klein adds more definitely that Harvard may well act first in this project. That Harvard is little known in South America is hardly surprising. For, conversely, few Americans have heard that Argentina has a university established twenty-three years before Harvard was in existence. Still, when our entire nation's acquaintance with Spanish America is slight, and when the University possibly ranks no better than fourth among American institutions in its southern influence, our broad considerations are backed up by some selfish desire to take the lead.

The very valuable intellectual and cultural interests to be promoted by exchange professorships are less obvious at present than the equally vital practical advantages. Our constantly growing international relations will be followed by visits from scholars of every corner of the world. The system, with South America as elsewhere, is inevitable. And a start should be made while the Latin professors, who have in the past looked to Europe for fresh ideas and for visiting lectureships, are still unaccustomed to the conditions caused by the war, and are not settled in their present necessity of staying at home for all of their research work.

Faculty members in South America, says Dr. Klein, take more prominent places in politics than our own professors do. Granted that our most immediate interest is commercial, and that time will be needed to build up closer intellectual relations, one further practical gain will result. The southern scholars, with their training in public affairs, can teach us the very problems of law, banking, and transportation, ignorance of which now seriously handicaps American business houses. The war has made available the best of Latin American professors and has opened to us the field of southern trade. Now is the time to build up permanent results.