THE DEED AND THE WORD

The University has explained its position on the question of hiring exiled German professors, recommended by the Emergency Committee on the basis of principle. Harvard did not wish to be committed to employing men whom others chose.

However laudable the principle, unglossed is the harsh fact that this University, the avowed intention of which is to procure men of the highest calibre for our faculty, has birked the opportunity to secure any of the best thirty-one of twelve hundred German scholars, among them Nobel prize winners. This group of men was probably of the type named "creative scholars," of whom the University is by its own tacit admission so much in need.

Beside the point is discussion of the treatment which exiles now receive here, or of the Transcript's innuendo on anti-Semitism, or of the irrelevant defense that the University "does not hire men on a basis of their political connections." The test of Harvard's ability to procure creative scholars may be considered to lie in its policy toward the remaining thousand and odd German exiles; among them there must be some outstanding brilliants. To advance learning the Officers may well remember that "The deed is all, and nothing the report.'