Education: Reply

When the time came last spring for Harvardman Ernst Franz Sedgwick Hanfstaengl to contribute toward the gift which every Harvard class makes to its Alma Mater at its 25th reunion, Adolf Hitler’s rollicking piano player and shrewd Foreign Press Chief decided to make no anonymous gift. Instead he wrote to Harvard’s president:

I have decided, as modest proof of my loyalty, to double the sum of my class subscription. I should like this donation of $1,000 to be known as the Dr. Hanfstaengl Scholarship.

This scholarship is to enable an outstanding Harvard student, preferably the son of one of my old classmates, to study in Germany in any field of art or science.

Last week’s mail brought to Alumnus Hanfstaengl his Alma Mater’s reply, written by young Scientist-President James Bryant Conant as follows:

We are unwilling to accept a gift from one who has been so closely associated with the leadership of a political party which has inflicted damage on the universities of Germany through measures which have struck at principles we believe to be fundamental to universities throughout the world.