William James

“ The Germanic genius loves unique objects, rich in curves and quirks, and points of peculiarity.
The mediterranean genius, more precocious, got historically the earlier right of way in artistic matters, and in that field has usually kept the prestige and authority. A century ago the great literary Germans themselves almost forgot, in their admiration of the classic spirit, what they owed to their own Northern character. It was in the philosophic and scientific field, and in poetry, that the greatness of the German genius first came to be acknowledged. ”

“ But greatness can afford to bide its time. The whirligig has its revenges. And there is something almost epigrammatic in the fact that one of the very first steps which Harvard takes towards what must eventually be a great illustrative museum of plastic art-history, should be that splendid room-full of German objects now in the old gymnasium,—German objects, with their unreduced uniqueness and individuality.
Germany has caught up, then, and taken the lead here, but the Italic and the Gallic genius must follow. Then only will our liberalizing background fill the measure of its possibilities. ”

“ It is, now, as part of our own general background that we non-Germanic members of the Faculties so gladly greet the Germanic Museum. Although collectively we may possibly be as wondrously learned as the outside public supposes us, what is really perhaps the most wondrous thing about us is the encyclopaedic character of our ignorance,—when we are taken singly. ”

“ But in spite of the intellectuality of classic work, we may still believe in our Germanic spirit as being the more fruitful thing. Its productions are fuller-bodied and less abstract. Something indeed it misses,—universality, simplicity, and purity ”

“ We gain above all a certain loveability in our works. Love goes from one individual to another individual, but individuals are always redundant with their own detail. Love, when once kindled, feeds on every point of peculiarity which its object offers. ”

“ And with the ever-growing vastness of what there is to be known, and the awful specialty now required of the knower, it appears more and more as if the only superiority which the so-called “liberally” educated man can have over others, is just the possession of this background, which narrowly educated men have perforce to go without. ”

“ The mediterranean or classic spirit has always sought to avoid strangeness, and thereby its works are so wonderfully communicable and urbane. It starts with the notion that a noble ensemble is possible, and works over the raw material by way of elimination and abstraction. ”

“ Professor Francke this afternoon has spoken of the intense spirit of individualism that characterizes German life and animates the works here shown. Our University, like our old Bay State, has always been noted for its individualism. ”

“ Our buildings are becoming so numerous, and have such curious uses, that of themselves they form a kind of city, and give to the newcomer that sense of indefinable interests, fed from unknown sources and ministering to unintelligible needs, with which cities in general affect their rustic visitors. ”

“ We are happy to have with us to-day a distinguished philosopher, widely known in this country and abroad, whose work exemplifies as well as that of any living scholar the unity and mutual interdependence of German and American thought, Professor William James. ”