The University in the Modern World

Abstract

In rising to play my part in inaugurating this very important Conference, I should be doing less than justice to the occasion did I not pay tribute to the felicity of its location. For those of us who have the solidarity of international learning at heart, your famous University of Göttingen must always occupy a special place in our admiration and respect. From the days of its foundation — when, incidentally, Mr. Rector, your predecessors and mine lived under a common monarch — it has been one of the main centres of thought and scholarship in the civilization of the West; and the protest of the Göttingen Sieben is notable as an outstanding gesture in defence of freedom. We are grateful, Mr. Rector, for your hospitality; and as, under your auspices, we consider the problems of the future, we shall be conscious of the achievements of your glorious past.