Professor Kuno Francke, who died at an old age in Cambridge, Massachusetts, personified in his person the best type of those German scholars who preach the gospel of German science and culture in foreign countries.

His actual life-work fell in the pre-war period, in those times, when - politically - a very friendly relation prevailed between the United States and Germany, when in the best American circles the understanding for the achievements of the German spirit began to awaken. These conditions and these moods formed the background and the preliminaries for Kuno Franck's life-work. Therefore, the entrance of the United States into the World War was a terrible blow to him.

He was a scholar, and thanks to his extended studies he mastered the German cultural life of the time beginning with the reformation until the present time. He looked with clear eyes into the world and represented the view-point, that a professor should submerge himself with devotion not only into the book of the past, but should have understanding and interest also for the demands of the present time. From this point of view, he considered it his life-work to establish a spiritual approach between Germanism and Americanism. This aim he had in view during his many years of teaching activity as professor of Harvard University, at the creation of the Germanic Museum, and at the carrying out of the interchange of professors between America and Germany. During these endeavors, he found in Theodore Roosevelt and Emperor William appreciative and enthusiastic promoters.

It is clear, that the outbreak of the bloody conflict between the two nations hit him with terrific force. But in spite of it, Kuno Francke did not despair. He knew he had not built upon sand; that his life-work rested upon a solid and real foundation; that a spiritual approach between the German and the American spirit could probably be interrupted by war, but could not be destroyed. In this belief and in this confidence he wrote his last work, which points out to Germans, Americans and German-Americans, the new path to the future.

Kuno Francke was strongly attacked by those Germen-Americans, whose aim it was to organize the masses. To them he did not withhold his answer; and probably all agree to-day that his apprehension was clearer and that he judged things more correctly, than they did.

He was no agitator and demagogue; but one who among the distinguished personalities, developing in Americans an understanding of the German spirit and German culture, will always occupy an honorable place.