Before a very numerous and selected public Prof. Dr. Eugene Kuehnemann, the Rector of the Royal Academy of Posen last night in the Steinway Hall made his second and last public speech and chose for his theme: "Gerhardt Hauptmann and German Literature."

The adorable but difficult task to give this interesting new German poet whose future works are still in the making, his rightful place in the history of the literature, and to bring him closer to the understanding of the public, the speaker achieved with great talent.

The principle, that the development of the German drama did not keep pace with the magnificent growth of other intellectual activities and that the great drama, which could be regarded as the crown of German literature had not been created yet was assumed by the speaker. At the time when the German classics created their immortal masterpieces, there 2was no German people, nor a German Society nor a German public. That all had to be created; after that was a time of literary descent.

The aurora of a new and better time began to dawn when authors like Grillparzer and Hebbel offered their creations. The great monumental German drama still remained a dream. At the later date, it was expected that Wildenbrech and Sudermann would be the redeemers. Though both created splendid works and especially Sudermann possessed an unmistakable stage instinct, they did not rise to the desired expectations. In the year 1888-1889 Hauptmann, attracted great attention with his first work "Before Sunrise." Never was a work so much discussed as this. Everybody had to agree, that here was an eminent poet,who had dared to bring to the stage fresh pulsating life, real humans with all their faults. The speaker criticised the different works of the authors in a very interesting manner. He pictured the infatigable action of the poet of real longing for light and perfection as it often slumbers in the souls of the people. He showed how Hauptmann always tried to solve new problems and how each new work created a new admiration and always showed a different view of the author. The first works "Before Sunrise", 3"The Day of Atonement," "Lonely People" have only been experiments, dramatized novels, till he dared to create the great drama: Die Weber (The Weavers.) His greatest strength and the most time he sacrificed to "Florian Geyer", which to a certain extent surpassed Goethe's "Goetz von Berlinchen" and was of high dramatic and st ggering effect in the 3rd and 4th acts, but was a failure in the lecture and on the stage.

The poet, who felt himself related to Nietsche in his philosophical world views suffered much from this failure. In his fairy tale creation "The Sunken Bell" (Die versunkene Glocke) he complained about the fight, which existed in the breast of the creating poet between ideals and the rough reality. The speaker concluded that Hauptmann did not reach his ambitious goal to climb to the top of his art, but he strives continuously for perfection. He succeeded best in describing gloomy persons and to create monumental works. Like Leo Folstir and Henrik Ibsen, he has not achieved real success, though he worked hard for it. It is however not impossible, that he may still succeed in creating the long wished for German drama.