Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 57, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 March 1914 — German-American institute. [ARTICLE]

German-American institute.

Not many institutions for the promotion of international understanding can boast such a record of practical usefulness as the Amerika-InstitUt of Berlin, which this month completes its third year. Founded under the auspices of the Prussian ministry of education, and located in the new Royal library, its chief province has naturally been that of scholarship. But for the many Americans and Germans who, in public, scientific, and literary pursuits alike, find themselves in need of information as to what has been done across seas, it has become an invaluable medium of inquiry. Its services, again, to the great number of students, government officials, professors on sabbatical leave, and representatives of learned societies who are annually interchanged, ignorant often of local conditions and even language, cover a wide range. It has assisted the authors of 2,500 German books to obtain a copyright in America; it has encouraged the translation of books and articles in both countries; and it has accumulated a large library of Americana in Berlin, for the use of German scholars and exiles or visiting Americans. Such an Institution seems peculiarly German in the very thoroughness with which it has substituted systematic methods for the naturally haphazard means of intercourse; but ft is ati-the-more to be wished that as between other European nations and the United States similar bureaus could be brought into existence. —New York Evening Post.