Die Welt

Published every Friday.

Editorial Office and Administration: VIENNA, IX., Türkenstrasse No. 9. Telephone 14199. Communications are to be addressed not to individual persons, but to the Editorial Office or the Administration: Vienna, IX., Türkenstrasse No. 9. Unstamped letters are not accepted, and manuscripts are not returned. Advertising rates: the four-column petit line, 20 Heller. The advertisement section closes Tuesday evening. Single numbers 30 Heller.

Subscription prices: Austria-Hungary: 12 Kronen yearly, 6 Kronen half-yearly. For abroad: Germany 13 Mk. 70 Pf. yearly, 6 Mk. 85 Pf. half-yearly; England 14 Shg. yearly, 7 Shg. half-yearly; Russia 7 R. yearly, 3 R. 50 Kop. half-yearly; Switzerland, France, Italy, Turkey, Roumania, Bulgaria, Servia, Greece, Egypt 17 Frcs. yearly, 8 Frcs. 50 Cts. half-yearly; America 3 Doll. 40 Ct. yearly.

No. 10 | Vienna, March 9, 1900. | Fourth Year

The Jewish Docent.

By O. Erter.

A Privatdocent of the Berlin University, Dr. Leo Arons, who delivered lectures on physics and mathematics, has been deprived of the venia legendi. Not because he is a Jew, but because he avows himself a member of the Social Democratic party. For five years past the sword of Damocles had hung above his head. Since there was no other way of getting at him, the former Minister of Public Worship, Dr. Bosse, carried through the so-called Lex Arons, by virtue of which disciplinary proceedings may be conducted against Privatdocenten if they belong to the party of "subversion." These disciplinary proceedings have to pass two instances: first the Faculty, then a Disciplinary Council composed of eleven judges and higher ministerial officials. The Faculty declared that Dr. Leo Arons had not by his political party position become "unworthy" to deliver lectures; the Disciplinary Council pronounced the contrary judgment, and Dr. Leo Arons was deprived of permission to lecture, although it had been established that in his physical and mathematical courses he had never said or taught anything whatever that stood in the remotest connection with his adherence to the Social Democratic party.

Now the sentence pronounced upon Dr. Leo Arons is being subjected to the sharpest criticism in the liberal German press. Men see in it a heavy blow against the freedom of science and the freedom of teaching. But in the circles of the university teachers not a breath stirs; there all is as still as a mouse, although one should suppose that precisely these circles would feel themselves gravely disquieted by the fate of Dr. Leo Arons. How is this indifferentism of the academic teachers to be explained? Has it its sole ground in the circumstance that Dr. Leo Arons holds to the Social Democratic party, and that no university professor in the German Empire has the courage to stand up for a Social Democrat? Or is there added, as a second ground, the fact that Dr. Leo Arons is also a Jew?

This alternative question is assuredly not unwarranted. And only for its sake has the Arons case its special significance for us. Against Social Democracy the State turns its sharpest weapons, and that for the Berlin Government Dr. Leo Arons' avowal of Social Democracy sufficed all by itself to remove him from the University, we hold to be settled. But the Faculty is not the State, and it marked this clearly as the first instance by its acquitting judgment. Why, then, does it nevertheless now wrap itself in a singular silence, when it appears indispensable that, in the interest of the freedom of science and of teaching, it should raise its voice against the dangerous precedent of the Arons case? Under the title of "unworthiness" the axe of disciplinary proceedings may very soon descend upon other university teachers as well: upon a naturalist suspected of atheism, upon a liberal theologian suspected of want of churchliness, upon a political economist suspected of socialistic leanings. Why, then, is the Faculty silent? For this there is but a single interpretation: the Faculty will not expose itself for the Jew.

It will perhaps be said that this is a monstrous interpretation. But unhappily it is nevertheless very obvious. Upon the Faculty there presses not only the State with its unreserved inflexibility towards Social Democracy; upon the Faculty there presses still more the terrorism of society, which, with the tacit assistance of the official apparatus, turns itself against the Jews. To this terrorism the Faculty dares offer no resistance; probably it could not even do so unanimously, because there are unquestionably elements enough within it which not only do not feel that terrorism as such, but on the contrary feel themselves in solidarity with it. One need only recall that Heinrich von Treitschke occupied an authoritative position among the teachers of the Berlin University. Treitschke would perhaps also have held with the majority of the Faculty which, in order to ward off an attack upon the freedom of science and of teaching, denied the "unworthiness" of a Social Democratic Privatdocent to deliver lectures. Perhaps, although he