All these subjects can be studied by Slavic scholars in America without limiting the study to an assumed narrow sphere which has, too often, been the fate of studies both in Europe and the Slavic lands. The viewpoint of American students, therefore, with a broader perspective may result in a new school of Slavic studies, oriented by an impartial attitude to either the Russian imperialistic claims or the German desire to treat Eastern Europe, in the broader sense, as a subordinate arena in the world’s history. These traditional viewpoints are today being outmoded rapidly by current history; therefore, the sooner American Slavic and East European scholarship realizes its own possibilities and its subject matter, the more valuable will be its contribution to the welfare of the United States and the world. _VI. Area Studies_ The development of area studies, which first attracted wide attention during World War II, fills a certain gap in the general organization of Slavic and East European studies. They compensate for a deficiency in the education and application of students but they can never fully replace the work of the graduate school. Area studies are at their best when they train young men and women in a knowledge of regions relatively unknown to the general public, which for one reason or another are so inaccessible that few, if any, of the students will have an opportunity to visit them in the course of their studies. They can then be regarded in two quite different ways, for they are either a desirable prelude to more serious work or they are vocational schools of the highest class. In either respect, they will prove their value if properly handled. To understand the place of area studies, it must be recognized that the American university system has sharply differentiated between the cultural linguistic phases and historical and economic aspects of any given section of the world. Both areas of understanding require a knowledge of the general geography, the outstanding products of the region, its population and characteristics. It has been far too easy, in the past, for students of Slavic, as well as other cultures, to secure a knowledge of the literature of a period without an adequate realization of the background against which that literature was produced. To cite an example from Russian literature, during the first half of the nineteenth century, very few Russian writers ever visited Kiev and apart from the visit of Pushkin to the south of Russia and the service of Lermontov and Leo Tolstoy in the Caucasus, there are few works which picture anything but St. Petersburg, Moscow and a small area south of Moscow. While the average student does not expect such a limitation of subject matter, it is at once obvious from the most superficial knowledge of the expanse of Russia. We could parallel this case with any number of others.