window, was overcome with the impression that there was no end to it. The whole street took alarm, for at first it was imagined that a fire had broken out, and at the palace the watch was called out--yet, a little later in the course, there was a depressing ebb of the tide, after the first curiosity had been appeased; the audience gradually vanished into thin air, a proof of the fact that the nimbus of a name does not suffice to maintain the interest between the lecturer's desk and the audience. I mentioned this example at the time when Einstein's gift for teaching had gradually increased the number of his hearers to the record figure of 1200, yet I did not on this occasion detect any inordinate joy in him about his success. I gained the impression that he had strained his voice in the vast hall. His mood betrayed in consequence a slight undercurrent of irritation. In an access of scepticism he murmured the words, "A mere matter of fashion." I cannot imagine that he was entirely in earnest. It goes without saying that I protested against the expression. But, even if there were a particle of truth in it, we might well be pleased to find such a fashion in intellectual matters, one that persists so long and promises to last. The world would recover its normal healthy state if fashions of this kind were to come into full swing. It is, of course, easy to understand on psychological grounds that Einstein himself takes up a sort of defensive position against his own renown, and that he occasionally tries to attack it by means of sarcasm, seeing that he cannot find serious arguments to oppose it. * * * * * * * * Whether Einstein's ideas and proposals concerning educational reform will be capable of realization throughout is a question that time alone can answer. We must make it clear to ourselves that, if carried out along free-thinking lines, they will demand certain sacrifices, and it depends on the apportionment of these sacrifices as to what the next, or the following, generation will have to exhibit in the way of mental training. An appreciable restriction will have to be imposed on the time given to languages. It is a matter of deciding how far this will affect the foundations that, under the collective term _humaniora_, have supported the whole system of classical schools for centuries. The fundamental ideas of reform, which, owing to the redivision of school-hours and the economy of work, no longer claim precedence for languages, indicate that not much will be left of the original Latin and Greek basis.