Before the war there were four universities in Belgium: the Catholic university of Louvain, the liberal or non-sectarian university of Brussels, and the two state universities of Liége and Ghent. The instruction was given entirely in French, except that there were certain courses at Louvain and Ghent which were paralleled, rather expensively, one would think, by courses in Flemish. In 1911 a bill was introduced in the Belgian Parliament looking to the gradual transformation of the University of Ghent into an institution completely Flemish. In 1912 this proposal was again discussed, and was reported favorably in the Chamber of Representatives. The war of course put an end to the project. Now the Germans have taken it up with enthusiasm, trying to harvest for their own purposes the sympathies that were formerly cultivated in its favor. Whether they annex all or part or none of Belgium, they desire to pose as the liberators of Flanders, and to foment a permanent jealousy between the Flemish-speaking people and the rest of the Belgian population. This is precisely like their conduct in the south of Ireland, in the Province of Quebec, and in Russia. They have their eye on Antwerp, which they intend to keep, whatever happens, and they realize that Flanders would be a good basis for the eventual absorption of Holland. On December 2, 1915, it became known in Belgium that the German authorities purposed to reopen the University of Ghent, which of course had been closed, and to make Flemish the language of instruction. Their design was instantly understood by everybody, including the leaders of the old Flamingant movement, who, instead of falling in with it, met it with a vigorous protest. This was disregarded, and on the 31st of December the decree was promulgated. A commission of German professors was empowered to draw up regulations for carrying out the plan of transformation. Meanwhile, in order to encourage as many Belgian young men as possible to escape from the country and find their way into the Belgian army, the real authorities of the four universities were keeping these institutions closed. Their passive resistance enraged the Germans, who, on March 18, 1916, arrested the two most celebrated professors of Ghent, Henri Pirenne, and Paul Frédéricq, eminent historians, and sent them to prison-camps in Germany, where they have been treated with disgusting brutality. The colleagues of these two brave men were not less courageous themselves, and signed a second protest. Thereupon the Germans made up a ridiculous little faculty of their own, and imposed it upon the university, which, we must remember had no students. There were at first seven of these professors, of whom one was a German, another a native of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, and five were Belgians without distinction in the learned world or respectability as citizens. To these were later added a number of equally insignificant Dutch and German