Today, June 3, 2020, marks the 89th anniversary of Dr. Franz Pieper's "Heimgang" or "going home". I would mark this with an English translation of a short blurb written 100 years ago. Although it was not signed "F. P.", yet it well expresses Pieper's thought. The timing of it is the period of adjustment immediately after World War I, for Germany and America. It appeared in volume 66 of Lehre und Wehre, p. 92:
German language instruction in secondary schools in the United States. At the Annual Convention of the Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools of the Southern States, held in Louisville, Ky., in December of last year [1919], several representatives expressed the view that the German language should be taught in American universities, colleges and higher education institutions, but not in the graduate schools. Prof. Charles G. Maphis of the state University of Georgia stated that it would be folly to expel the German language from the universities and colleges of this country because then “we would not understand what Germany is doing in the field of science.”
The writer was perceptive about Prof. Maphis's motive for promoting the German language in America – only for science. This shows that American academia knew that Germany was one of the leaders in the technological sciences at that time. And it was to a German scientist, Wernher von Braun, that America later turned in it's quest for space exploration.
But Prof. Maphis leaves out, for whatever reason, the field of theology. Wasn't the language of Martin Luther German? We note that the writing did not make a comment against Prof. Maphis. This may have been in the hope that the German language, after World War I, might gain re-acceptance again in America, even if only for the reason of… science. — We continue our English translation of the German language book The History of the Missouri Synod, 1838-1884 in the next Part 4b. Why? Because American Lutherans, like me, do not know the German language, and so are largely cut off from the heritage of Martin Luther.
But Prof. Maphis leaves out, for whatever reason, the field of theology. Wasn't the language of Martin Luther German? We note that the writing did not make a comment against Prof. Maphis. This may have been in the hope that the German language, after World War I, might gain re-acceptance again in America, even if only for the reason of… science. — We continue our English translation of the German language book The History of the Missouri Synod, 1838-1884 in the next Part 4b. Why? Because American Lutherans, like me, do not know the German language, and so are largely cut off from the heritage of Martin Luther.
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