The Menorah Society appeals to me as a college graduate not only for
many of its positive virtues but also for some of its negative merits.
It is not in any sense a social organization, and above all it is not
a secret society. Now I have my own peculiar views about secret
societies in universities, and I do not believe that they tend to
promote college spirit and college unity. It has been well said that
in these societies those who are in any particular societies are
brothers, while every one else who belongs to another society, or to
no society whatever, is just a step-brother. To my mind that is not a
good spirit in an American institution.
It seems to me that, having in this city a Hebrew Union College with a
gifted faculty, we should establish at our University a Department of
Semitics. Since the University is a public school, an institution
supported by public taxation, it certainly could not affiliate
directly with a sectarian institution, but I see no reason why the
professors in the Hebrew College, if they are not already overworked
like the students, should not be able to conduct courses at the
University itself, and I believe such courses would promote the
Menorah movement more than anything else you could do. I think you
would attract students from far and wide to the University of
Cincinnati, and you would thereby achieve one of the ends for which
you are working.