74 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



THE EOYAL PEUSSIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE AND 

 THE FINE AETS. BEELIN. 



By EDWARD P. WILLIAMS. 



CHICAGO, ILL. 



III. From the death of Frederick the Great to the death of 

 Frederick William III., 1786-1812. 



~VTO THING was of more importance to the academy during this 

 -*-^ period than its change from a French to a German institution. 

 This change was brought about in part under Frederick William II. 

 (1786-1797) by his minister Hertzberg who had long been a member 

 of the academy, and who under the new king became its curator and 

 so remained till his death in 1795. The change was made complete, in 

 form at least, by the adoption, in 1812, of what is known as the Hum- 

 boldt brothers' statute. At this time the academy was ruled by a new 

 spirit. It was under the control of men like the Humboldts, Niebuhr 

 and Schleiermacher, who sought to realize through it the aims of 

 Leibniz, its founder. The new spirit was manifest in all its depart- 

 ments ; in those of philosophy, history and philology, as well as in those 

 of science. Together with a growing respect for the ability of German 

 writers and thinkers there was an increasing love for the fatherland, 

 a conviction that patriotism was as worthy of cultivation as the new 

 fields of learning which were opening on every side. 



Hertzberg, though somewhat arbitrary in his methods, saved the 

 academy from threatened dissolution. He was in many respects a very 

 remarkable man. As a statesman he sought to carry out the views of 

 Frederick the Great. A true son of his century, a scholar of no mean 

 rank, skillful as a historical student in the use of original* documents 

 and deeply interested in the work of the academy, he determined to re- 

 organize it on the basis of the old German spirit. If he cared little 

 for Goethe and his cosmopolitanism and failed to appreciate Herder at 

 his true worth, he did not fail to see what an opportunity the academy 

 might have for directing the thought and life of the German people. 

 In his hands the curatorship became an office of power. In order to 

 weaken French influence in the academy during his first year as 

 curator he added fifteen Germans to its eighteen active members, and 

 secured for foreign membership men of the first rank like Gasse of 

 Breslau, Eberhard of Halle, Kant of Konigsberg, Magellan, Volta, Wie- 

 land, Heyne and Herder. His only mistake was in not bringing these 

 men to Berlin and associating them with the resident German element 



