TEE PRUSSIAN ACAEEMY OF SCIENCE. 79 



measure responsible for the work of his class, the nature and amount of 

 which he determined. In addition to presiding at the meetings of his 

 own class, each secretary in turn presided for a period of three months 

 at the general meetings of the academy. Treatises receiving the prize 

 were regarded as the property of the academy and those deemed worthy 

 of favorable mention could be printed by it if it desired. But no paper 

 could be printed except by a two thirds' vote of the whole academy. 

 Out of the income of $7,000, the sum of $650 was set aside for emer- 

 gencies and $700 for scientific purposes. Though cramped for means 

 the academy was now better organized than ever. It had proved its 

 right to live. In fact it had made a place for itself among the learned 

 societies of the world. It had gained the respect and confidence of 

 German scholars and was beginning to enjoy, as it had done in the 

 time of Frederick the Great, the favor of the reigning sovereign and 

 of his ministers of state. How this had gradually been done will be 

 seen in a brief account of the work accomplished during the period 

 under review. 



This consisted to a very large extent in offering prizes and in de- 

 ciding upon the merits of the treatises which these offers secured. The 

 subjects discussed indicate the thought of the period. But the academy 

 did more than read learned papers and determine their respective 

 merits. In the sentiment it created, and by means of the topics it se- 

 lected for consideration, it directed the thought of the time. Some 

 of these topics may here be given. In 1786-87 the question to be 

 answered was 'shall the mythology of the Greeks and the Eomans be 

 retained in modern poems, or that oldest German and northern doctrine 

 of the gods, or the miracles of the Christian religion ? ' Such a question 

 indicates unrest and dissatisfaction in the minds of some of the older 

 poets of the time. Four years later Gedike asked the academy, 'what 

 reason is there in the present condition of learning to look upon the 

 ancient languages as the foundation of a liberal education, and would 

 it be advantageous or disadvantageous for science to treat them no 

 longer as a part of official instruction, but confine their study to a 

 limited class of scholars?' Teachers, it was agreed by all, must learn 

 them, but there were many, then as now, who doubted the value for all 

 classes of pupils of training in the classical languages. 



The king desired the discussion of what he was pleased to term more 

 practical questions. For example : ' Was Brandenburg before the thirty 

 years war better off or more populous than about 1740?' 'What was 

 the influence of authors in the time of Louis XIV. upon the spirit and 

 culture of the European nations?' The academy, however neutral it 

 might desire to be, could not prevent its members from discussing the 

 philosophy of Kant. Anxious as it was to be impartial, as a matter 

 of fact not many of its members accepted the principles of Kant. They 



