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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



diurn of the highest scientific training. Prepara- 

 tion for a profession is indeed the main object 

 of a German university ; but it is not, as in 

 France, the only one. The great principle of 

 teaching in the former is the continual blending 

 of instructian and research, and the German uni- 

 versities are such good schools, because they are 

 not only places of instruction but workshops of 

 science. The enlargement and strengthening of 

 the mind which the English systems aims at ex- 

 clusively, the Germans endeavor to combine with 

 preparation for the practical business of life. 

 Their professors have to supply the state with a 

 sufficient number of young men capable of under- 

 taking the duties of clergymen, schoolmasters, 

 lawyers, physicians, civil servants, etc., and we 

 know that this practical end is fully attained. 

 But the successful result is a matter of perpetual 

 astonishment to us, with our ideas and our ex- 

 perience, when we come to consider the nature 

 of the means employed. The professor announces 

 a course of lectures, which the student may at- 

 tend or not as he pleases ; and these lectures are 

 not, as we might expect, a compendium of prac- 

 tical knowledge, which his pupils may commit to 

 memory and reproduce at their examinations, 

 and use at their first start in their professional 

 career, but generally an original scientific inves- 

 tigation of some new field of thought, a peering 

 from the heights of accumulated knowledge into 

 the dim and cloud-shadowed horizon. In every 

 lecture the professor is supposed to be engaged 

 in the act of creation, and the student to be im- 

 bibing the scientific spirit and acquiring the sci- 

 entific method — watching the weaver at his loom 

 and learning to weave for himself. Whether the 

 latter does his part or not is entirely his own 

 concern. He is never questioned in his class or 

 examined at the end of the term or year, and 

 may pass his whole university life without any 

 intimate personal acquaintance with the man 

 whose business it is to cultivate his powers and 

 fit him to serve his generation. The sources of 

 the practical knowledge he needs are, of course, 

 pointed out to him for private reading, but he is 

 left to use them when and how he pleases, and 

 to prepare himself alone, or in company with his 

 fellow-students, for his distant examination. Nor 

 is the higher work of the professor supplemented, 

 as with us, by private tutors, " coaches," or 

 " crammers." In fact, there is no part of our 

 collegiate system which is more universally rep- 

 robated by the Germans. " What we want for 

 our students," they say, " is not the assistance 

 of private tutors, but private independent study 



without assistance. . . . Away with all supervision 

 and drilling ! If you were to subject our men to 

 private tuition, and regulate and inspect their 

 studies, you would destroy at a blow the scien- 

 tific spirit in our universities. The main object of 

 a university, as distinguished from a school, is 

 to foster independent thought — the true founda- 

 tion of independence of character. The student 

 must, of course, be fitted to gain his livelihood, 

 but show him where the necessary information is 

 to be acquired, and place an examination in full 

 view at the end of his curriculum, and he will 

 prepare himself far better than if he were 

 crammed by others, in a manner not suited, per- 

 haps, to his mental constitution." 



I will now recapitulate the principal charac- 

 teristic differences between the German and the 

 English university. 



The former, as we have seen, is a national 

 institution, entirely supported by the state, sub- 

 ject to the supervision and control of the central 

 government, frequented by all but the poorest 

 classes of the community, and therefore immedi- 

 ately and directly influenced by political and 

 social changes. The latter is a wealthy corpora- 

 tion enjoying a very large measure of indepen- 

 dence, frequented chiefly by the higher and more 

 conservative classes, but little influenced by po- 

 litical changes or the prevailing opinions and 

 customs of the masses, dwelling in empyrean 

 heights remote from the noise and heat of con- 

 tending factions and all the changes and chances 

 of the work-a day world. 



" Semota ab rebus sejunctaque longe, 

 Nam privata dolore omni, privata periclis, 

 Ipsa suis pollens opibus nihil indiga uostri." 



Again, the internal government of the Corpus 

 Acad, in Germany is almost entirely in the hands 

 of the actual teachers ; and the most eminent 

 professors are also the chief rulers of the uni- 

 versity, as rectors, deans of faculty, or members 

 of the Senate. In Oxford and Cambridge, on the 

 other hand, the lecturers and tutors, the working 

 bees of the community, have but a small share of 

 its wealth and power, which is for the most part 

 in the hands of learned and dignified "Heads" 

 and irresponsible Fellows, who are not expected 

 to take much part in the actual teaching. The 

 natural result is, that we have many admirable 

 teachers, and many very learned men, but few 

 writers. No impulse of rivalry or hope of pro- 

 motion irresistibly impels our scholars to give the 

 fruits of their labor to the world, and they too 

 often enjoy them alone. We have always the un- 

 easy feeling that there are men at our universities 



