GERMAN UNIVERSITIES. 



who might well compete with German professors, 

 who yet do little for the advancement of science, 

 and are almost unknown beyond their college 

 walls. 



According to the German view of the matter, 

 the professor ought to be a learner even more 

 than a teacher. He is engaged in a constant race 

 and rivalry with competitors, not only at his own 

 university, but throughout the great republic of 

 letters to which he belongs, and in which he seeks 

 for fame, position, and emolument. In the choice 

 of a professor, therefore, the university (which 

 has the right of proposing names to the Minister 

 of Education) and the government are guided al- 

 most entirely by the comparative merits mani- 

 fested in the published writings of the aspirants. 

 The questions asked are : " What work has he 

 done ? " " What is he doing ? " A vague repu- 

 tation for mere learning, a good delivery, or a 

 pleasing style, will avail him little. They prefer, 

 not the best teacher, as they would for the gymna- 

 sium, but the greatest thinker, the most creative 

 genius, and leave him to make himself intelligible 

 to the students as he can. They are not disturbed 



at hearing that Prof. M or N has but few 



hearers, and " shoots above their heads ; " or by 

 such cases as that of the philosopher Hegel, who 

 said that " only one of his pupils understood him, 

 and he misunderstood him." A light set on a 

 hill, they think, cannot be altogether hidden, and 

 some few may catch the prophet's mantle as he 

 rises. They care far more for substance than 

 form, for native gold than current silver coin ; 

 and hence it comes that so many German profess- 

 ors and authors are, as compared with their 

 French and English brethren, dull and awkward 

 lecturers, obscure and unreadable writers. And 

 thus the German scholar works directly under the 

 eyes of the government, the lettered public, and 

 indeed the whole nation. Every sound that he 

 utters is immediately heard in the vast whisper- 

 ing-chamber of the temple of knowledge — 

 weighed and discussed at a thousand centres. A 

 new discovery in science, a new edition of a clas- 

 sic author, a light thrown on the history of the 

 past, any proof, in short, of superior genius or 

 talent, may not only give him the much-coveted 

 Sitz und Stimrne (seat and voice) in the general 

 council of the republic of letters, but insure him 

 a higher place in the social scale, and offers of a 

 more lucrative post. 



The English head, professor, or tutor, when 

 once appointed, enjoys a kind of monopoly of 

 authority or teaching, and may do his ministering 

 zealously or gently, without fear of rivalry, with- 



out any immediate or certain gain or loss of rep- 

 utation or emolument. He stands in no relation 

 either to the government or the public, to both of 

 which he may be almost unknown. He has no 

 broadly-marked career before him, in which dis- 

 tinction and reward necessarily wait on great abil- 

 ity and great exertion, and if he is ambitious he 

 generally leaves the university for some more ex 

 tensive and promising field of labor. 



The difference between the character of the 

 English and German student is, if possible, still 

 more striking. When an English boy leaves 

 school for the university, he is not conscious of 

 a very sharp break or turning-point in his life ; 

 he is only entering on another stage of the same 

 high-road. He goes to pursue nearly the same 

 studies in very nearly the same way as before. 

 He expects to meet his old companions, and to 

 indulge in his dearly-loved boyish sports on the 

 river and in the field. He enjoys, of course, a 

 greater degree of freedom, and receives a much 

 higher kind of instruction, in accordance with his 

 riper age and greater powers ; but the subjects of 

 his study are still chosen for him, and prosecuted, 

 not for their so-called " utility," but for their 

 value as gymnastic exercises of the mind. As at 

 school, he is directed in his course, and the in. 

 struction is still catechetical. Throughout the 

 whole of his career at college he is subjected to 

 examination in certain fixed subjects, and even 

 books, by the study of which he can alone escape 

 reproof and obtain distinction and reward. His 

 mind is still almost exclusively receptive, bound to 

 take the food and medicine prepared and pre- 

 scribed for him by duly-authorized purveyors and 

 practitioners. He is still, in short, in general 

 training for the race of life, and is allowed no 

 free disposal of his time and energy, no free in 

 dulgence of his peculiar tastes. 



How different the feelings and experience of 

 the German gymnasiast, as he passes from the 

 purgatory of school to the paradise of college ! 

 In his boyhood he has been mentally schooled 

 and drilled with a strictness and formality of 

 which we have no conception. Every step he 

 takes is marked out for him with the utmost care 

 and precision by the highest authority, and he has 

 scarcely a moment that he can call his own. It 

 is continually dinned into his ears that he is not 

 to reason or to choose, but to learn and to obey ; 

 and he does obey and learn with incredible docil- 

 ity and industry, and toils joylessly along the 

 straight and narrow path, between the high and 

 formal walls, from stage to stage of his arduous 

 school-life, clearing one examination-fence after 



