GERMAN UXIVERSI1IES. 



i^'j 



naturally arises whether the extraordinary mental 

 fertility which characterizes them has been owing 

 to peculiar political and social conditions ; wheth- 

 er it is likely, as many think, to be injuriously 

 affected by recent important changes, and es- 

 pecially by the amalgamation, of the different 

 German states into one great empire, under the 

 hegemony of Prussia. The literary fertility of 

 their universities is generally accounted for by 

 crediting the Germans with a certain disinterested 

 love of knowledge for its own sake, as contrasted 

 with our low material hankering after loaves and 

 fishes. We need not seriously endeavor to refute 

 so preposterous a theory, but only point to the 

 facts that, while the encouragement of learning 

 and research at the universities has been one of 

 the main objects of the state in Germany, there 

 is no country in Europe in which science (in the 

 widest sense of the word) has received so little 

 encouragement from government, has been left so 

 entirely to reward itself, as in England. In fact, 

 since there is no career in our universities for men 

 of learning and science, no reward for literary 

 activity and successful research, the wonder is 

 that they have done so much, and can count so 

 many great names among their members. The 

 preeminence of German learning is owing to no 

 natural superiority in the Germans, either mental 

 or moral. To understand the intense activity 

 ■which prevails in their universities, we must re- 

 member that the academic career has, for more 

 than a century, exercised a very powerful attrac- 

 tion on the most active and gifted minds of the 

 nation. Debarred by the despotic nature of their 

 government from the arena of politics, and by 

 class-distinction from any fair chance of promo- 

 tion in the army or the service of the state, with 

 few opportunities of acquiring wealth in com- 

 mercial or industrial pursuits, the more ambitious 

 spirits in the German bourgeoisie have sought the 

 only field of honor in which the race was to the 

 swift and the battle to the strong. We may 

 smile at, the small salaries of the German pro- 

 fessor, but, when compared with other govern- 

 ment officials in his own country, he is, or rather 

 was, well paid, and his position in other respects 

 is a singularly enviable one. He is in the most 

 independent position in which a German can be 

 placed, and enjoys a freedom of speech which is 

 permitted to no other official, whatever his rank 

 may be ; a freedom which increases in exact pro- 

 portion to his abilities and fame. His peculiar 

 privileges are owing partly to the natural scarcity 

 of great men, and the respect wTiich they inspire 

 in their countrymen, and partly to the keen 



competition for the possession of the most illus- 

 trious scholars between the universities of the 

 numerous independent states into which Ger- 

 many was, until recently, divided. This active 

 rivalry enabled the distinguished professor to hold 

 his own even against kings and ministers. When 

 the late Duke of Cumberland, as King of Han- 

 over (whose motto was that " professors and har- 

 lots can always be had for money"), expelled the 

 seven greatest men in Gottingen for a spirited 

 protest against his coup d'etat, they were received 

 with open arms even by despotic Prussia. When 

 the great Latin scholar Ritschl shook off the dust 

 of his feet at Bonn, he was welcomed with the 

 highest honors by the King of Saxony, and in- 

 stalled at Leipsic. 



The maintenance of the scientific spirit is en- 

 dangered by the very extension of the bounda- 

 ries of science of which that spirit is the chief 

 a"-ent. The mass of strictly professional knowl- 

 edge in each faculty is increasing every day, and 

 the task of assimilating this engrosses more and 

 more of the student's time and energy, and leaves 

 him fewer and fewer opportunities for the inde- 

 pendent prosecution of pure science. We hear 

 it said on all sides that young men must spend at 

 least four years at the universities, if they are not 

 to sink into mere " bread-students ; " and appeals 

 have been made to the liberality of the German 

 public to enable the more gifted students, by the 

 establishment of small Stiftungen, to spend a 

 longer time in study. Such appeals, by-the-way, 

 meet with very little response in Germany. The 

 liberality which has filled England with benevo- 

 lent institutions of every kind appears to be al- 

 most unknown elsewhere. Complaints are heard 

 in many quarters that the "Nachwuchs" the after- 

 growth, the rising generation of professors, is not 

 likely to equal its predecessors. It is not long 

 ago since a minister of education in Prussia com- 

 plained of the difficulty of filling up vacant posts 

 in the universities in a manner satisfactory to 

 himself and the students. How far this falling 

 off is attributable to the causes mentioned above, 

 or the general dearth of great men observable, at 

 the present time, in every country in Europe, re- 

 mains to be seen. One thing, however, is abso- 

 lutely certain : that neither in Germany nor Eng- 

 land can a university be sustained by the exer- 

 tions of " disinterested " votaries of science. With 

 the exception of the Bis geniti, the born priests of 

 science, men will not spend long years in labori- 

 ous study without hope of adequate reward in 

 the shape of money or position. Science has 

 flourished at the German seats of learning be- 



