172 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



themselves to the special study of theology and jurisprudence. 

 Like Melanchthon, Kant also taught single branches from text- 

 books, as was the strict custom, and held recitations and dis- 

 putations in addition to his lectures. It was still a schoolmaster's 

 teaching. Only the grammatical and rhetorical branches, with the 

 lessons in the Greek and Roman authors, which formed the prin- 

 cipal subjects of Melanchthon's lectures, had fallen away. They 

 were no longer among the most important departments in the 

 universities of the eighteenth century, partly because they had 

 become superfluous through the greater amplitude of the prepara- 

 tory course in the schools, and partly because classical instruction 

 had declined in importance and esteem. 



The difference between this and the present German university 

 instruction is apparent on a comparison of the two. The present 

 teaching has entirely abandoned the schoolmasterly character. 

 It aims no more at a general training, but is special, scientific. 

 Mathematics and science are no longer taught by philosophers to 

 hearers of all these faculties, but by specialists to specialists. 

 The ancient writers are not read as three hundred years ago by 

 Melanchthon and one hundred years ago by Heyne in Gottingen 

 and Ernesti in Leipsic to the general hearers, for the sake of 

 general training and cultivation, but to philological students for 

 the purpose of inducting them into the technics of the scientific 

 treatment of the text. The name of Fr. A. Wolf, who is given 

 the credit of having raised ancient knowledge to an independent 

 study, marks this revolution. The closest reminders of the old 

 conditions are the lessons called philosophical and a few historical 

 lectures, including the history of literature and art, at which 

 hearers are gathered from the different faculties, and the comple- 

 tion and deepening of the general training is more prominently 

 sought than induction into special studies. The tendency to a 

 transformation is, however, visible here too plainly in History, in 

 which the lectures and still more the accompanying exercises 

 have already the character of professional, special instruction. 

 Signs of the change are beginning to be visible, too, in the philo- 

 sophical teaching. Psychology, especially, is tending to isolate 

 itself as a special field of scientific investigation. It is further 

 worthy of remark that the faculties have reversed their relation 

 to this branch within the nineteenth century. While formerly 

 the teaching in the philosophical faculty was mostly elementary 

 and general, it is now divided into many branches, and is pre- 

 dominantly special and professional. While in the other faculties 

 the first thing regarded is the preparation of practitioners for 

 their calling as doctors, clergymen, and lawyers a point that can 

 never wholly be lost sight of the teaching in the philosophical 

 faculty is various, as if the training of specialists or technicalists 



