i82 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



effect. It is true that the number of students who miss the right 

 way or do not reach the goal is lamentably great. But there 

 is security against this. If any one speaks of it as if it was 

 the fault of the university, and asks it to prevent such failures by 

 discipline, tests of diligence, and more frequent examinations, he 

 makes an unreasonable accusation and presents a demand that 

 can not be complied with. The university is not a school, and 

 will not and can not be one. It is an institution for adults, who 

 live there on their own responsibility. That all its members do 

 not know how to make the best use of their privileges proves 

 nothing against the institution. 



Hence we find nothing of an essential character to disturb in 

 the general organization of the university as a teaching institu- 

 tion. We can only endeavor to make its endowments more fruit- 

 ful and to ward off the harmful tendencies as far as possible. It 

 would indeed be a pity if the institutions which have accom- 

 plished so much, and have so illustrious names on their rolls of 

 teachers, should, in these days of minute subdivision of labor, 

 allow their energies to be dissipated in excessive specialization. 

 This is not likely to happen ; we may even say it will not happen. 

 There are indications that a reaction is at hand from this tend- 

 ency. If we mistake not, the one-sided exaltation of the special- 

 ist's work has passed its zenith. Long-neglected philosophy is 

 again obtaining a footing even in the domain of scientific re- 

 search an evidence that the idea of the unity of knowledge is 

 still vital. What philosophy gains, the university gains as a 

 teaching institution, as the high school of general education. 

 A translation, for The Popular Science Monthly, from an article in 

 the Deutsche Rundschau. 



HELMHOLTZ'S TRIBUTE TO HEINRICH HERTZ. 



THE preface to the Prinzipien der Mechanih, or Principles of 

 Mechanics, of Heinrich Hertz is a testimonial by Helmholtz, 

 who followed the author so soon in death, to his gifts and his work. 

 Endowed with the rarest gifts of genius and character. Hertz, 

 Helmholtz says, had gathered a fullness of fruits almost beyond 

 anticipation, for the winning of which many of his most accom- 

 plished fellow-specialists had toiled in vain. It would have been 

 said in classical times that he fell a victim to the envy of the 

 gods. In him Nature and fortune seem to have favored the de- 

 velopment of a mind that united in itself all the talents needed 

 for the solution of the most difficult problems of science ; a mind 

 adapted alike to the highest keenness and clearness of logical 



