1* Prussia and the German System of Education. 



Each lecture lasts about three quarters of an hour till the 

 clock gives its accustomed -ouud, when the professor folds 

 his manuscript, the students wipe their pens, shut the 

 ink horn, take hat or cap and portfolio and crowd to the 

 door, to return to their Lodgings or to attend another lecture 

 or to walk the hospitals or enter the laboratories. 



This is generally all the instruction imparted in these 

 institutions. In Berlin and Halle, however, meetings 

 (Seminare) are held in the professors' houses for the dis- 

 cussion of Biblical, and patriotic or of classical authors and 

 for the composition of Latin prize essays. 



Thus Neander used to read in this familiar way 

 Tertullian's Apolegeticus, Origen's^ Commentaries and 

 De Principiis, Augustine's Confessions, Chrysostom De 

 Sacerdotio, etc. These meetings are conducted in Latin. 

 In Tubingen, the lecture-s} T stem is accompanied by weekly 

 recitations and examinations conducted by the repententen, 

 who may be compared to the tutors or teaching-fellows 

 of British universities. 



Until the middle of the eighteenth century, the lectures 

 were all delivered in Latin : a method which was very in- 

 jurious to the cultivation of the German language. The 

 scholars of the seventeenth century wrote and spoke the 

 classical or the scholastic Latin better than their mother 

 tongue. It was the merit of Thoniasius, professor in 

 Halle, that he began the gradual abolition of this ped- 

 antry, and introduced the national language : at p resent 

 very few lectures arc delivered in Latin, while this 

 language is still used very properly in academic disserta- 

 tions, the conferring of degrees and other public solemni- 

 ties. 



It is easy to see that the lecture system has great advan- 

 tages both for the professor and the student. The task of 

 writing one or more learned lectures every day, at least 

 early in the professorial career, draws out all the powers 



