THE STUDY OF FRENCH IN FOREIGN UNIVERSITIESN^ * V 



By Prof. Renicus D. Nauta. 



The mission which higher education has to fulfil in the world 

 of schools is incontestably a brilliant and an ideal one. In 

 entrusting higher education with her most sacred interests, 

 science gives herself up unreservedly, without diffidence, in all 

 her purity and her entire fullness, with all her boldest moves and 

 all her ambitions. Science bids higher education follow her unhesi- 

 tatingly and untiringly in her interminable explorations and most 

 strenuous research, and imposes on it, as its primary duty, to 

 cause her to be respected by all, beloved by many and sedulously 

 served by the happy few : the select, though constantly increasing, 

 group of her faithful devotees and adepts. On the other hand, 

 higher education, as an institution, is knit up with ancient tradi- 

 tions, inveterate customs, stiff-necked prejudices. Being part of 

 the public service, it is dependent upon the freaks of politics 

 and the economic necessities of the Budget. Not infrequently, 

 the most generous-minded Minister must content himself with 

 loving it with a purely platonic love.* It is a well-known fact 

 that, with regard to the study of modern languages and their 

 philology, higher education in Europe was very long in realising 

 the urgency of drawing its Cinderellaf within the circle of its 

 motherly cares ; and not less slow in extending to her the benefit 

 of that " brilliant and ideal mission," it had been fulfilling so 

 faithfully and for such a long series of years on behalf of the 

 elder sisters, the classical languages. Consequently, the study 

 and teaching of modern philology are comparatively young, and 

 this is especially true for the philology of French and the history 

 of mediaeval French literature. Even in the universities of France 

 itself, these higher studies are of comparatively recent date. 

 It sounds almost incredible, but some eighty years ago France 

 was still fairly indifferent with regard to the origin of its glorious 

 language and the transformations which it had gone through in 

 the course of time ; and as for literature, students, who took an 

 interest in what Boileau had rather superciliously and quite im- 

 properly styled : " I'ari confus de nos vieux romanciers " , were 

 very scarce indeed. Besides, in those days. Germany had not yet 

 opened up this new field of scientific research, on which its lin- 

 guists have since brought to bear their efforts with that strenuous 

 industry, that strict and rigorous method, which are among their 

 least contestable virtues. However, if we wish to be historically 

 correct, we ought to state that as far back as the sixteenth century 

 France had indeed produced some few investigators, anxious 

 to know the remote past of their country and their literature, 

 rummagers of regests, muniments, and manuscripts, Claude 



* Dr. A. G. van Hamel. 



t Dr. B. Symons, Holland's greatest Germanist, in his lectures on 

 Tacob Grimm. 



-jpsMiu l«S7/j^. 



