9G THE NATIONAL SCIENTIFIC INSTITUTIONS AT BERLIN. 



be concluded under the best possible conditions. The tie of lOve and 

 confidence of centuries is to be severed. Fate decided, and the father 

 separates himself from his cliildren, but no fate, no power may extin- 

 guish your memory in my heart." Strong and sincere, too, was the love 

 of the inhabitants of those surrendered provinces for their king. Deej) 

 was the sorrow in Halle and among the members of the university 

 which iSrapoleon had dissolved on the 20th of October, 1806. A deputa- 

 tion, consisting of Schmalz and Froriep was sent to Memel, and in their 

 name and that of their colleagues requested the King, in a petition of 

 August 22, 1807, to consider the establishment of a scientific institution 

 at Berlin. Ilufeland, present in Memel, supported the wishes of the 

 delegation. 



On September 1, 1807, the King issued an order to Privy Councillor 

 Beyme to the effect that, in view of the loss by the state of the Uni- 

 versity of Halle owing to the surrender of the domain west of the 

 river Elbe, one of the most important and perfect educational establish- 

 ments had ceased to exist and that it should be one of the first duties 

 of the government, in the consideration of a reorganization of the state, 

 to provide for the erection of some such establishment in the best pos- 

 sible manner; that the universities at Frankfort and Konigsberg were 

 not adapted to compensate for the loss, the former on account of the 

 insufficiency of local auxiliary means and the latter on account of its 

 great distance from the national capital; that Berlin, however, com^ 

 bined all the means adapted for such an educational establishment with 

 the least possible expense and with the greatest possible advantage 

 for its usefulness. In view of these facts the establishment at Berlin of 

 such an institution in connection with the existing Academy of Sciences 

 was decided upon. All the funds which had formerly been devoted to 

 the support of the university at Halle were to be employed for the pur- 

 pose, and Privy Councillor Beyme was instructed to secure for the 

 new university the services of the prominent professors of Halle before 

 other chances were offered to and accepted by them. 



Frederick the Great, in his endeavors to re-model and reorganize the 

 state, was not in position to do much towards universities; he was sat- 

 isfied with having restored the proper rank to the highest representative 

 of science, and only occasionally he alluded to the need of high schools. 

 On April 7, 1781:, he wrote to Frankfort that " the students should re- 

 ceive such instructions as to enable each of them to learn something 

 useful so as to bo enabled to render efficient service to state or church, 

 since he thought more of this than of any formalities." All other care 

 he left to his minister, von Zedlitz, who himself had become a pupil of 

 the great Kant. The two universities, Konigsberg and Halle, received 

 prompt attention; Forster and Wolff' had been ai^pointed, and the neces- 

 sity of a fixed plan of instruction had repeatedly been pointed out. This 

 being most noticeable in the study of law, a regular schedule was pre- 

 pared in 1771. In 1787 the higher educational council took the place 



