10 PIIOCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



Professor in the University just established there. The condition of 

 the country was such, on account of the mihtary movements of the 

 time, that young Thiersch was only able to reach his destination in 

 safety by joining a French corps, and marching equipped like a com- 

 mon soldier. He found that learning in Bavaria was at a very low 

 ebb, and he at once devoted himself to the pi'omotion of education and 

 literature with extraordinary zeal and ability. It was through his 

 influence over the most enlightened men of the kingdom that classical 

 studies, including the archa?ology of art, first assumed the prominent 

 position which they maintain at the present day in the Bavarian capi- 

 tal. In 1812, he founded the Philological Seminary, which soon be- 

 came an important part of the University, and in the same year com- 

 menced the publication of the Acta Philologicorum Monacensium. 

 Thiersch took a lively interest in the fortunes of Greece, and was one 

 of the first among the European scholars to predict the restoration of 

 her nationality. In 1814 he went to Vienna, and, meeting Count Capo 

 d'lstria there, assisted in founding a Greek society of the friends of 

 literature (the (fnXofiovcrcri), and afterwards the political society in- 

 tended to embrace the leading Greeks wherever found, and called the 

 Helccria. When the war of independence broke out, in 1821, his zeal 

 in the cause influenced the king and court of Bavaria to lend tlieir aid 

 to the establishment of the Greek nation. In this and other ways 

 he proved himself to be a constant and most valuable friend to the 

 Greeks. Soon after the close of the war he visited the country, and 

 made a careful study of its actual condition. The results of his obser- 

 vations were given to the world in 1833, in a work written in French, 

 and entitled L'Etat actuel de la Grece ; and it is to him more than 

 to any other, that Prince Otho was indebted for his election to the 

 throne of Greece. The other writings of Professor Thiersch are on 

 Public Education, on Ancient Art, editions of the Greek Classics, 

 and numerous contributions to the transactions of the Royal Bavarian 

 Society of Sciences, of which he was President for several years. 

 In 1858 the jubilee of Mr. Thiersch's doctorate was celebrated with 

 great enthusiasm at Munich. Deputations from all the leading Uni- 

 versities of Germany, and from numerous learned societies, were sent 

 to Munich with addresses and congratulations. Orders of knighthood 

 were conferred upon him by German sovereigns and by the king of 

 Greece, in token of their high estimation of his character, abilities, and 

 learning. The young Greeks studying in the University of Munich 



