STUDY AND RESEARCH. 665 



The university teacher has the less time for instruction of that kind, as 

 the university is not only an institution for study, but also an institu- 

 tion for research, the latter in a double sense. Our nation is accustomed 

 to look upon its university teachers as investigators, and, on the other 

 hand, science and the state depend upon us bo train up as investiga- 

 tors at least a portion of the students. From this point of view we apply 

 the term academic to the members as well as to the institutions of the 

 university. 



The old name academy, in Plato's sense, a school aspiring to the high- 

 est aims of spiritual endeavor, since the days of the Medici has been 

 used to designate the associations of distinguished thinkers and original 

 workers banded together for untrammeled interchange of ideas. This 

 is the origin of the academies of sciences. In later times all imaginable 

 sorts of academies grew up beside them; but they do not concern us 

 now. Only the academy of sciences is charged with the progressive 

 investigation of scientific problems as its chief task. But in Germany 

 there are only three, at the utmost four, such academies, and their 

 capacity is by no means large enough to insure progress in the wide 

 domain of science. Katurally a part of their duty fell to the share of 

 the universities, and they fulfilled it honorably, in some cases with 

 distinction. This is the reason why the university teacher needs more 

 time than must be devoted to mere instruction. 



In the other direction, too, as I said before, in the education of new 

 generations of original workers and teachers, a solemn obligation rests 

 upon the universities. It is a paramount duty, upon whose efiicient 

 performance depends the steady recruiting of the ranks of the privat- 

 docenten, a constituent element of the faculty, the nursery of future 

 professors, which is indispensable to the prosperity of the university. 

 Therefore we must begin early to train students as original investi- 

 gators. Opportunities are ample, since governments everywhere have 

 created institutes and seminaries in which not only guidance and 

 instruction are offered, but also free and independent work. We have 

 special reason to be grateful to our own Government for its indefatiga- 

 ble care in establishing and enlarging such institutions. The moneys 

 expended on them are well invested. They bear abundant fruit, and 

 we are justified in the confidence that in the future, too, funds will be 

 forthcoming to satisfy the ever-growing needs. We are accustomed to 

 have Prussian kings consider the founding of scientific establishments, 

 even in most perilous times, as their sacred duty as rulers, indeed, as a 

 means of strengthening the state. Our own university grew up under 

 such circumstances and out of such considerations, but, not having been 

 endowed with a sufficient sum to be index^endent, it must look to tlie 

 state for constant help. May it to day recommend itself anew to the 

 favor and the provident care of our Government! 



