THE FOUNDING OF THE BERLIN UNIVERSITY AND THE 

 TRANSITION FROM THE PHILOSOPHIC TO THE SCIEN- 

 TIFIC AGE.i 



By Rudolph Virchow. 



A pleasant task is set the orator on this day. The sou of the founder 

 of our university made choice of his father's birthday as tlie occasion 

 on which to renew annually in festive assembly the memory of Ring- 

 Frederick William III, and to keep alive among- all classes the feeling 

 of gratitude for his high minded deed. 



The task has gradually increased in difficulty. For many years we 

 were accustomed to listen to meu at this celebration who had helped to 

 rear our university, which enjoys the honorable distinction of bearing 

 the name of Frederick AVilliaui. As living witnesses they were qual- 

 ified to give testimony of the intentions which underlay the beginnings 

 of the great work. Their personal experiences enabled them to recount 

 the difficulties that had to be overcome in order to realize the funda- 

 mental ideas. As contemporaries of the founder finally they could 

 justly claim attention when they spoke of the successes obtained by 

 the new institution, and of the impediments which had often opposed 

 themselves to the inner and outer development of academic life. With 

 what reverent attention we younger men barkened to the Avords drop- 

 ping from eloquent lips, and how wide were the circles that expected 

 to hear in them a sober and frank judgment on the methods tliat had 

 been employed and to receive advice and encouragement for the future ! 



The ranks of these meu have been quickly exhausted; the last of 

 them has i^assed away. Even the oldest of our contemporaries who 

 saw King Frederick William III belong to a younger generation, which 

 had a realizing sense neither of the degradation nor of the glorious 

 reconstruction of our country. We can follow up the story of the 

 founding of our institution ouly by means of historic tradition, which, 

 it is universally conceded, is fragmentary and untrustworthy even in 

 the case of recent events. We may say with some degree of certainty 

 what we have become, but we grow dubious when we are called upon 

 to tell how we have become what we are. The specialist has confidence 

 in himself only when his specialty is concerned, and so it happens that 

 most of the recent orators of this day have preferred to depict the 

 course of development in the light of their specialty. 



1 Translation of an address delivered August 3, 1893, in the main hall of the Royal 

 Friedrich-Wilhelm University by the rector, Rudolph Virchow. 



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