682 FOUNDING OF THE BERLIN UNIVERSITY. 



Yet not one has been able to forego the consideration of the struggle 

 through which the idea of the establishment of this university culmi- 

 nated in a creative act at a time of sore hardship. Often as the story 

 has been told, it must be told anew for the benefit of youth ripening 

 into manhood and the refinement of endeavor in all circles of academic 

 culture. It must be instilled into them that the founding of the Berlin 

 University was not merely an act of highest political wisdom, but also 

 an eminently moral deed. 



As early as his crown prince days, Frederick William had been drawn 

 into the surging flood that was soon to submerge the whole of Europe. 

 He had been compelled to take i)art in the unfortunate campaign 

 against revolutionary France, which had shattered Prussia's strength. 

 His father's last political act of importance, the third partition of 

 Poland, had burdened him with a heritage whose baneful influence 

 made itself felt for many days. He had assumed the reins of govern- 

 ment filled with the most benevolent and the noblest intentions for 

 the weal of his subjects. To his own country he promised economy 

 and far-reaching reforms; to foreign countries, strict neutrality. He 

 devoted himself earnestly to tlie atiairs of government, not in the 

 perfunctory fashion of a mere administrator of the highest power, but 

 with the positive energy of a true reformer. Then it was, as we know, 

 that the idea of founding a university at Berlin occurred to him and 

 grew strong. In vain! The inarch of European att'airs, to whose com- 

 plication Frederick William II had greatly contributed, with fatalistic 

 logic dragged Prussia into ruin. A single battle annihilated the army, 

 and with it the state of Frederick the Great. What the arms of the 

 enemy had left undone was completed by the treachery and the folly of 

 the leaders. The King could save the remnant of the loyal brave only 

 by leading it back across the Vistula. All the provinces beyond the 

 Elbe were lost; the rest, imijoverished, bereft of practically all their 

 resources, appeared to be easy booty for the conqueror. To hope for 

 better days was by most held to be audacity. 



And there were audacious men in Prussia. The severity of the 

 oppression, the monstrous ill-usage to which the jieople — to which even 

 the King and his family — were exposed, aroused the desire for revenge 

 and tlie longing for deliverance from alien rule in unsusiiected strength. 

 To a greater extent than for centuries personal interests sank into the 

 background to make room for the great thought of patriotism and 

 liberty. Out of the chaos of passions sprang up idealism — that Ger- 

 man idealism which was soon to become the hobgoblin of the conqueror. 

 How long since nothing had been heard of a German Vaterland ! And 

 now the poet's cry rang out, " Our country must be wider." How few 

 had harbored the thought that such a Vaterland might become the 

 rock of civic liberty and peace, the home of the highest aspirations 

 after culture ! 



With sincere gratitude Ave must acknowledge that the King was one 



