FOUNDING OF THE BERLIN UNIVERSITY. 685 



effected by the new iustitution. To what extent has it fullilled the 

 expectations entertained by the King at its establishment? And what 

 has been its significance in the development of science! 



Without boastfiilness we may say that its first eftect was to stimulate 

 most i)owerful]y the sense of nationality. Its very existence indicated 

 that Prussia had not given herself up for lost. Its first years, to be sure, 

 witnessed an increase in tfie oppression exercised by alien rule. Napo- 

 leon's Russian campaign heightened the misery of the provinces still in 

 the possession of Prussia. The exactions levied by the enemy, despite 

 his having become an ally, exhausted their last resources. Forced to 

 participate in the invasion of Eussia, the Prussian army revolted from 

 tbe humiliation of acting as the tool for a stranger's purposes. The 

 patriots, and with them the young who had stayed at home, aijplied 

 themselves to devise means to shake oft" the yoke of foreign rule. A 

 circle of enthusiastic youths gathered about Fi(;hte, who had never 

 given up the hope of regeneration, and had begun his inspiring 

 addresses to the German nation even before the establishment of the 

 university. And when finally, after the disgraceful end of the Russian 

 campaign, resistance began to gather force in distant East Prussia; 

 when a rising of the whole people came within the range of the possi- 

 ble, and resolution won the day in the King's council, then the summons 

 to the war of liberation was nowhere obeyed more enthusiastically than 

 in the Berlin University circles. Here all was in readiness. Teachers 

 and students presented themselves for military service; the memorial 

 tablet in this hall records the names of the brave who in 1813 and 1815 

 sealed their devotion to their country with death. • So the university 

 showed by precept and example what forces spiritual elevation creates 

 for the service of the state. 



Slowly the almost deserted lecture rooms filled uj) after peace was 

 established, and a still longer time it took our academic youth to real- 

 ize that their duty consisted in study and preparation for action, not in 

 action itself. Rei^eatedly academic liberty was in imminent danger on 

 account of the unbridled desire of individuals to interfere with the 

 course of public att'airs. But gradually the conviction that quiet work 

 was the real object of study gained ground, and the palladium of aca- 

 demic life, namely, liberty of instruction for the teachers and liberty of 

 study for the students (Lehrfreiheit und Lernfreiheit), was happily 

 rescued from all assaults. 



Along what lines did the actual development of the university pro- 

 ceed? Let us briefly review the aims of scholarly research before 1810; 

 details are of course out of the question. 



Since the Reformation the jihilosophic faculties had assumed a more 

 andmoredominatingpositiouatthe North German universities. Though 

 occupying the last place in the hierarchic series, the philosophic fac- 

 ulty exercised a determining influence upon the general tendency of the 

 studies with regard to method as well as matter. In this department 



