FOUNDING OF THE BERLIN UNIVERSITY. 691 



until 1826, enjoying intimate intercourse witli the first scientists of the 

 century. Here he completed not only his equipment as a scientific 

 investigator, but also his general philosophic development. In 1827 he 

 took up his permanent abode in Prussia, and then began his close 

 relation to the King, to whom he became a friend and counselor. For 

 our university his return definitely marked the transition to the time 

 of the natural sciences. 



It were unjust to attribute this change to Humboldt alone. Long 

 before his return, a solid phalanx of genuine scientists had gathered 

 in Berlin. The Academy of Sciences and the Collegium Medico-Chi- 

 rurgicum included most efficient men among its members. The latter 

 institution indeed, even before the establishment of the university, 

 was so fully equipped with scientific instructors and facilities for the 

 study of the sciences, that it was worthy of being ranked with a regular 

 medical faculty. This fact explains why the medical faculty of the 

 newly organized university at first had the greatest nnmber of students. 

 There were besides other institutions, each with its corps of scholars, 

 among them the Botanical Gardens, the Observatory, and the Library. 



After all, these institutions were inadequately, in fact meanly, fitted 

 out, and it required the benevolence of the King and the enduring 

 interest of the ministers to develop and perfect them so as to make' 

 them accord with modern views and enable them to bear comparison with 

 those of other States. New positions, new opportunities for work, had 

 to be created, and Alexander von Humboldt was ever ready to give 

 help in that respect. He may be considered the guardian angel of 

 the natural sciences in the time of Frederick William III, and even after 

 his death. His extensive culture, vast memory, and numerous con- 

 nections enabled him to understand persons and things thoroughly and 

 judge them without bias, while his unprejudiced, upright character 

 guaranteed the impartial use of his influence, no matter to what calling, 

 what nation, or creed his protege might belong. Humboldt was the 

 confidant not only of the scientist, but of every scholar, though the 

 former was naturally most strongly attracted to him. 



So it happened that as early as 1828 we find liim presiding over the 

 association of German scientists and physicians, which at that time, a 

 few years after its formation, held its first meeting in Berlin. If this 

 association, which brought together the representatives of all depart- 

 ments of the natural sciences for i)ersonal acquaintance and the inter- 

 cliange of ideas, came to exert great and lasting influence upon the 

 development of scientific culture in Germany, then it owes this position 

 not a little to the personal interest of Humboldt. With the Berlin 

 meeting began the heightened activity which has made the Association 

 of Scientists the most popular and most numerously attended of all the 

 associations without a fixed seat. The attendance of the foremost 

 scholars, even from foreign countries, invested its proceedings with 

 decisive authority in the dissemination of improved methods, in pro- 



