66 THE JEWS AND THE 



ed by their mutual attractions ? The subject is curious, but I have no 

 room to enlarge. Dick in his ''Siderial Heavens" speculates ingenious- 

 ly, but not very accurately, on the nature and variety of siderial sys- 

 tems. He was the first to conjecture that some of the smaller stars 

 might revolve about large, opaque, and therefore, invisible earths — a 

 conjecture curiou.sly confirmed by Bessel, with respect to the largest. 



Some of Dick's hypotheses, however, will not suit the cases, espe- 

 cially the application of the above conjecture to a star in the northern 

 crown, for however large the central earth may be, the revolving sun 

 must necessarily have an orbit many times greater, and therefore, could 

 not be eclipsed for more than half its period. Equally unsatisfactory 

 is his theory of "Periodic Stars," which will account for their gradual 

 diminution, but not for their sudden appearance. 



Wrightsville, Dec. lOth, 1844. 



THE JEWS AND THE GERMAN UNIVERSITIES.* 



BY W. A. AI.BACH, A.. M. OF PENNSYLVANIA COLLEGE. 



Amidst the progressive and powerful movements among the Ger- 

 mans of the Jewish faith, since the time of Mendelsohn, and in the midst 

 of the vigorous development of the Jews in life and science, in educa- 

 tion and morals, in ideas and in intellectual wants, there were besides, 

 and there yet are, several other points, to which their attention is direct- 

 ed. One of these is : the admission of Jews to professorships in the 

 universities, if they are equally as well qualified as Christian teachers. 

 An antipathy to the adherents of Judaism, more or less strong, was long 

 sufficient to exclude scientific Jews from the universities. Mendelsohn, 

 the philosopher, was, by tlie king of Prussia, struck from the list of can- 

 didates for membership in the Berlin academy, because of his faith. It 

 is true, in the ardor of the contest for freedom, the Jews obtained the 

 legal riglit to teach in the universities, all over Germany ; and Prussia 

 likewise granted this right in an edict of the 11th IMarch, 1812, but the 

 retrogressive steps, taken immediately after 18 1-*), made these laws of 

 no effect, and to this day the Jews look in vain for an abolition of this 

 latter limitation. If ever any period demanded a philosophical repre- 

 sentation of this subject, it is the present ; partly because, in many in- 

 stitutions, a beginning has been made to abolish the former exclusion of 

 the Jews, and partly, because the progress of the Jews in science is be- 

 coming so rapid, that a refusal to consider tliis question will soon be 



* From the German of Dr. Julius Fi'irsf, as found in ^Vutlke's Jalirbuch der 

 deutschen Univeisit'aten, for 1S4;>-'1. 



