MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 



483 



The poor appear to be well 

 taken care of at Baden. Besides 

 a considerable hospital or poor- 

 house, and a smaller one called, 

 the Good-people House (less from 

 the qualifications of its occupants 

 than the dispositions of its found- 

 ers), there is a large bath for 

 them — where, besides the benefit 

 of the waters, they receive weekly 

 allowances, good Rumford soups> 

 and other comforts.— The esta- 

 blishment is, in part, supported 

 by the heavy tax on gaming, and 

 by a weekly contribution for the 

 poor, collected by a police officer, 

 from the company at the bathing 

 hotels. 



Nothing can be imagined more 

 striking than the contrast between 

 an English and a German univer- 

 sity. In the former, the Gothic 

 buildings, the magnificent col- 

 leges, the noble libraries, the 

 chapels, the retired w^alks, the 

 scholastic grace of the costume, 

 are all so many interesting indi- 

 cations of the antiquity, the mu- 

 nificence, and the dignity of the 

 institution. The University of 

 Heidelberg is one of the most 

 distinguished in Germany— but 

 the constitution of a German 

 University has necessarily no mo- 

 nument of architecture, no ap- 

 pendage of dignity, scarcely any 

 decent building connected with 

 it. The Universital Gehailde, or 

 public building, containing the 

 library and the lecture rooms of 

 the professors, barely comes under 

 this last description. An Eng- 

 lishman might pass the town a 

 dozen times without remarking 

 any traces of its institutions, 

 unless he happened to encounter a 

 etrmg of swaggering mustachioed 

 youths, their hair flowing on their 



shoulders, without cravats, with 

 pipes in their mouths, parading 

 the streets with a rude impudence. 

 These are the students — who 

 resemble each other in all the 

 Universities, in main points, both 

 of costume and character. It is 

 hardly necessary to say this is not 

 an academical costume. A Ger- 

 man student would disdain— as a 

 pert young gentleman of this 

 number told me — to wear a dress 

 not of his own free choice ; and 

 his choice under the influence of 

 a luminous patriotism, takes the 

 direction of reviving the alt Deuts- 

 che Meidiing, or the old costume 

 of the worthy Germans three 

 centuries ago. " ^/^ey were sturdy 

 patriots, and right good Germans, 

 and stuck up for our liberties 

 against the Emperor Charles and 

 the princes. JVe want some of 

 this spirit in our days— therefore 

 we will begin by copying them in 

 their dress, and thus we shall in- 

 troduce it." This is the reasoning 

 of the independent philosophers 

 from fourteen to five and twenty, 

 who attendlectures, if they please, 

 when they please, and on what 

 they please, in the Professors' 

 rooms at the Universities. 



The Universities are, with slight 

 variations, constructed upon the 

 same plan. They are not, as in 

 England, composed of colleges 

 where the students are obliged to 

 reside, forming large households 

 under the control of a head; 

 and submitting to wholesome re- 

 gulations, both as to conduct and 

 study. A German University is 

 little more than a place where 

 there is a good library and a col- 

 IprHon of professors who read 

 lectures to those who choose to 

 attend them. They afford bare 



2 I 2 opportunitiej 



