THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT IN GERMANY. 



225 



man universities has traced in clear and indestructible 

 outlines. 1 



1 The testimonies by illustrious 

 foreigners to the great work of the 

 German universities are frequent 

 and well known, from the time 

 when Mine, de Stael visited Ger- 

 many, and her friend Villers wrote 

 his ' Coup-d'ceil sur les University's 

 d'Allemagne' in 1808, through the 

 writings of Cousin, the verdict of 

 Renan, of Cournot, of Dreyfus- 

 Brisac, and of the American, J. M. 

 Hart. To these often-repeated ex- 

 pressions I will add that of the 

 great apostle of higher culture of 

 our age, of Matthew Arnold, who 

 sums up his interesting report on 

 the German system of higher edu- 

 cation in these characteristic words : 

 " What I admire in Germany is, 

 that while there, too, Industrialism, 

 that great modern power, is making 



at Berlin and Leipzig and Elber- 

 feld most successful and rapid pro- 

 gress, the idea of Culture, Culture 

 of the only true sort, is in Germany 

 a living power also. Petty towns 

 have a university whose teaching 

 is famous through Europe ; and 

 the King of Prussia and Count 

 Bismarck resist the loss of a great 

 savant from Prussia as they would 

 resist a political check. If true 

 culture ever becomes at last a 

 civilising power in the world, and 

 is not overlaid by fanaticism, by 

 industrialism, or by frivolous pleas- 

 ure-seeking, it will be to the faith 

 and zeal of this homely and much- 

 ridiculed German people that the 

 great result will be mainly owing " 

 (' Schools and Universities on the 

 Continent,' 1868, p. 256). 



VOL. I. 



