862 PROPOSED APPLICATIONS OF SMITHSON'S BEQUEST. 



tion, have raised them to this splendid elevation. Having 

 been in Germany, and being in constant habits of familiarity 

 with learned Germans, I can speak more particularly of 

 that great country which forms a mighty ganglion in human 

 science. The universities of Germany are generally situa- 

 ted in the smaller towns some in mere villages, or what 

 would be villages without them such, for instance, are 

 Halle and Gottingen. There are no buildings to distin- 

 guish them, except one or two halls for lectures and libra- 

 ries ; the students boarding about amongst the inhabitants. 

 There is no parade of splendid buildings ; the ornaments of 

 these universities are their books, their collections, their 

 apparatus, and the intellect of their eminent and illustrious 

 professors ; how could they be otherwise, with libraries of 

 80,000, 100,000, 2 and 300,000 volumes. The professors are 

 classed into the ordinary, (ordentliche,) and the extra or 

 extraordinary, (ausserordentliche ;) the first are paid by the 

 government, salaries of about $1,500, our mone} T , and they 

 have the right of receiving gratuitous fees from the stu- 

 dents. The extra professors receive no salaries, but depend 

 entirely on gratuitous fees from the students, their diligence 

 and talent frequently carry them ahead of the ordinaries. 

 When a vacancy happens among the ordinary professorships, 

 the extra are next in the line of promotion ; from this 

 arrangement you will perceive there are in a German uni- 

 versity several professors on the same subject those that 

 know the most have the largest attendance, and take the 

 most fees, and consequently the emulation is always stimu- 

 lated, and leads to the most strenuous exertions. There are 

 sometimes upwards of eighty professors in a university ; 

 besides the professors, there are the private dozen answering 

 to our tutors, but with more learning, who depend on fees, 

 and stand next to the extras in the line of promotion. In 

 modeling our university, I should think this plan would be 

 advisable to be adopted. At present, I am not aware that 

 anything can be added on this point ; the library is a thing 

 that cannot, perhaps, be carried to its utmost perfection at 

 once, it must be formed carefully and judiciously but of 

 the five hundred thousand dollars, of which this legacy con- 

 sists Government should not hesitate to lay out at once 

 one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in the purchase of 

 books ; this would form a nucleus, to which gradual addi- 

 tions could be made every year. The one hundred and fifty 

 thousand dollars could be laid out the most judiciously at 

 the great Leipzig fairs, where almost all the intellectual 

 productions of Europe and America are brought together. 



