78 



NATURE 



[May t6, 1878 



presented by Major Wood; a Two-spotted Paradoxures {ATandima 

 binotala) from West Africa, presented by Capt. E, J. Hawes ; a 

 Black -backed Jackal [Canis mesomelas) from South Africa, pre- 

 sented by Mr. Richard Seyd, F.Z.S. ; a Toque Monkey {Macacus 

 pileatus) from Ceylon, presented by Master R. C. Heyworth ; a 

 Bonelli's Eagle {Nisaetus fasciatus), European, presented by 

 Lord Lilford, F.Z.S. ; a Leadbeater's Cockatoo {Cacatua lead- 

 .heateri) from Australia, presented by Mrs. Tennent ; a Coffin's 

 Cockatoo {Cacatua goffini) from Queensland, presented by Mrs. 

 Pitt; a White-backed V\-p\ngCto-w {Gymnorkina leuconota) from 

 Australia, presented by Mr. John Ritchie ; three Water Ouzels 

 {Cinches aquaticus), European, presented by Mr. R. J. L. Price, 

 F.Z.S. ; a Slow Loris {Myctictbus tardigradus) from Malacca, 

 received in exchange ; a Darwin's Pucras Pheasant {Pucrasia 

 darwini), a Wonga-wonga Pigeon {Leucosarcia picatd), nine 

 Chilian Pintails {Dafila spinkauda), bred, a Reindeer {Ranifer 

 arandus), born, in the Gardens. 



ACADEMIC LIBERTY IN GERMAN 

 UNIVERSITIES '■ 



THIS liberty without control is a subject of astonishment to 

 most strangers who know it only by certain very apparent 

 eccentricities. They cannot understand how we are able, with- 

 out great inconveniences, to leave young people to themselves 

 in this way. The German remembers the student -period as the 

 golden age of his life ; our literature and our poetry are filled 

 ■with the expression of this sentiment. We do not encounter any- 

 thing similar to it among other European peoples. The German 

 student is the only one who tastes an unmingled joy at the time 

 when, in the first delight of his young independence, yet free 

 from the anxieties of mercenary work, he may consecrate his 

 hours exclusively to all that is noblest and best in science and in 

 the conceptions of humanity. United by a friendly rivalry with 

 numerous comrades devoted to the same efforts, he finds himself 

 daily in intellectual communication with masters from whom he 

 learns what is the movement of thought among independent 

 spirits. I appreciate at its full value this last advantage, when, 

 looking back, I recall my student days and the impression made 

 mpon us by a man like Johannes Miiller, the physiologist. When 

 one finds himself in contact with a man of the first order, the 

 entire scale of his intellectual conceptions is modified for life ; 

 contact with such a man is perhaps the most interesting thing 

 -which life may have to offer. 



You possess, my young friends, in this liberty of German 

 •students, a precious and glorious legacy of past generations. 

 Preserve it in order that you may leave it in your turn to those 

 who will come after you, and strive to ennoble and purify it still 

 more. To guard it intact you have, each for himself, to see that 

 the studious youth of Germany continue worthy of the confidence 

 -which has secured for them so high a degree of liberty. There 

 is here for feeble characters a gift as calamitous as it is precious 

 for the strong. Do not be astonished that statesmen and fathers 

 of families think sometimes of instituting among us a system of 

 surveillance and control analogous to that which exists in England. 

 There is no doubt that such a system would save many whom 

 liberty allows to run to ruin. But the State and the nation have 

 inore to expect from those who are capable of supporting liberty 

 and whose eftorts and work are the results of their own individual 

 energy, of their dominion over themselves, and their love of science. 

 I have spoken above of the influence \\ hich may be exercised 

 by intellectual contact with remarkable men ; this leads me to 

 point out another characteristic feature which distinguishes 

 ■German universities from those of England and France. With 

 *is the student goes, as soon as pos ;ible, to seek instruction from 

 masters who have proved their merit by doing something for the 

 progress of science, which, in our eyes, is the best mark of their 

 fitness to educate. Yet this is a thing which excites great 

 -astoni.shment among the English and French. They attach 

 more importance than the Germans to a pretended talent for 

 instruction, which consists in the faculty of expounding the sub- 

 ject of instruction in a clear and well-ordered form, and, if 

 possible, in an eloquent and interesting manner, calculated to 



' Rectorial Address of Prof. HelmhDltz, F.R.S., at the University cf 

 Berlin. Continued fromtp. 53. 



captivate the attention. At the College de France, the Jardin 

 des Plantes, as also at Oxford and Cambridge, the lectures of 

 renowned speakers are the rendezvous of the fashionable and 

 cultivated world. In Germany we are not only indifferent to 

 the oratorical apparatus, we are hostile to it ; we undoubtedly 

 neglect too much the external form. There is no doubt that a 

 good exposition demands from the listener much less sustained 

 efforts than a bad one ; it enables the subject to be comprehended 

 much more surely and much more completely, and with a well- 

 ordered arrangement, bringing into strong relief the principal 

 points and the divisions, much more can be overtaken in the 

 same space of time. I do not pretend, then, to justify the con- 

 tempt of form, which we often push too far, both in speaking 

 and in writing. But it cannot be denied that many men of great 

 intellectual originality and of remarkable scientific value, have a 

 dull, painful, and embarrassed elocution. Yet I have often seen 

 such professors attract numerous and faithful hearers, while 

 orators void of thought astonished at their first lecture, fatigued 

 at the second, and were deserted at the third. He who wishes 

 to inspire his audience with a complete conviction of the truth of 

 what he advances, ought, above all, to know from personal 

 experience what produces conviction. It is necessary then that 

 he has known how to advance alone into a region where no one 

 has ever broken ground ; in other words he must have worked 

 upon the frontiers of human science and conquered for himself 

 new domains. A master who presents only results acquired by 

 others suffices for scholars to whom authority is given as the 

 source of their science, but not for those who desire to deepen 

 their convictions to their final foundations. 



There is here, you see, gentlemen, a new sign of confidence 

 given you by the nation. There are neither fixed courses nor 

 fixed professions imposed upon you. You are treated as men 

 whose free adhesion must be gained, who know how to distin- 

 guish between being and seeming, whom it is no longer sought 

 to persuade by appealing to any authority whatever, and who, 

 moreover, would not allow themselves to be persuaded in that 

 fashion. It is sought, more and more, to provide you with the 

 means of drinking science at the very fountain, either in books 

 and historical collections, or by observation of objects and natural 

 pheomena and by experiments. The smallest German universi 

 ties have their own libraries, their mineralogical collections, &c. 

 As regards the organisation of laboratories of chemistry, micro- 

 graphy, physiology, physics, Germany is ahead of all other 

 European countries, who are only just beginning to seek to rival 

 us. In our own university, we shall assist in a few weeks at 

 the opening of two important establishments devoted to education 

 in the natural sciences. 



To obtain the free conviction of the pupils, it is necessary 

 that the conviction of the masters be freely expressed ; liberty of 

 education is demanded. That has not always been protected 

 from all encroachment in Germany more than in neighbouring 

 countries. In times of political and religious strife the dominant 

 parties have often interfered in the domain of science ; but the 

 German nation has always regarded such interferences as en- 

 croachments upon sacred ground. Here, again, the progress of 

 political liberty in the new German Empire has been salutary. 

 To-day, in the German universities, the most extreme results of 

 materialistic metaphysics, the most daring speculations in the 

 direction of the Darwinian theory of evolution, may be pub- 

 lished without hindrance, as well as the most complete deification 

 of the infallible Pope. No more than on the floor of European 

 parliaments is it permitted to calumniate the intentions and out- 

 rage the person of an opponent — these are proceedings which 

 have nothing to do with the discussion of a scientific proposition. 

 It is also forbidden to excite to the commission of acts inter- 

 dicted by the laws ; but we may, without the least hindrance, 

 discuss scientifically any controverted scientific point whatever. 

 Liberty of education, in this sense, does not exist in the English 

 and French universities. At the College de France, even a 

 man of so high a scientific reputation as Ernest Renan has been 

 placed under interdict. The tutors of the English universities 

 may not diverge by a hair's breadth from the dogmatic system of 

 the Anglican Church without exposing themselves to the censure 

 of the archbishops and losing their pupils. 



It remains for me to consider our liberty of education in 

 another aspect. I wish to speak of the liberality with which 

 our universities award the authority of professor. 



In the etymological sense of the term, a doctor is a man who 

 teaches, or at least, a man recognised as capable of teaching. 

 In the universities of the middle ages, every doctor who found 

 \ 



