244 ON ACADEMIC FKEEDOM IN GEBMAN UNIVERSITIES. 



students. They need not even live in the University 

 Town, but may spend their stipends where they like, 

 and in many cases may retain the fellowships for an 

 indefinite period. With some exceptions, they only lose 

 it in case they marry, or are elected to certain offices. 

 They are the real successors of the old corporation 

 of students, by and for which the University was 

 founded and endowed. But however beautiful this 

 plan may seem, and notwithstanding the enormous 

 sums devoted to it, in the opinion of all unprejudiced 

 Englishmen it does but little for science ; manifestly 

 because most of these young men, although they are 

 the pick of the students, and in the most favourable 

 conditions possible for scientific work, have in their 

 student-career not come sufficiently in contact with 

 the living spirit of inquiry, to work on afterwards on 

 their own account, and with their own enthusiasm. 



In certain respects the English Universities do 

 a great deal. They bring up their students as cul- 

 tivated men, who are expected not to break through 

 the restrictions of their political and ecclesiastical 

 party, and, in fact, do not thus break through. In 

 two respects we might well endeavour to imitate 

 them. In the first place, together with a lively feeling 

 for the beauty and youthful freshness of antiquity, 

 they develop in a high degree a sense for delicacy 

 and precision in writing which shows itself in the 



