248 ON ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN GERMAN UNIVERSITIES. 



increasing demands for the means of instruction, eagerly 

 to accept the help of the State, and too weak to re- 

 sist encroachments upon their ancient rights in times 

 in which modern States attempt to consolidate them- 

 selves, the German Universities have had to submit 

 themselves to the controlling influence of the State. 

 Owing to this latter circumstance the decision in all 

 important University matters has in principle been 

 transferred to the State, and in times of religious or 

 political excitement this supreme power has occasionally 

 been unscrupulously exerted. But in most cases the 

 States which were working out their own independence 

 were favourably disposed towards the Universities; 

 they required intelligent officials, and the fame of their 

 country's University conferred a certain lustre upon the 

 Government. The ruling officials were, moreover, for 

 the most part students of the University; they re- 

 mained attached to it. It is very remarkable how 

 among wars and political changes in the States fight- 

 ing with the decaying Empire for the consolidation of 

 their young sovereignties, while almost all other privi- 

 leged orders were destroyed, the Universities of Germany 

 saved a far greater nucleus of their internal freedom 

 and of the most valuable side of this freedom, than in 

 conscientious Conservative England, and than in France 

 with its wild chase after freedom. 



We have retained the old conception of students, as 



