ON ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN GERMAN UNIVERSITIES. 249 



that of young men responsible to themselves, striving 

 after science of their own free will, and to whom it is 

 left to arrange their own plan of studies as they think 

 best. If attendance on particular lectures was enjoined 

 for certain callings what are called ' compulsory lec- 

 tures ' these regulations were not made by the Univer- 

 sity, but by the State, which was afterwards to admit 

 candidates to these callings. At the same time the 

 students had, and still have, perfect freedom to migrate 

 from one German University to another, from Dorpat 

 to Zurich, from Vienna to Gratz ; and in each University 

 they had free choice among the teachers of the same 

 subject, without reference to their position as ordinary 

 or extraordinary professors or as private docents. The 

 students are, in fact, free to acquire any part of their 

 instruction from books ; it is highly desirable that the 

 works of great men of past times should form an essen- 

 tial part of study. 



Outside the University there is no control over the 

 proceedings of the students, so long as they do not 

 come in collision with the guardians of public order. 

 Beyond these cases the only control to which they are 

 subject is that of* their colleagues, which prevents 

 them from doing anything which is repugnant to the 

 feeling of honour of their own body. The Universities 

 of the Middle Ages formed definite close corporations, 

 with their own jurisdiction, which extended to the 



