254 ON ACADEMIC FKEEDOM IN GEEMAN UNIVERSITIES. 



not infrequently seen that such teachers had crowded 

 lecture-rooms, while empty-headed orators excited 

 astonishment in the first lecture, fatigue in the 

 second, and were deserted in the third. Anyone 

 who desires to give his hearers a perfect conviction 

 of the truth of his principles must, first of all, know 

 from his own experience how conviction is acquired and 

 how not. He must have known how to acquire con- 

 viction where no predecessor had been before him 

 that is, he must have worked at the confines of human 

 knowledge, and have conquered for it new regions. A 

 teacher who retails convictions which are foreign to 

 him, is sufficient for those pupils who depend upon 

 authority as the source of their knowledge, but not for 

 such as require bases for their conviction which extend 

 to the very bottom. 



You will see that this is an honourable confidence 

 which the nation reposes in you. Definite courses 

 and specified teachers are not prescribed to you. You 

 are regarded as men whose unfettered conviction is 

 to be gained ; who know how to distinguish what 

 is essential from what is only apparent; who can no 

 longer be appeased by an appeal to any authority, and 

 who no longer let themselves be so appeased. Care is 

 also always taken that you yourselves should penetrate 

 to the sources of knowledge in so far as these consist 



