ON ACADEMIC FREEDOM IN GERMAN UNIVERSITIES. 253 



their own power of advancing science. This also is a 

 point in respect to which the English and French often 

 express their surprise. They lay more weight than the 

 Germans on what is called the ' talent for teaching '-- 

 that is, the power of explaining the subjects of instruc- 

 tion in a well-arranged and clear manner, and, if pos- 

 sible, with eloquence, and so as to entertain and to 

 fix the attention. Lectures of eloquent orators at the 

 College de France, Jardin des Plantes, as well as in 

 Oxford and Cambridge, are often the centres of the 

 elegant and the educated world. In Germany we are 

 not only indifferent to, but even distrustful of, oratorical 

 ornament, and often enough are more negligent than 

 we should be of the outer forms of the lecture. There 

 can be no doubt that a good lecture can be followed 

 with far less exertion than a bad one ; that the matter 

 of the first can be more certainly and completely ap- 

 prehended ; that a well-arranged explanation, which 

 develops the salient points and the divisions of the sub- 

 ject, and which brings it, as it were, almost intuitively 

 before us, can impart more information in the same 

 time than one which has the opposite qualities. I am 

 by no means prepared to defend what is, frequently, our 

 too great contempt for form in speech and in writing. 

 It cannot also be doubted that many original men, 

 who have done considerable scientific work, have often 

 an uncouth, heavy, and hesitating delivery. Yet I have 



