LEARN AND SEARCH. 441 , 



the lower institutions the university is a perpetual association to 

 prepare their pupils so that they shall receive our instruction 

 with full understanding; for the higher schools, it is a model 

 after which they may shape their methods and regulations. On 

 the other hand, the university is called upon to introduce to the 

 state and society successive new generations of young, well-pre- 

 pared men, who, filled with arranged knowledge, impelled by 

 moral earnestness, preserve and bear the sacred flame of learning 

 through all the perplexities and dark passages of daily life. 



There was a time when this sublime position of the university 

 was not only generally recognized, but was also distinguished by 

 great prerogatives. Many of them have since been lost. We have, 

 perhaps, only temporarily, but still happily, passed the days when 

 the strongest attacks were made against the universities and the 

 narrowest limitations were imposed on their freedom. But we 

 will not forget that even this university, which was founded in 

 the most difficult period, in order, according to the word of its 

 founder, King Friedrich Wilhelm III, to be "the nursery of a 

 better future," was subjected to a suspicious and close watch. 

 Various motives worked together to bring about this unhappy 

 condition. One of them, and one which you, dear fellow-laborers, 

 may contemplate with advantage, lay in the behavior of many of 

 the students, and consisted in a widespread misunderstanding of 

 the purpose of the study and the position of the student. 



No less a person than Johann Gottlieb Fichte first occupied 

 the position from which I speak to-day. In the memorable ad- 

 dress " On the One Possible Disadvantage of Academic Freedom " 

 (Ueber die einzig mogliche Storung der akademischen Freiheit), 

 which he delivered as the first chosen rector of our university on 

 October 19, 1811, he spoke the significant words, worthy of being 

 taken to heart : " He only is a student who just studies." With 

 prophetic mind he described whither the course tends, when the 

 student, instead of making it his chief purpose to learn, instead 

 of " sinking, as he ought, his whole thought and mind in learn- 

 ing," spends his time in nursing antiquated traditions of a special 

 privileged condition of students and in maintaining supposed pre- 

 rogatives. It is sufficient to refer to this address, which every stu- 

 dent may be advised to read. Fichte at that time expressly dis- 

 claimed speaking of conditions which existed at this university, 

 but referred to the cases of other universities ; and the earnestness 

 of his admonitions reveals that he regarded the danger as menac- 

 ing, and, in fact, as so menacing, that he saw in it the " one possi- 

 ble disadvantage of academical freedom." 



The severe crisis which came on a few years later and in- 

 volved all the German universities has at last passed away, 

 and it has, as we recognize with thanks, left unscathed the two 



