448 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



But it will evidently be attainable in its details only to university 

 students. The decision of what shall be prescribed to the higher 

 schools concerns, therefore, only the two classical and the modern 

 languages. The university teacher has, in respect to this deci- 

 sion, to insist that, whatever language is prescribed, it shall be so 

 taught that the pupil shall learn to work independently in it, and 

 that he preserve his pleasure in the work. It remains to be seen 

 whether new methods of teaching will promote this object. 



We can now show upon this subject that there.are other fields 

 of teaching, the methods of which have been so well shaped out 

 that they are in a condition completely to carry out what is 

 needed. They are mathematics, philosophy, and the natural 

 sciences. They have, on the one hand, so rich and diversified a 

 content that they ever stimulate the love of knowledge anew, and 

 on the other hand they are so well adapted to an ever more ex- 

 tensive cultivation as to afford a rich opportunity for genuine 

 research. It is thus made clear that occupation with them affords 

 the young mind so sure a preparatory training that it can make 

 itself at home with peculiar ease in every faculty. 



Instruction in the branches we have named, at least in their 

 elements, was introduced long ago in our higher schools. Only 

 the measure of the knowledge which should be prescribed as the 

 purpose of this instruction has been variously fixed at different 

 times. The opinions of teachers as well as of the controlling state 

 officers have frequently changed ; and the excessive tendency of 

 these men toward the philological course at last always borne 

 against the extension of the designated branches. Only the ex- 

 treme necessity of satisfying the demands of the rapidly advanc- 

 ing technical interest and the industries gaining strength evenly 

 with it, irresistibly forced concessions, and when it was believed 

 that these could not be carried in the humanistic institutions, 

 a separation was decided upon. Hence arose the polytechnic 

 schools and the gymnasia, and as a further result the technical 

 high schools. 



A final peace has not been reached in this way. Our age is in 

 the midst of the fight over the claims of particular kinds of high 

 schools. The call is ever anew rising for specially organized 

 schools, and before everything for a far-reaching reform of 

 gymnasial teaching. Not all these demands can be justified. The 

 universities have in most cases not sustained the claims of the 

 real schools for a general admission of their graduates. As we 

 have already observed, the interests of the individual faculties in 

 the kind of preparation of their students are not identical. Those 

 faculties which look in their teachings for immediate support in 

 philological aids can not declare themselves satisfied with a prepa- 

 ration which has pushed the ancient languages more or less into 



