THE CLASSICAL QUESTION IN GERMANY. 293 



cember, 1879, Professor Droysen, of the University of Berlin, moved 

 that the faculty of that institution request the Government to recon- 

 sider its policy in regard to the admission of real-school students to 

 the philosophical faculty. After some discussion, Professor Hilbner, 

 the dean of the faculty, was requested to ask the various professors 

 for statements of their experience with the two classes of students. 

 These statements were laid before the faculty, and the most important 

 being incorporated in the form of a report, were sent in, March, 1880, 

 to the Government, with the petition that the latter would reconsider 

 the whole matter — ^the real object of the report being to move the 

 Government to rescind the order of December 7, 1870. These were 

 not the first statements on the question, for the Minister of Public In- 

 struction had already, a short time before, made inquiries of many 

 leading professors in the various universities as to their experience in 

 the matter since 1871. The most of them held views similar to those 

 of the Berlin professors. The set of statements, with the petition 

 above referred to, constitutes the " Berlin Report," and, on account of 

 its formal and authoritative character, has excited world-wide atten- 

 tion and discussion. 



These reports are now quoted by many as a final settlement of the 

 much-disputed question between the " classicists " and the " modern- 

 ists," and by many more as expressing the judgment of educated 

 Germany, at least, on the subject. Thus, President Porter, in the 

 article above mentioned says : "The question of the superiority of 

 a classical to a modern training has of late been subjected to a practi- 

 cal trial on an extensive scale, by a comparison of the results of the 

 gymnasial curriculum and that of the Realschtile, as a preparation 

 for a university course and indirectly for civil administration. In 

 most of the German states — in Prussia pre-eminently — an attendance 

 upon the university course, with a certificate of fidelity and a suc- 

 cession of satisfactory examinations, had been the essential prerequi- 

 sites to many of the most desirable official positions in civil life. To 

 admission to all the privileges of the university an attendance upon 

 the gymnasium with the classical curriculum was an essential prerequi- 

 site, carrying with it the consequence that to all the higher posts of 

 civil life a course of classical study, including Greek and Latin, had till 

 recently been a conditio sine qua non. The Healschulen, which gave 

 a shorter and a more scientific and popular course, in which Greek was 

 not included, and the Latin was scanty, furnish an example of a mod- 

 ernist education. It was very natural that this condition of things 

 should be felt to be inequitable by the teachers and pupils of these 

 schools, and that an earnest movement should be made to set it aside. 

 In several of the states it was successful. In Prussia, against strong 

 conviction to the contrary, it was allowed for a term of years by way 

 of experiment, that the * modernists ' (the Abiturienten der Healschulen) 

 should enter the university and enjoy all its privileges. When this 



