Dec. 9, 1869| 
Egypt, that entered the Pirzus: at various times also, | 
and particularly in the year of the city 389 (before the 
building of the aqueducts), the Roman capital was visited 
with the same calamity: but this is nothing to the fearful 
visitations with which all Europe was afflicted during the 
14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries. 
The last appearance of the Plague in Europe was in | 
1719, when it was introduced into Marseilles by a ship 
that had been refused admittance into the port of Cagliari 
in Sardinia, Even then its course might probably have 
been stopped, had its malignant nature been recognised | 
soon enough; but this was not the case, and more than 
90,000 persons were killed by it. Here we have a clear 
proof of the value of preventive measures. Sardinia 
was saved because the king refused the admission of the | 
ship into the port of Cagliari; Marseilles was ravaged 
because a like precaution was not taken. 
In England we are accustomed to manage affairs in 
a less official manner than they are managed abroad, 
and the result is that improvements, although more diffi- 
cult of introduction, are often more surely brought about 
with us than with our neighbours, It is certainly not 
because we are less hygienic in our habits than other 
nations, that we have so few books on hygiene, or 
that our Medical Schools have not looked upon it as a 
sister science with Medicine; but because it seemed 
to take no special line, and because it seemed to be so 
much everybody’s business: now, however, since the 
formation of the General Board of Health 
Registrar-General’s office, such a mass of information 
with regard to the statistics and to the causes of disease 
has been obtained, that it seems necessary to make a 
special study of this science, and no longer to allow it to 
be taught accidentally as an appendage to Pathology or 
Therapeutics. W. H. CoRFIELD 
SCIENCE EDUCATION IN GERMANY 
I,—THE GERMAN UNIVERSITY SYSTEM 
qe most striking point of difference between the 
condition of science teaching in Germany and in 
England lies in the great facilities and encouragements 
which, in the former country, are given to the study of 
science in its highest development. In primary education, 
we are in England probably doing as much or more in the 
way of encouraging the teaching of elementary science as 
is being done in Germany, or elsewhere. It is our 
richly endowed Universities which have as yet failed to 
play the important part in this essential feature of modern 
education which, from their position and means, we have 
a right to expect them to do, whilst other less wealthy 
Colleges and educational establishments, quite as capable 
of giving the highest scientific instruction, have to battle 
with almost overwhelming difficulties. Government, on 
the other hand, true to its supposed function of simply 
assisting those who cannot help themselves, only gives 
pecuniary aid towards the science instruction of the work- 
ing classes ; and, with a singular want of foresight, pro- 
vides no systematic means of training the teachers,* who 
are left to pick up their education as best they may. 
* The few Queen's prizes and other exhibitions for instruction in the Roval 
School of Mines cannot in any respect be considered as a system: of science 
education for teachers. 
and the | 
NATURE 
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157 
The university system of Germany is now so different 
in character from that of England, that it is difficult to 
believe that these institutions, of the same age and stand- 
ing, were founded on the same type, and perhaps equally 
so to explain how they came to be so essentially different. 
The cause of this difference appears, however, to me to 
lie less in the necessarily varying nature of national 
character and requirements, than in the simple fact that 
in Oxford and Cambridge the system of colleges founded 
originally as benefactions to religious societies by private 
donors, and still retaining a party and religious character, 
has swamped (or nearly so) the university ; and that the 
college tuition interferes with, and is indeed often abso- 
lutely opposed to, that of the proper educating body which 
it was intended only to supplement. In Germany the 
college system does not exist, and the university has 
always remained supreme in its locality; it knows of 
no interference, religious or otherwise, in its own sphere ; 
its system of education is regulated according to one 
principle, and one spirit of emulation pervades the whole 
staff of teachers. 
It is singular to notice that the German universities, 
which are all of them Government institutions, every 
professor being a civil servant of the Crown, taking the 
oaths and receiving salary and pension, do not suffer from 
what we are apt to consider the deadening influence of 
Government service. On the contrary, this system now 
holds, and has always contained, the highest and best 
intellectual life of the nation, replete with energy both as 
regards teaching power and original research. This may 
be explained by the fact that although the universities are 
State institutions, yet they are practically free as regards 
their internal government. Each Professor teaches as he 
thinks best, and Ministerial interference with the regula- 
tions of the Senate is of the rarest occurrence. In another 
point of view, it is well to compare the Government 
universities of what we Englishmen are even yet too apt 
to consider as the despotic and illiberal German powers 
with our free (!) universities. In Germany all, from 
prince to peasant, who choose, can and do come to the 
university, provided they bring certificates of having passed 
the exit examination of their gymnasium, as a proof of due 
qualification to benefit from the university instruction. 
Thus, the small government of Baden supports two uni- 
versities, to the benefits of which persons of all classes, 
of all religious denominations, and natives of all countries 
are permitted to enter, without limitation of number, 
without religious test of any kind, and for the payment of 
ridiculously low fees. Can we say that our universities 
are as free? or that we in England possess any other 
institutions which fulfil for us the duties of these High 
Schools for the German people ? 
The university system of Germany has most certainly 
succeeded in stimulating intellectual activity, and foster- 
ing a spirit of original inquiry amongst the teachers, and 
thus creating a true profession of learned men. On the 
other hand, it offers sufficient inducement to aspiring 
students to devote themselves to special pursuits, and 
raise their aims to something higher than mere “ Brod- 
studien,” by opening out to them a path, often arduous 
and rugged, by which a man of ability may rise, from 
privat-docent and extraordinary professor, to the highest 
position of university eminence, This free infusion of 
