38 F7-ojessor Sadler on 



Profkssor Sadler, who met with a very cordial reception, 

 in the course of his remarks said the period w^hich extended from 

 the foundation of the German Empire to the present day had 

 been an era of renewed advance. In the atmosphere of political 

 thought and moral abnegation voiced by Fichie the educational 

 ideals of modern Germany were formed. Prussia had rendered 

 great services to German education, but, great as those services 

 had been, Prussia was not the sole representative of German 

 culture or of its administrative achievement. To ignore the 

 services rendered by Southern Germany and the smaller States 

 now part of the German Empire would be to conceal some (>{ the 

 main factors in the problem. Modern German education was a 

 federal unity, comprising great differences of tone and temper in 

 various parts of the empire, the whole being bound together in 

 such a manner as to secure a sufificient unity of administration 

 without imposing a mechanical uniformity upon different traditions 

 of culture and of social life. The great significance of the history 

 of German education in the last century lay in its effective national 

 organization and its far-reaching international relationships 

 Proceeding, he said Halle was the first university to be based on 

 the principle of freedom of thought and teaching, and therefore 

 to assimilate modern philosophy and science, and the influence of 

 the Universities of Halle and Gottingen transformed academic 

 life in Germany, and in consequence by the end of the 

 eighteenth century there had been established throughout 

 Germany a strong and intellectual tradition which was pre- 

 disposed to welcome a great development of public education 

 under the supervision of the State. The influence of Kant in 

 Protestant Germany and the religious revival, partly due to 

 Romanticism in Southern Germany, prepared the way for the 

 acceptance of new plans of educational organization imposed by 

 the State. The years 1840 and 1870 were in some respects years 

 of reaction, the progress of the universities slackened, and in the 

 elementary schools progress was checked by a fear of the political 



