442 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



chief features for which we have every reason to be proud in a 

 comparison with other nations of Europe — freedom in teaching 

 and freedom in learning. Teachers and pupils have still that in- 

 dependence and self-reliance which promote vigilant responsi- 

 bility and exclude strange control. The freedom in teaching in 

 particular, which was preserved till the dissolution of the Ger- 

 man Empire through the special concessions of the emperor and 

 the nobles, has in our time become a constitutional right. The 

 free choice of the rector by the regular professors has also re- 

 mained to us, and the corporate character of the university has 

 not been attacked. 



Several other privileges, indeed, which originated in the time 

 when the student body was almost sovereign and the customs of 

 the middle ages determined the form of the student's life, exist no 

 more. The academical jurisdiction has been reduced to a few 

 disciplinary rights ; our scepters, which were conspicuous on days 

 like this, are more ornaments than real insignia of power. The 

 student is now in full sense subject to the civil law. He is a citi- 

 zen like the others, and he knows that he has no other privilege 

 than the right of freedom to learn preserved to him on the ground 

 of what he represents, and the right won by proficiency in uni- 

 versity studies of obtaining money and a part of the highest posi- 

 tions in the state. In other respects we have no academical free- 

 dom different from general civic freedom. The student has no 

 special right. The academical citizen like the citizen of the state 

 looks for the source of his right in the constitution of the state. 

 But this constitution has given him more rights than he formerly 

 had ; especially the right, under limitations prescribed by the con- 

 stitution and the law, to participate in political life without being 

 subjected to any exceptional rule. 



Therefore, dear fellow-students, take the sincere counsel to 

 pursue learning as your first and most important object, 1 with full 

 knowledge of all its results and with devoted earnestness. Self- 

 evident as this advice may seem to be, experience teaches that it 

 can not be repeated too often and too impressively. This is true 

 as well for the later semesters as for the first. The more difficult 

 and comprehensive the branch the entering student selects, the 

 earlier should the methodical study begin, for the instruction of 

 the later semesters is comprehended only on the basis of the ear- 

 lier instruction. The temptation to the young student first to 

 enjoy academical freedom in not-learning is certainly very great. 

 To one who passes from the constraint of the gymnasium into the 

 golden freedom of the university it is a privilege to stretch his 

 limbs and to conduct himself without regard to later things. We 

 all know this, and are accustomed to exercise " academical indul- 

 gence " toward this way of using academical freedom. But there 



