September 18, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



245 



of finance or taxation. He is not one of 

 those students who think that all social move- 

 ments can be expressed in terms of arithme- 

 tic. He is as well aware as any one, that 

 intellectual forces are too recondite to be meas- 

 ured by any calculus ; but he knows the value 

 of numbers as well as their inadequac}^, and 

 he has used them accordingly in the study of 

 universities with a master's skill. 



We refer to the recent work of Dr. J. Con- 

 rad of Halle, translated by John Hutchison 

 of Glasgow, and introduced to English read- 



ences, so complete in its manj^-sidedness, and 

 so helpful to those who wish to know the sig- 

 nificance and the tendencies of advanced edu- 

 cation in the nineteenth century, as that of the 

 great economist of Plalle. 



Although it is not probable that the United 

 States will ever have a S3^stem of universities 

 exactly like that which Germany has estab- 

 lished, the German experience will always be 

 of the highest value to Americans. Our his- 

 torical roots are in England ; and our highest 

 educational foundations are likely, hereafter as 



MAP SHOWING THE DISTRIBUTIOK OF GERMAN UNIVERSITIES. 



ers by Professor Bryce of Oxford. The trans- 

 lator righth' sa3's of the original, that it is 

 characterized by " that thoroughness for which 

 German research is proverbial," thus remind- 

 ing us of a remark of Matthew Arnold's, that, 

 as a general rule, " hardl}^ any one amongst us, 

 who knows French and German well, would 

 use an English book of reference when he could 

 get a French or German one." We do not 

 believe that it would be possible to produce in 

 any land but Germany an educational memoir 

 so trustworthy in its facts and in its infer- 



heretofore, to be developed according to non- 

 Germanic methods. Nevertheless it would be 

 deplorable if the leaders of progress in this 

 land were indifferent to the wonderful influence 

 which has been exerted upon modern society 

 by the systems of research, of publication, 

 and of instruction, brought by the Germans to 

 such a high state of development. Founda- 

 tions, the earliest of which came into being 

 five hundred years ago, have shown new vigor 

 within the last half-century, and were never 

 so well worth study as now. 



