E-text prepared by Joshua Hutchinson, Tonya Allen, and Project Gutenberg
Distributed Proofreaders
THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY.
A MAGAZINE OF LITERATURE, ART, AND POLITICS.
VOL. VII.—MARCH, 1861.—NO. XLI.
GERMAN UNIVERSITIES.
THE PROFESSORS.
"Which of the German universities would be the best adapted to mypurpose?" is the question of many an American student, who, having gonethrough the usual course in the United States, looks abroad for thecompletion of his scientific or liberal studies. Of Göttingen andHeidelberg he will often have read and heard; the reputation of thecomparatively new university of Berlin will not be unfamiliar to him;but of Tübingen, Würzburg, Erlangen, Halle, or Bonn, even, he willperhaps know little more than the name. In the majority of thelast-named places, foreigners, especially his own countrymen, are rare;none of his friends have studied there; they have followed the current,since the last century, and spent their time in Göttingen or Heidelberg,perhaps a winter in Berlin. They have found these institutions good, andaffording every facility for study; but would not Munich, or Leipzig, orJena, or any other one of the twenty-six universities of Germany, betteranswer the purpose of many a student?
During the last winter, in many conversations with a retired professorin Berlin, who manifested a special interest in American institutions,mainly in the American educational system, he was very particular ininquiring as to what we meant by our term College. He had read thework of the historian Raumer on America, and declared that from this hecould get no notion whatever as to what the term meant with us. The verysame thing occurs daily in the United States in regard to foreign, or,more properly, the Continental universities. Accustomed as we are to theprevalence of the tutorial system, the use of text-books,—in many partsof the Union not defining clearly the difference between the termsUniversity, College, Institute, and Academy, giving the first name oftento institutions having but one faculty, and that at times incomplete,with no theological, and often no law or medical department, forgettingthat the University should, from its very name, be as universal aspossible in its teachings, comprehending in its list of studies thecombined scientific and literary pursuits of the age,—we are apt tolook upon foreign schools of learning as similar in nature and purposeto our own, differing not in the quality or specific character of theteaching, but rather in the scope and extent of the branches taught. Yetnothing is farther from the truth. The result is, that many a one startsfor Europe full of hope, to seek what he would have found better athome,—or, when prepared and mature for European travel, is left tochance or one-sided advice in the choice of a locality in which toprosecute further studies. Often with only book-knowledge of thelanguage of the country, accident will lead him to the very universitythe least adequate to his purpose.
Having now spent some time in four of the leading German universities,and contemplating a longer stay for the purpose of visiting others, thewriter has thought that some general remarks might call attention topoints often disregarded, and serve to give some insight into the natureof the institutions of learning of the country,—rather aiming tocharacterize the system of higher education as it now exists than togive detailed historical notices, including something of student-life,and the professors,—in fine, such observations as would not be likelyt