SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF UNIVERSITIES.
Gentlemen,--Let us, as true sons of Minerva, exhibit an agreeable contrast to those people yonder, who have given themselves up to the burthen of play. May the honey of my words drop into your ears, and turn you into true disciples of wisdom. But the subject of our present lecture is the earlier fortunes of universities in general, and in particular of Ruperto-Carolo, that ancient fountain of knowledge, out of which we have drunk deep draughts.
"The sup of wisdom," interrupted Enderlin, "that we have eaten with a spoon, is a more beautiful metaphor--"
I warn the indiscreet hearer--said the pro tempore professor, Von Kronen, sternly frowning,--of Tit ii. section 27, of the academical laws, where it is declared that--'insults towards persons who are placed in authority in the university, or towards the persons connected with them, shall be strictly punished; if they are offered from revenge, so must the punishment be made the sharper, and, according to circumstance, may be even penally amerced.' After this, let no man insult or interrupt.
Our European universities, as they at present exist, are the production of a comparatively late period, since, though we find institutions resembling them in very early times, yet they were essentially and wholly different to ours. History shows us how, through the continually progressing culture of a people from age to age, institutions for the fostering and diffusion of knowledge formed themselves; and thus we find, at first, the so-called Priest-Schools in Egypt, Persia, India, and amongst the Hebrews; amongst the Celtic people the cloister-like unions of the Druids, which in caves and solitary woods, imparted to the most distinguished of the youth oral instruction.
The business of teaching was confined to expounding of the laws, of the holy books, and so forth, and was communicated in verses. The educational institutions of the Greeks were of a higher grade. The first and most celebrated High School was Athens; which also in still later times, maintained a high rank in this respect. We must here only remind ourselves of the gardens of Plato, in which he imparted his instructions in philosophy. The Cynosarges, where Antisthenes taught; the Poikyle or Stoa, where Zeno assembled his disciples; the gardens of Epicurus, and afterwards of the museum at Alexandria. Philosophy was the great science: as to them the Faculties, as well as the so-called Bread sciences (sciences made a trade or profession of) were totally unknown. The Greeks also possessed public libraries, as those at Alexandria and Pergamus. The educational institutions of the Romans were modelled essentially upon those of the Greeks, and enjoyed the most extensive influence from the 607th year after the building of Rome; and the highest veneration was shown to professors from Greece, who taught in them philosophy and the arts. The Romans also held it indispensable to visit and study in the schools of Greece, and their young nobility especially resorted to Athens, Rhodes, Alexandria, etc. The Romans, moreover, were not acquainted with the division into Faculties, and every man of standing studied the liberal arts--studia humaniora--in their whole compass; and libraries, and collections of works and remains of art, were much more numerously and richly at their command. The study of philosophy was not the less zealously prosecuted than in Greece; but the grammatical philosophy of the Greek and Roman tongues, combined with rhetoric and poetry, were the highest objects of education. The continually increasing numbers of the immigrating Grecian professors, led to the founding of many other schools in Italy. Amongst the most important was the Athenæum, founded by the Emperor Hadrian, afterwards called the Schola Romana; those of the capitol, and other temples. Vespasian was the first to establish public professors of political science with fixed salaries. Antoninus Pius raised the so-called imperial schools, as did Valentinian those of Rome generally, to the higher distinction, by a thorough and salutary reform. Athens, however, still continued to maintain the highest reputation, down to the tenth century, to which people flocked from all countries.
With the fall of Rome fell also the schools, and all the higher institutions for the diffusion of knowledge; but with the spread of Christianity they began again to rear their heads, but with a very essentially different character. Their tendency was preeminently theological,--as the theological seminaries, and the catechetical schools, especially at Alexandria, testify; which latter maintained the highest celebrity, from the second to the fourteenth century. This theological tendency manifested itself still more in the episcopal and cathedral schools, where indeed the so-called Seven Free Arts were also taught, but in the most miserable and imperfect manner. Theology, growing every day more sterile, yet exercised a perpetually increasing lordship over philosophy, and formally subjected it to tutelage, as the monastic schools from the sixth to the eleventh century most strikingly show. These institutions sought the immediate protection of the hierarchy, and the result of their labours was the School Philosophy.
Charlemagne and his friend Alcuin again first comprehended the idea of a general humane accomplishment. The former founded the Schola Palatii, for princes and young men of condition, and Alfred in England established similar ones there; but with the death of these remarkable men, all seemed to fall back again into the old track. These cloister schools, however, in the ninth century, merged into the so-called Faculty Schools; which again in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries lived anew as Universities. Thus, in consequence of the schools of Charlemagne and Alfred, a free spirit of scientific inquiry evolved itself from the cloister schools, which found a corroborating co-operation in the Rabbinical schools of North Africa, in Spain, and France, and still more, in the schools of the Arabs. There, such Faculty Schools stood forth with especial prominence; the one for medical science at Salerno; for jurisprudence at Bologna, which possessed distinguished privileges as the gift of the Emperor Henry I. through the Autentica of the year 1158. The scholastic theology soon separated itself from the Aristotelian-Arabic Philosophy, and the seat of the latter became Paris. Amongst many precious privileges, which these three institutions received in consequence of the Autentica of Frederick I., that of Philip Augustus for Paris was the most remarkable. It freed it from the civil jurisdiction, and placed it under the jurisdiction of its own teachers. Paris was also the first university in which all branches of education were taught; yet even there, still theology continued to be the prominent study, and none of the universities could confer all kinds of academical honours. So, doctors of theology could only be created in Paris; of law, only in Bologna, and so on. As these schools now became actually universities, they ceased to bear the names of scholæ, studia, studia generalia, and the name of universities was adopted, and has ever since continued in use.
The teachers of the universities received originally no stipend from the state. Frederick II. paid to the teachers of the newly-founded university at Naples in 1224, the first fixed stipend. The great advantages of a university education becoming, by degrees, generally known, occasioned many cities, which saw these advantages, to endeavour to become university-cities themselves, so that from the thirteenth century the number greatly increased. Universities were founded in Montpellier in 1220; in Orleans in 1312; and in Prague in 1348; the last in particular formed on the model of that of Paris. Independence of the state created, especially in Prague, a most beneficial freedom of doctrine in the teachers, which was often directed against the prince, and often against the church, with the most distinguished consequences.
We are once more conducted by the mention of Prague back to the universities of Germany, and it must be, in the first place, observed, that this university for a considerable period was, and continued to be, the only one. But as knowledge penetrated more and more into Germany, and especially as it was cherished and promoted by the princes, the want of such higher educational institutions was more and more felt, and thus arose in the German territory, previous to the end of the fifteenth century, fifteen universities,--of which Vienna was founded in 1365; Heidelberg in 1387; Cologne in 1388; Erfurt in 1392; Leipsic in 1409; Rostock in 1419; Freisburg in Breisgau in 1452; Greifswalde in 1456, 1472; Trier in 1454, 1472; Basle in 1460; Ingoldstadt in 1471; Tübingen in 1477; Mayence in 1471. At the beginning of the sixteenth century arose Wittenberg in 1502, and Frankfurt on the Oder in 1505; Marburg in 1527, the first Protestant university; Königsberg in Prussia in 1544; Jena in 1554, 1557; Altdorf in 1675, 1678; Helmstadt 1575.
At that period, however, the Protestant princes only could be justly praised for their care to provide able professors; the universities which continued Catholic, or which were newly-founded by Catholic princes, as those of Dillingen in 1613; Paderborn in 1615; and Molsheim in 1618; were occupied by the Jesuits. In consequence of the unfortunate Thirty Years' War, many of these universities fell; many suffered much from the chances of war; and these circumstances incited neighbouring princes to found new universities. So arose the university at Giessen in 1650; at Duisburg in 1655; at Kiel in 1665. The Elector Frederick III. of Brandenburg--King Frederick I.--changed in 1694 the Ritter School at Halle into a university. A general improvement of the instruction given in all the universities in this century is observable: but spite of all endeavours at improvement in this respect, the sciences all continued to be taught in a very unphilosophical manner, and in the Latin tongue.
The necessary advance from this wretched state of things began with the eighteenth century, through the universally restless activity of the philosopher Leibnitz. Christian Wolf taught first in the spirit of Leibnitz and in the German tongue. George II. seconding the better spirit of the time, founded a new university at Göttingen in 1734; Margrave Frederick of Brandenburg-Anspach one at Erlangen in 1743; and a Catholic one arose through the Prince-Bishop of Dalberg in 1734 at Fulda, but was dissolved again in 1804. The good spirit continued to work on through the remaining half of the eighteenth century, and thus in 1760, Duke Frederick of Mecklenburg founded a university at Bützow, which was in 1789 united to that of Rostock. The Duke Karl Eugen of Würtemberg in 1770 founded that of Stuttgardt, which was, however, again dissolved in 1794. Bonn also at that period received the foundation of its university. More recently was founded that at Landshut, whither the university of Ingoldstadt was removed in 1800, and again in 1827 removed to Munich. Wittemberg ceased in 1816, being united to that of Halle; and in 1810 a new university was founded at Berlin.
We have now, gentlemen, taken an historical glance at the German universities, and at their foundations, so far as is necessary. They were called forth by the ruling circumstances of the times, and established themselves now in this manner and now in that. But it is especially interesting to us to have seen that the university of Heidelberg was one of the earliest, and continues one of the first; its rank no one will presume to contest. She has raised her noble head amid all the storms of time, and no state revolutions or other political epochs could make her bend. Ruperto-Carolo shone like a morning sun on the horizon of scientific endeavour, and we now shall take with particular pleasure the opportunity----
"To invite the honourable listeners politely to partake of a modest supper;" interrupted Hoffmann. "Thou mayst finish thy learned lecture another time."
Von Kronen.--Far be it from me to throw any obstruction in the way of so praiseworthy a proposition; especially, as the favourite adage of our city of the Muses has always been--the utile dulci.
Mr. Traveller.--So postpone we then the continuance of the discourse to a future day.