My Life

by Josiah Flynt

I can hardly suppress a smile now when I think of my entrance into this famous university. To be sure, I had the necessary amount of money and had long since passed the required age limit, but I am afraid that a stock-taking of my other qualifications would have left me woefully in the lurch had the other qualifications not been taken for granted. There were two years at an American college to my credit, it is true, and I had perhaps done more general reading than even the average German student. But what else was there to entitle me to matriculation? Nothing, I fear, unless it was my mother's earnest wish that this take place.

On my return from England I was determined to let her suggest what was best for me to do, having made such a fiasco of the English venture, a suggestion and enterprise of my own. The university and its professors loomed up large in my mother's eyes. If she could only see me once started on such a career, she said, she thought that her cup of happiness would be full, indeed. She was set on having at least one academic child in the family, and my presence in Berlin and willingness to behave, renewed her hopes that this ambition was to be realized. Fortunate it was for her ambition and my sensibilities that the matriculation ceremonies were so simple. My German at the time had been selected principally from the coal-passers' vocabulary, but I was quick in overhauling it, and when ready to matriculate, knew as much of the language probably as does the average American student on first entering the university. On receiving my matriculation certificate from the rector—a very formidable document it was, written in Latin, which I had long since forgotten—shaking hands with him and receiving the faculty's welcome into the institution, I asked that my faulty German be pardoned.

"Certainly, Herr Studiosus, certainly," the rector assured me. "You are here to learn; we all are. So excuses are not necessary."

This was all the formality that was attached to the entrance ceremony. In five minutes, thanks to the rector, I had changed from a quondam coal passer to a would-be Doctor of Philosophy in the great Friedrich Wilhelm Universitat, a royal institution. The importance of the royal protectorate over the university and the students never impressed me greatly, until a friend of mine had a wordy difference with one of the officials at the Royal Library. My friend was lame, having to use crutches. One day, when entering the room where borrowed books are returned, he proceeded to the desk with his hat on, being unable to remove it until freed of his armful of books. The officious clerk called his attention to the excusable breach of etiquette in none too polite language, adding: "You must remember that I am an Imperial official." "And do you remember," demanded my doughty Greek friend, "that I am an Imperial student."

I never had occasion to call attention to my "Imperialism" while in the university, but it was a kind of little joke that I was already to play if opportunity offered.

To take a Ph. D. at Berlin in my day at least one major study was required, and also two minors. Six semesters was the time necessary for preparation before one could promoviren, and an acceptable "Thesis" was absolutely necessary before examination was permissible. As a rule, a man with a well-written thesis and a fair mastery of his major subject succeeded in getting a degree. There were no examinations until the candidates for degrees were ready to promoviren, to try for their Doctor's degree. At the end of three years, six semesters, such candidates were called before their professors and made to tell what they knew both in their major and minor studies. The examination was oral and alleged to be pretty minute, but I have been told by a Japanese, with a Ph. D. degree from Johns Hopkins University and preliminary study in German institutions, that, in his case, he would have preferred to take his chances in a bout with the Berlin examiners.

The significance of the title was by no means clear to me on matriculating in Berlin. In an indefinite sort of way I knew that it stood for certain learned acquirements, but what these amounted to puzzled me much at the time, and they do yet. Occasionally some visiting clergyman would preach for our local pastor in the American church, and I noticed that when a Ph. D. was a part of his title it was thought extremely good form to pay extra attention to his discourse.

I think this extra attention was partly due to the significance which our pastor gave to such decorations. He put much stress on learned institutions, their doctrines and teachings, and his discourses—many of them at least—might have been delivered in the university, so far as they patched up the spiritual wear and tear of his hearers. He was much given to quoting the professors of his university days, and, at his evening home-lectures, he could make himself very interesting telling us about the Germany of his youth and early manhood. One professor whose name he was continually mentioning was Tollock, or Toccoch, or something similar. I believe this gentleman had been noted as a theologian, but what I admired more than anything else was to hear our pastor roll out the name. His pronunciation of it seemed to me to incorporate the whole German language in one mouthful. With words, English or German, ending with a "d," the pastor had difficulty. In his prayers, for example, "Lord God" became "Lorn Gone," and I am afraid that some of us called the good man "Lorn Gone." He staid with us twenty years or more, I think, and he and his wife did much to get the money to build the present American Church. He very kindly took an interest in my selection of lectures at the university. For the life of me I cannot recall now why he or I chose Political Economy for my major. It may have been because my father had been much interested in this subject and had possessed a fine library on economic questions. It may also be accounted for by my cursory look into John Stuart Mill's book previous to leaving for Liverpool. Still, again, it may have been one of those haphazard selections which are resorted to in cases like mine; the subject was safe at least, and perhaps the good Doctor thought that studying might inculcate good principles in me about personal economy. Whatever the cause may have been, I was enrolled in der philosophischen Facultät, as an earnest delver into Theoretische und praktische national-ekonomic. I took two privatim twenty-mark lectures in my major, each semester that I was in the university. Professors Wagner and Schmoller were my instructors in these courses. With Professor Wagner I never became well acquainted, but an interview that I once had with Professor Schmoller has always remained memorable. I had spent twenty marks semester after semester on his lectures and it did not seem to me that I was getting on very fast in my subject. Being a near neighbor of ours, I resolved one day to call on him in his villa and find out whether the trouble was on his side or mine. I had other uses for the semester twenty marks, unless he absolutely needed them. He asked me point blank what my preparation for university work had been previous to matriculating at Berlin, and how it had come about that Political Economy had been selected as my major. I told him the truth, even resorting to anecdotes about riding freight cars, to make myself clear. He laughed.

"And what have you in mind as a topic for a thesis?" he asked me. I had been four semesters in the university, and it was time for me to begin to think seriously about a thesis if I intended to promoviren. My thoughts were very scattered on this point, but I finally managed to tell the professor that vagrancy and geography seemed to have considerable in common, and that I contemplated a thesis which would consolidate my learning on these subjects. Again the professor laughed. He finally delivered himself of this dictum: "Vagrancy and geography don't combine the way you infer at any German university. Geography and Political Economy, however, make excellent mates, and are well worth studying together. Perhaps you might find it easier to get your degree at one of the South German universities."