III.[ToC]
EDUCATION.
he buildings of the Berlin University are somewhat scattered, but the edifice known by this name is situated opposite the Imperial Palace, in the finest part of the city. The building was once the palace of Prince Henry, brother of Frederick the Great. It is built around three sides of a court open southward to the street, guarded by a high ornamental iron fence. Before it are the sitting statues of the brothers Humboldt, in fine white marble, on high pedestals. That of Alexander von Humboldt, in particular, inspired me with profound admiration often as I passed it. Few statues are more fortunate in subject, in execution, or in position. The former reception-room of the palace is now the great aula of the University, and the old ball-room is transformed into a Museum. The Cabinet of Minerals and the Collections of the Zoölogical Museum are each among the most valuable of their kind in existence. The fine park to the north of the University is open to the public, and is best seen from the rear entrance in Dorotheen Strasse. Its quiet shades seem quite the ideal of an academic grove, if that can be in the middle of a great city. The Astronomical Observatory is upwards of half a mile south, in a park at the end of Charlotten Strasse; and the Medical Colleges are mostly to the northwest, near the great hospital.
This University, with its hundreds of professors, and nearly six thousand students annually in attendance, is now one of the foremost in Europe. Professors who, like Virchow, Helmholtz, and Mommsen, have a world-wide reputation, draw many to their classes; but there are other equally learned specialists with a more circumscribed reputation and influence. Hundreds of American students tarry each year for a longer or shorter term of study in Berlin, and it is rapidly gaining upon Leipsic as a centre for musical study also. No woman is allowed to matriculate in the University at present, although there are not wanting German women who, in advance of general public sentiment, affirm that this ought not so to be.