The Student-Life of Germany

by William Howitt

The Great Senate consists of all the ordinary professors. To this senate belongs the election of prorector, and other officers of the university, so for as the university right extends, and the management of the affairs consigned to their care by the Select Senate. The Great Senate has, therefore, no fixed days of assembly. The four faculties of theology, law, medicine, and philosophy, which last includes in itself all that is not comprehended under the other three, as mathematics, political and states' economy, history, language, etc. etc., constitute the main learned and scientific fabric of the university.

The teachers are divided into ordinary professors; such teachers as occupy the established professorships, with the emoluments and duties thereunto belonging; and the extraordinary professors, such teachers as possess only such salary as the prince bestows. These do not always hold an actual professorship--and in this respect, resemble a third class, the so-called Privat Docenten; that is to say, gentlemen who devote themselves to an academical career, who have taken the degree of doctor, and through a public disputation have acquired the right to deliver lectures on subjects connected with their particular department of science. The last receive no salary, but depend upon the remuneration derived from their classes.

This institution of private teachers forms a nursery, out of which the High School can advantageously recruit itself with able professors; and we shall have occasion presently to show the great benefit derived from this regulation, especially when compared with the arrangements of the French universities.

All the ordinary professors are members of the faculty by virtue of their office. Their rank in the faculty determines itself by the number of years during which they have occupied regular professorships, whether in that in which they reside, or in some other university of Germany. The oldest member of each faculty becomes, according to established rule, its head, with the title of Dean. To him it belongs to bring forward all affairs of the faculty; to superintend the examination of the students, as well as to issue the diplomas conferred on them.

The same honorarium which the docenten or tutors receive, receive also all the teachers of a university, from those students who attend their classes. There are regular receivers, quæstors, appointed for the reception of the honorarium, or charge for the attendance of lectures, to whom especially belongs the reception of all money belonging to the administration of the university, and attention to every thing connected with the financial department.

The universities possess funds of their own, which are derived from ancient grants from the princes, and from private legacies. To this fund the government adds an annual determinate contribution; and from this united income are defrayed the total expenses of the High School; as the salaries of teachers and officers, and the management of its subordinate institutions. Besides this financial administration of the university, it has also a building and economy commission. The building-commission has the superintendence of the new building and necessary repairs in the university, and under its direction is placed the building inspector with a yearly salary. In the economy department of the university, the commission, in all that falls under its management, has to maintain a correspondence with, and receive the approval of the curatorial office. It assembles once a month under a director, who is selected from the members in routine. The cashier of the university has a seat in the commissions, and he is at the same time secretary, and draws up and signs the decrees of the senate.

As the university has its own Board of Finance, so has it also its Court of Justice. The peculiar life of the universities--their peculiar relation to the state--the members of such societies--flowing together, as they did and do, from such different countries, to combine themselves, so to say, into an imperium in imperio; into a small state, in fact, which must enjoy a certain, and, indeed, ample degree of freedom, and yet must be made subordinate to the great state,--all this made the princes in the times immediately succeeding the founding of the universities, feel it necessary to grant to them their own courts of justice. So received these institutions peculiar privileges. Individual laws were given, till their number became so great that it was requisite to collect them into a code. These laws, as they at present exist, have been revised by the government, in conjunction with the senates of the universities, and confirmed. They bear especially upon the following points. First, upon the acquisition and forfeiture of the rights of academical citizenship. Candidates for matriculation must, upon an appointed day, and at an appointed hour, appear before the board of matriculation, and lay before it their certificates of learning and morals. If these are found satisfactory, the board delivers to the candidate the printed academical regulations. Hereupon must he sign what is called the reverse; that is, an attached form of declaration, binding himself to take no part in any prohibited verbindung, or union, or in any designs of a demagogue burschenschaft, but to conform himself to the academical laws. The new candidate thereupon gives to the prorector what is called the hand-gelübde, or literally, hand-oath; that is, he gives him his hand, pronounces what is above stated, and then receives the matriculation certificate, or diploma, which confers upon him the enjoyment of all the rights of academical burgership. Through this he acquires a claim on the academical court of justice, on the protection of the academical laws, as well as the right to enjoy the benefit of the library and the learned institutions.

No one who has not matriculated can attend the public lectures, except the tutors, companions or attendants, appointed by parents or guardians to students--these, of course, also paying the regular fees--and such persons not studying in the universities as are so far advanced in life as to put matriculation out of the question. This right of academical citizenship continues five years, provided it be not voluntarily relinquished or penally forfeited. The laws extend themselves to the relations between the students and the heads, professors, and subordinate officers of the university, as well as towards other officers of the state or city. For instance, the penalties are stated, for offences against these various officers, as also the duties of the students in regard to their studies. A long series of laws defines the penalties for the peculiar offences of students, as for games of hazard, real and verbal injuries to one another, especially for the duel, under its various forms; for breaking the peace, drunkenness, tumults and uproars, interdicted assembling of themselves together, secret combinations of students, etc. It is further declared, that public processions are only permitted under certain conditions, and that the wearing of colours is forbidden. Further declarations regard the debts of the students; and lastly, the regulations under which the advantages of the university library are to be enjoyed are made known.

The oversight and penal jurisdiction over the students are exercised by the academical senate, the prorector, and the amtmann, or magistrate of the university. The ephorat is a peculiar board, consisting of select professors, which only in the sphere of fatherly and friendly admonition exercises its superintendence chiefly over the moral conduct of the students when occasion requires; exhorting them to diligence and good behaviour, and putting itself, if necessary, in correspondence with their parents. The magistrate exercises the jurisdiction in the first instance. In criminal cases, he draws the process, and sends it, not to the court of justice of the university, but to the ordinary tribunal of the state; in affairs of discipline he conducts the inquiry, and pronounces all academical penalties, with the exception of the consilium abeundi. The proceeding in the inquiry is summary, and, in cases where the ordinary oath is administered to people in general, is the ehrenwort, or word of honour of the student demanded. To the condemned it is neither allowed to look into the proceedings against him, nor is the name of his accuser revealed. He must even submit himself to the judgment of the senate, without the power to insist that the ground of its judgment shall be made known. The appeal from the sentence of the amtmann, lies to the senate, which also pronounces the consilium abeundi and the relegation, on the motion of the amtmann. The appeal from the sentence of the senate lies to the minister of the interior.

For the administration of the academical laws and acts of justice, especial police officers, and beadles, upper and inferior, are maintained. The chief beadle in pressing cases, has the right to cite before him, and to arrest without warrant, but must immediately make announcement thereof to the amtmann.