"Shall you soon depart to your estate?" inquired a foreigner of the Graf von Sch----, one of the richest nobles of Germany, who studied jurisprudence in Heidelberg.
"No," replied the Graf, "I shall first submit myself to a state's examination."
"Indeed!" replied the foreigner, "will you then really become a legal practitioner?"[[2]]
"No; but I will show to the world, that without my possessions I could have made my way by my acquirements."
And to this diffusion and recognition of the claims of knowledge, to the scattering abroad of science amongst the people, what has more contributed than the foundation of our universities? Out of them go forth the distinguished men who guide the helm of the state with circumspection; out of them the teachers of the pulpit and the folks-schools,--to diffuse light and improvement throughout society.
[CHAPTER II.]
GENERAL VIEW OF STUDENT-LIFE.
The word freedom sounds so sweetly that we could not be without it, even did it indicate errors--Goethe's Leben Wahrheit und Dichtung.
"Free is the Bursch!" exclaims a beautiful student-song--a song beaten so threadbare with continual singing, that now we seldom bear it sung by the student himself. And true is the cry; or tell me who is freer than he? Where see we the idea of freedom so beautifully realized as in the German student-life? He who has learnt to know this life, may even doubt the truth of that otherwise so true expression of Schiller's--
Freedom is only in the realm of dreams.