New agitations of the time, again disturbed this happy condition of the university; the political rule changed with the personal affairs of the princes; and literature felt the influence of this, in the strongest and most immediate manner. The teaching of philosophy was at a later period made over to the Lazarists; a dark reaction commenced against the liberal spirit; and at the same time that the peculiar speculative element of Heidelberg university fell into the shade, the empirical sciences rose up again into new existence on all sides.
A society had already, in 1734, established itself under the auspices of Professor Heuresius, for the cultivation of the history of the Fatherland, which however fell again. In 1769, a philosophical and economical society was founded in Lautern; and in 1774, a school of state economy. Both of these were removed to Heidelberg in 1784, and richly furnished with books and collections. From Heidelberg went forth the first impulse towards a scientific treatment of the doctrines of State economy.
The House of Zähringen now stepping into possession of the Pfalz, thus presided over the university. The second of the newly acquired territories, the Breisgau, erected in the university of Freiburg a rival to Heidelberg; a circumstance which was not without its effect on the latter. By the removal of the Catholic seminary to Freiburg, the scope and operation of the theological Faculty in Heidelberg were strikingly constringed; but only the stronger, and in this respect in opposition to the Freiburg university, and in more conspicuous superiority, advanced the other Faculties of Heidelberg, especially the judicial and medicinal, and of the philosophical, the section of state economy; which last, through the new organization of the university, constituted an especial department, and was placed in rank, at the head of the philosophical. This scientific tendency has raised itself on the preponderating necessity of the nation and the times; upon it grounded itself the fame and consideration of Heidelberg in foreign countries; and the new government was sagacious enough not to disturb this natural and historical position of the university by ill-timed interference. The demands of modern education were so far conceded to, that, by calling into it men of the highest celebrity in all departments, a combination of the various ruling tendencies of the spirit of the times, a universality of studies, was attempted. The two Vosses were won in order to give new splendour to the university, and demonstrate the taste for classicality; and a new impetus was given to the novel speculative tendencies in philosophy and theology.
But it soon became sufficiently convincing that these elements of education did not naturally assimilate themselves to the scientific life of Heidelberg, but were only artificially engrafted; that Heidelberg has not its mission to represent in itself the spirit of modern science and art; but the simple vocation of working out education and accomplishment suited to the necessities and interests of the practical life of the state and of civil offices, in both their wider and their more circumscribed spheres. It was then suffered to retain the character which it had established for itself, and those endeavours to force it into directions which did not naturally originate in its own bosom and nature, were discontinued. Thus it came to pass that the philosophy and the speculative theology altogether dragged; that the classical and antiquarian studies became one-sided; that even in the practical sciences certain methods became prevalent; that the electrical shocks of the stream of the new literary topics and of scientific revolutions in vain thundered and lightened and raged round the professors of the old--professors who, from their isolated stools, smiled over that rushing and confused scene of excitement; and that the men of modern culture, the genial spirits, the speculative heads, with one voice called down anathemas on that Heidelberg Philisterium. But this anathematized Heidelberg Philisterium yet possesses an internal strength and freshness, with which the hollow inflation of the soi-disant intellectual world found it difficult to measure itself; these old gentlemen, who seem so far removed from the spirit of the age, yet rest themselves in the real soil of the time, in the spirit of the period, in the progression of political and social life, far deeper than those genialists who in high-sounding theories and systems imagine that they have seized on the world-spirit. This scientific life which seems to stagnate, flows on without intermission noiselessly, steadily, but not by fits and starts.
Hoffmann.--The old gentlemen shall live, and to their health we will rub a salamander. Every one prepare a half-glass, and then I will command.
All seize their glasses, which are half-filled. They rub with them on the table in circles before them, all the time saying--"Salamander, salamander, salam--," Hoffmann commands, One, two, three! and at the three the glasses are emptied; One, two, three! they are again set down on the table altogether with a clap, where they continue rattling with them, till the command again One, two, three! when they are all lifted aloft, and at the final command once more set down altogether on the table with a thump.
[CHAPTER XX.]
NEW YEAR'S EVE CONTINUED.--UNIVERSITY STORIES.--VON PLAUEN.
Hoffmann.--I will now, for a change, give some passages from the life and deeds of a hero, whom, were I a Zachariä, I would celebrate in a no less magnificent epic than he has done the exploits of his Renommist. The Herr von Plauen, to whom I allude, studied for more than ten years here, and enacted more mad pranks than the whole united university besides would have been able to do. He was a little, broad-set fellow, of prepossessing exterior and expressive countenance, who stood particularly well with the ladies. His uncommon strength; his accomplishment in all bodily exercises; his overflowing humour continually gushing forth in witty conceits, procured him a constant good reception in the student world, and in the social circles of the city; and he long played in his Chore, as well as in the ball-room, a distinguished part, till his total sacrifice of character, and his really reprehensible actions, which were all alike to him so long as they carried him to his object, completed his ruin. By his strength he frequently put to shame the travelling Hercules who exhibit their powers for money; since, poising himself on a perpendicular pole, he would stretch himself out horizontally, so as to form a right angle with the pole, and at his pleasure, could double up strong silver coins. In the gymnastic ground, which yet existed, no one could stand against him; and in the fencing-school he beat down every one's guard. As he once travelled in the Upper-Rhine country without a passport, and a gendarme on horseback, would have detained him, he threw both the man and his horse into the ditch by the roadside, and so left them. He was especially expert in the then so-much-liked shooting of geese, and thus made many a Philistine the poorer. Understand me right, Mr. Traveller; to shoot, in studenten phrase, means to abstract without yet doing any thing unjust or contrary to honour; since, especially in the olden times, this was a student custom. Small things, as penknives, sticks, etc., if they were not dedicated, were shootable. One might take them from another, and with the words--"This is shot," he took possession of them. It may easily be conceived that it was only the elder students who indulged themselves in this practice against the Foxes, and no one could secure himself from this Spartan plundering but by instantly declaring a thing, which another seemed to have a design upon,--unshootable.
Von Kronen.--This expression dates itself from the practices of the schools of the fifteenth century. As then the teacher, with his helpers, was only engaged by the inhabitants of a place there for a year or so; so if the parties disagreed, the master, with his assistants, to whom generally a number of boys added themselves, proceeded from land to land, and supported themselves with alms, with singing before the houses, and with all manner of petty plunderings. The scholars, who stood expressly under the protection of the assistants, must deliver to them geese, ducks, hens, and the like, which they became very expert in carrying off from the villages, and which, in their language, they termed shooting.