Canst "thou" it yet? Ah! God! I think thereon!
[CHAPTER XXIV.]
SUMMARY OF THE ACTUAL MERITS AND DEMERITS OF STUDENT LIFE.
Prove all things; and hold fast that which is good.
The life and habits of the student are closed with the last chapter. We have accompanied him from the time when he advanced from the school into the free atmosphere of the university, till that in which, turning his back on the joyful Burschen-world, he sailed forth into the Philisterium. The English reader has attended us on a progress through a strange country, which lay so near him, and yet was so enigmatical to him; and we hope that his trouble has not proved irksome to him. It is true that the Student-life has its rough and eccentric side; and this, as falling most prominently under the eye, has not escaped the foreigner. On the other hand, many have endeavoured, in their writings, to represent these in the most exaggerated manner. But the Student-life has also a beautiful and a poetical side, and this many do not think worthy of their time and attention, while others have no sentiment for it, and therefore no perception of it. When, moreover, in English periodicals are exhibited such caricatures and calumnious portraitures as genuine delineations of what would be, truly, very singular proceedings and persons; if the reader has carried away with him these as true, because they have been written in Germany and with an air of authority, we need not wonder that he turns from these monstrous and bizarre pictures with shuddering and contempt, and if he laugh at the folly and reprobate the immorality of the German youth. But after we have sketched the true features of German Student-life, we leave it to the reader to make his reflections upon it, and to extract the grains of wheat from the chaff.
There remain for us, however, still several questions which the more particularly demand answers, because hereupon the most singular notions prevail. What gains the student by this academical life? What does he carry with him out of it? and what does he leave behind in it? and what becomes of him next!
When we have decided upon the advantage which the student derives from the academical life, we shall then feel ourselves prompted to say a few words upon the tendency of certain institutions of the German universities; on the scientific and moral spirit which prevails amongst the students. We shall further proceed a little to explain some singular-seeming customs and, practices, and, so far as these are concerned, as we always speak particularly of Heidelberg, to cast some glances of comparison upon other German and foreign universities. In such a parallel it is also interesting to observe how the universities, as institutions of education, operate thus essentially on the political relations of states, and on the other hand, how they are determined in their developement by these. These proposed points are difficult; and their thorough discussion would lead us too far. We must therefore content ourselves with distinctive indications.
Justly says Thiersch--"The universities are a vastly intertwined and entangled whole, at which people and ages have laboured, in order to bring it to its present extension."
The first and only true object of the academician is, and for ever remains, the study of science. This constitutes the central point, which all intently seek, and where all find themselves, without regard to external circumstances. Knowledge, and the strife after it, are sacred to the student; and these are the anchor, which, dropped into the heart of every one, has lashed to it that internal spiritual bond which embraces the whole class. The single aim of the academician is the free pursuit of knowledge.
It is true that the majority of those who seek the university, have the object, at a later period, of entering on state offices; and the acquisition of knowledge made at the university, places them in a condition to be able properly to discharge the duties of those offices, which are the means of their future existence. But the later practical application of this knowledge, which is so far the medium of his profession, comes before the eye of the student in the background. In the society of young people who are in the pursuit of knowledge, in the intercourse with teachers whose object is the diffusion of the same, and surrounded by external institutions which all bear upon the advancement and the facilitation of study, he remains far from the thought that knowledge is to be regarded as a milch-cow, which will furnish him hereafter with butter. The unfolding of his intellectual capacity in every direction; the following out one or the other in particular, appears to him the business of life in these years. It is exactly this which essentially distinguishes the corporation of students above every thing else;--of which the student is so proud. He despises the Philistine, who, in all circumstances of his life, is only thinking of his petty gains.