The Student-Life of Germany

by William Howitt

It is grounded psychologically on this feeling of individual worth as a disciple of wisdom, that the Burschen honour springs up, and holds every student equally high and equally dear. As a corporation, one stands for all, and all for one; and without drawing a moral death upon it, this honour cannot suffer itself to be wounded. Study is pursued at the German universities with zeal and radicality. Proofs of this, are the great numbers of young men who every year pass through the State's-examinations, and testify their ability in all the offices of their country: proofs are, the writers of Germany, who owe their accomplishment to these institutions: proofs, finally, are, the preponderating number of well-educated men compared with those of other countries, who draw their support from the academical foundations. But we must not go so far. Let any one compare the German student, whose acquirements are weighed by a competent judge, with the student of any foreign university.

Manifold indeed have been the complaints of the laziness of the first period of the academical life; and we can only repeat what we have said on this subject in an earlier portion of our volume. There is an abrupt transition from the studies of the Gymnasium to those of the University; and the newling at the university wastes and wears away much time, especially in the first months, and indeed during the whole first semester, before he has accustomed himself to the free condition, and the free and fresh atmosphere of the university. But is this of such mighty importance? It is the transition into a state of greater self-dependence which demands this sacrifice; and he only who has no conception of the strengthening and fortifying influence of university life,--he who does not perceive with what higher advantage this material loss is counterbalanced, can alone break out into lamentations on this head. He who is accustomed to chase youth out of one pen into another, and to begrudge every free breath, every lighter moment, every refreshment of over-passing Muse--who trembles and shakes lest by such trivial circumstances they should have lost both body and soul; will indeed judge otherwise, but deserves, in fact, to be sent back into the school of literary and pedagogic necessity, out of which he was expelled by some mischance. That portion of the youth however, who have arrived on the threshold of the university honest and well-disposed--and this portion is so predominant that the remainder appears in comparison insignificant--this large and elect portion of the better endowed, soon pass through the first rude shock of difficulty and surprise, and through the mere pleasure-rambling in the garden of the Muses. The student zealously busied to develope his intellectual constitution, healthily and in all its members, will find himself in the strongest manner supported by the regulations of the German university; and of these we will speak anon.

On the other hand, the free intercourse with his cotemporaries operates most favourably. When the youth enters the university, he steps at once into a corporation composed of the most opposite materials. Every student brings with him the peculiarities of his Fatherland, in manners and speech; and how manifold is the variety! To say nothing of the foreigners who frequent our different universities, what a difference is there yet between the different races which speak the German tongue. What gradations from the cold, ceremonial North German, who clings fast to etiquette, and with difficulty attaches himself to others, to the good-natured South German, who, knowing little of outward forms, readily finds a friend to whom he can ally himself. Every foreigner retains the characteristics of his own land, and often takes a pride in exhibiting them, by which means he becomes a person detached from the mass. We find the strongest antagonisms of this kind; and it might make one doubtful of the reciprocating influence of this cause, had we not found by experience that the result was a favourable one. The intellectual bond of knowledge here embraces the sons of all nations; and thus these apparently heterogeneous elements can only operate auspiciously, since the advantage is not to be overlooked which the close and mutual contact affords, of learning to know foreign manners and customs, and for each to recognise his own in the true light.

And here we must again call attention to the fact, of the essential difference between the result of academical life, and that of burger life. As to the moral side of the question, there have not been wanting people who have laboured to represent the university as a gulf which swallows up the flower of the youth, as a pool out of which only a few are happy enough to escape without ruin of soul and body. These are ridiculous and malicious exaggerations. No one will attempt to deny the dangers of university life, the temptations to deviations from propriety; and according to time and situation must every university, in a greater or less degree, be exposed to these; but every one who is not blinded by excess of prejudice or enmity, knows that, besides those who give way to temptation, by far the greater number return to their friends from the High-school, as sound in body and mind as they came to it.

The hope would be idle, to chase evil quite away; such a hope is opposed to the total experience of all people and times, to the nature of advancing manhood, and to that degree of freedom, which must be allowed to youth in the years of its growing developement for the prosperous completion of this developement itself, and which every where, though it may be under different forms, will be afforded. There is no law, no precaution, which can possibly preserve the youngling on the higher steps of his career if he does not watch over himself; and one cannot forget the just observation of the old English vicar, that the virtue that needs continual watching, is not worth the cost of a sentinel. But this is the common lot of all manly youth; and we may boldly assert, that aberrations amongst the other classes--amongst the younger ranks of the military, of the mercantile, and of other departments of trade, are not less, but probably more extensive; yes, it is satisfactory to know that in these respects the academical life is in a progressive state of steady improvement.

But if we inquire further what are those things which most particularly strike the foreigner in the student; those things which are most ridiculous, and disapproved; we find that, briefly, they are the following,--the singular dress of the student, the strong smoking, and his habits of beer-drinking and duelling.

That the student in early times, more than at present, adopted a singular costume, arose from two causes, either out of convenience or vanity. In both cases, the matter is a very innocent one, and the academical boards did wisely to permit him these fancies, so far as they were not the signs of an interdicted verbindung. The life at the university, as we have had now abundant occasion to observe, is a peculiar one. When this extends itself so far that a separate court of justice is allowed to the students, is it at all to be wondered at, that the Student who feels himself in every respect so distinct from the Philistine, should also seek to express this distinction by his costume? He only does this so long as he belongs to the High-school, and with the conclusion of this period, ceases also naturally, the occasion for this peculiarity. Considerations of convenance weigh little with the students amongst themselves,--they weigh little with them towards those who surround them, as it is by no means an object of the student to seek advantage from those moving around him, nor to render himself particularly acceptable to them. Therefore in small cities these peculiarities of dress, chosen according to every individual fancy, strike the eye more; while in larger cities the student, playing a more subordinate part, unites himself more to the general mass of society, and loses himself more in family circles. There he will surrender himself to the existing order and convenances of society, since, so soon as he enters the salon, he conducts himself strictly by the rules of etiquette. But he is no slave of fashion. This is repugnant to his freedom of thought; and he believes himself to have as good a right to choose his own dress, as the lawgiver of fashion has from the capital of France to prescribe what shall be held good ton in external appearance. He is by no means so tyrannical as that personage, since he desires from no comrade that he shall herein follow his example; since he leaves, herein to every one perfect freedom, and allows the native student to observe the stricter ceremonial of his father-city.

And is his, really as it often is a most fantastic costume, more singular or more contrary to nature, than the fashionable attire in which many show themselves in the capitals of the whole world, and above all, in which they present themselves to the eyes of the public in the fashionable watering-places? Is he indeed the only one who herein overleaps the bounds of etiquette? They who have seen the grotesque paraphernalia in which the foreigners from beyond the Channel suffer themselves to appear in Germany, will certainly not assert this. And these do this in a foreign country; the student only in his German Fatherland. Are there so many sects too, who distinguish themselves by their peculiar dress, and shall this be so sharply objected to in the student?

The smoking of tobacco is an accusation which the student shares in common with the other classes of the community, and which only looks the more striking in him. We will not defend this practice, on which so much has already been said, nor that of beer-drinking; but we must again take leave to observe, that in all this there is no compulsion. The reader has probably alarmed himself by perusing the Beer-code, which we have given at the end of this volume. It is well known that in older times much more was drunken at the university, and that this pernicious custom, especially in some of the German universities, prevailed to a most lamentable degree. In those times many of these beer-laws might be of great advantage, insomuch that they restrained from greater excesses. As they now exist, no student is subjected to them, who does not voluntarily submit himself to them, by associating himself with the companies that assemble at the kneip. And even here it is at his perfect option, at any moment, to declare that he will drink no more, only he cannot break this declaration without paying the penalty.

We are as little disposed to defend the duel. A reconciliation of disputes between contenders, by the exertion of and through the means of reason, either in the disputants themselves, or through their friends; or if this were found impracticable, through the establishment of a court of honour amongst the students, or through an appeal, in serious cases, to the academical court, would certainly be a more civilized proceeding. We may, indeed, hope that this will be accomplished in time, and the more so, because the number of duels at the universities, compared with former times, is already so much diminished, and as the voices of many students are now raised against this practice. Yet we must not judge the students too hardly on account of the duel, but ought to take into the account the following considerations in mitigation of our opinion.