Then let the house perish!
What matters its fall?
The soul lives yet within us,
And God's the strength of all!
[CHAPTER VI.]
CEREMONIAL INTRODUCTIONS TO UNIVERSITY AND BURSCHEN LIFE.
Great need hath man of brother man
To reach his noblest aim;
He moves but in the general plan.
Fly then the wolf-bewasted strand,
And knit life's strong and social band.
Schiller.
The youth of Germany has awoke out of the dreams of Burschenschaft freedom; and the sounding rush of steam-engines will probably not permit them easily to fall again into this giddy trance. The bond of an universal Burschenschaft no longer embraces the whole body of German students, but the professors of every political as well as religious creed move amongst each other in manifold circles. Like ignes fatui flicker here and there yet, Burschenschaft ideas, but their flame has seldom strength to burn, and soon expires again for want of fuel, which, in fact, is diligently withdrawn: still has its flame, ever and anon, in recent times, hoisted on the mountain tops, streamed up a lightening fire-pillar of Freedom; but the rulers of Germany have speedily smothered it, anxiously watching lest the political fabric raised with so much toil, should become, with all its stockwork and timbers, a prey to the devouring element. They have also taken care that the youth shall not, forgetting his original duty, fall into this labyrinth. During his period of study, only too often is he reminded by the everpresent sense of the government examination, that he is a citizen of a German state. Is it to be feared, that we have fallen into the opposite extreme; that the zeal for the political and literary freedom of Germans is extinguished; and that a stupid and creeping slavery has taken its place? No, thank God, we are not yet come so far as that. A striking testimony of this, is the sentiment which just recently has made itself felt as the common spirit of Germany against France, glowing with the enthusiasm of former years, and to which that new Rhine song of Bekker--"They shall not have it!"--owes its origin. So far as regards academical freedom, it is not to be denied that in some states an overstrained severity of government examinations of students begins to display a mischievous influence.[[9]] The young man having this image of terror perpetually before his eyes, prosecutes his studies in a manufacturing style, which crushes every freer, fresher aspiration after human improvement. Yet one comes back to one's self by this means, from that abortive condition of a false and overdriven anxiety for the common good; and, on the other hand, the governments were wise enough to perceive, that the freedom of the universities could not be too much circumscribed without damage to the pursuit of knowledge itself; for this freedom is universally recognised as the ground on which an active pursuit of science most flourishes. Experience has sufficiently proved this: those universities which possess that freedom in the most perfect degree, having always stood the highest in academical reputation. All mal-practices have been properly put down; many things have been necessarily held to be illegal because of their connexion with other things, and which yet have been tolerated, and thus in this middle way have the best results been arrived at. Strip the universities of all their privileges, and they will fall, together with the schools, to the ground, and no longer furnish so fine a bridge to the service of the state. Especially necessary to their free condition appears to be the possession of their own court of judicature, which has the peculiarity of leaving a wide scope of discretion to the judges; since it might be very unjust to punish a student, were it ever so slightly, who enjoys so much more freedom than a citizen, precisely according to the laws of the schools, as a citizen who is so little permitted to step over the laws is punished by the laws which relate to him. Germany may be proud of the constitution of its High Schools, and must feel grateful to the governments for this protection of academical freedom, as it is bound to be for its political constitutions, through which a beneficent and honourable freedom is secured.