/ 
 
THE 
 
 Educational System 
 
 — OP — 
 
 G-ERMANY. 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES KENDALL ADAMS, LL. D., 
 
 Professor of History in the University of Michigan. 
 
 ♦ 
 
 This paper, which was prepared as a part of the Author’s course of lectures at the Uni- 
 versity of Michigan, on “ The Rise of Prussia,” and a portion of which was read at the thirty- 
 first annual meeting of the Michigan State Teachers* Association, December 29, 1881, is pub¬ 
 lished in full in accordance with the special request of the Association. 
 
 LANSING: 
 
 W S. GEORGE & CO., STATE PRINTERS AND BINDERS. 
 
 1882. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF GERMANY. 
 
 BY PROF. CHARLES KEHDALL ADAMS, LL. D. 
 
 At the beginning of this century, Germany was not a nation: it was only a 
 people. The oppressions which the inhabitants had endured at the hands of 
 tyrannical rulers had shaken their allegiance even to the fatherland. When 
 the French Revolution broke out, therefore, Germany looked on with divided 
 sympathies. The rulers were filled with horror; but the people were not with¬ 
 out secret rejoicings that an effort had been made to break the yoke of oppres¬ 
 sion. This divided sympathy was the chief cause of that paralysis which 
 seemed to seize the soldiers of Germany on the first approach of the armies of 
 France. The troops who fled before the inferior forces of the French at Jena 
 and at Auerstsedt, and the troops who surrendered to inferior numbers the 
 strongholds of Silesia, were none other than the grandsons of the heroes who 
 had driven the French from the field at Rossbach, and the grandfathers of 
 those who put to rout the same gallant standards in the murderous ravines at 
 Gravelotte. There was no heart in the contest against Napoleon; for, per¬ 
 vading all classes of the people, there was an impression, vague and false 
 indeed, but still not without strength, that the victories of Napoleon might 
 break their chains, while his overthrow would be likely to rivet them stronger 
 than ever. It is, therefore, not so strange as at the time it appeared, that 
 Napoleon, wherever he went, crushed everything before him; for the troops 
 whose country he invaded seemed scarcely to require a decent excuse for doing 
 so in order to surrender at once their fortresses and their destinies into his 
 hands. There are few more humiliating spectacles in modern history than the 
 abject and helpless condition of Prussia when Frederick William the Third, at 
 Tilset, having lost all, was obliged to receive a half of his kingdom and an 
 army of forty thousand men at the hand of his contemptuous conqueror. 
 
 The means by which Prussia arose from the degradation of 180? to the 
 strength of 1870, are not to be explained by the discussion of a single subject. 
 The nation was fortunate, even at the moment of despair, in having at com¬ 
 mand a number of great men. Seharnhorst and Gneisenau remodeled the 
 army. Stein created a municipal system which secured excellent local govern¬ 
 ment. Methods of general administration were fundamentally changed and 
 
4 
 
 THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF GERMANY. 
 
 reformed. But of all the many influences that were set to work in those busy 
 years which followed the peace of Tilset, there was none other that equaled 
 in importance and far-reaching results the reform in matters of education. Of 
 the system that was developed from the labors of these years it is my purpose 
 to speak to-day. 
 
 My theme is necessarily limited. I design to indicate the way in which the 
 schools are organized, the methods by which they are controlled, the spirit in 
 which they are supported and upheld. I have to deal not so much with the 
 relations of teachers and pupils as with the relations of the schools and the 
 people at large. 
 
 In the year 1794, at the age of thirty-two Johann Gottlieb Fichte was called 
 to a professorship at the University of Jena. He had already published several 
 small works, among others one that was of so much philosophical merit as to 
 be attributed to Kant. One of Fichte’s earliest courses of lectures at Jena 
 was given to an audience of students from all departments of the University, 
 and was on the subject, “The V ocati on of the Scholar.” The course attracted 
 not only the profound attention of the students and professors of the Univer¬ 
 sity, but also the admiration and approval of Schiller and Goethe. The design 
 of Fichte in this course was to impress upon his hearers his sense of the part of 
 the scholar in the welfare of the state. In the winter of 1807-8, this same 
 author delivered a still more remarkable course of lectures at Berlin, which he 
 called “Reden an die Deutsche Nation”—“Addresses to the German Nation.” 
 These addresses, published in April of 1808, were a powerful appeal for Ger¬ 
 man unity on all political and social questions; and no person can read them, 
 even at this day, without being greatly impressed with the solemn responsibility 
 under which Fichte felt that he was speaking. The object of the course was 
 an elaborate and systematic enquiry whether there existed any efficient and 
 comprehensive remedy for the evils with which Germany was then afflicted. 
 And the lecturer found the remedy where Turgot, long before in France, had 
 looked for deliverance from the selfishness and abuses of the old regime , 
 namely, in a grand system of a national education. He planted himself firmly 
 on this ground: Education as hitherto conducted by the church has aimed 
 only at securing for men happiness in another life; this is not enough, inas¬ 
 much as men need also to be taught how to bear themselves in the present life 
 so as to do their duty to the state, to others, and to themselves. He declares 
 that he is sure that a system of national education will work so powerfully upon 
 the people of the nation that in a few years they will be completely changed; 
 and he explains at great length what should be the nature of this system, dwell¬ 
 ing largely upon the importance of instilling a love of duty for its own sake 
 rather than for reward. The method which should be adopted was that of 
 Pestalozzi. Of the fourteen lectures, three are given to an exposition of this 
 system, and of the manner in which it should be applied. In order that we 
 may judge of the solemn weight to be attached to Fichte’s words, I quote a few 
 sentences: 
 
 “A nation that is capable, if it were only in its highest representatives and 
 leaders, of fixing its eyes firmly on the vision from the spiritual world, Inde¬ 
 pendence, and is, like our early ancestors, possessed with the love of it, will as¬ 
 suredly prevail over a nation that, like the armies of Rome, is used only as the 
 tool of foreign aggressiveness, and for the subjugation of independent nations; 
 for the reason that the former has everything to lose while the latter has only 
 something to gain.” 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF GERMANY. 
 
 5 
 
 On the real condition of Prussia, and what ought to be done for permanent 
 relief, he spoke as follows: “That we can no longer resist openly has been 
 already assumed as evident; it is universally admitted. Having, then, lost 
 the first object of life, what remains for us to do? Our constitutions will be 
 made for us ; our treaties and the use of our military forces will be prescribed 
 to us; a code will be given us; even the right of judicial trial and decision, 
 and the exercise of it, will be at times taken away; for the present we shall be 
 relieved from all these cares. Education alone has been overlooked ; if we 
 want an occupation, let us take to this. There we may expect to be left undis¬ 
 turbed. I hope,—perhaps I deceive myself, but, as it is only for this hope 
 that I care to live, I cannot part with it,—I hope to convince some Germans,] 
 and bring them to see, that nothing but education can rescue us from all the 
 miseries that overwhelm us. I count especially on our being made more dis¬ 
 posed to observation and reflection by our need. Foreign nations have other 
 comforts and resources; it is not likely that they will give any attention to 
 such a thought, supposing it to occur to them, or give any credit to it ; on the 
 contrary , I hope it will prove a rich source of amusement to the readers of their 
 journals , if they ever learn that anyone promises such great results from educa¬ 
 tion.” 
 
 Having thus elaborated his doctrine, Fichte addresses himself to separate 
 classes. He reproves business men for their contempt of culture. He warns 
 thinkers and writers not to complain so much of the shallowness of the age; 
 “for,” asks he, “ what class is it that has educated this shallow generation? 
 The most evident cause of the dullness of the age is that it has read itself 
 stupid in the books you have written.” To the princes he commends his v 
 scheme of education. “Let your counselors consider whether they find it 
 sufficient, or whether they know anything better; only let it be equally thor¬ 
 ough-going.” Finally, he closes his series of addresses with an appeal to the 
 young men before him in a passage that is almost pathetic from the solemnity v 
 of its words. 
 
 “On you it depends,” says the orator, “whether you will be the end and 
 the last of a race worthy of little respect, and likely to be despised, no doubt, 
 even above its deserts by after time; in reading whose history, later genera¬ 
 tions, if, in the barbarism which will begin, there can be such a thing as a 
 history, will be glad when the end of them arrives, and will recognize the 
 justice of destiny; or whether you will be the beginning and germ of a new, 
 time, that shall be glorious beyond all your imaginations, and from which 
 posterity will reckon the years of their welfare. Consider that yon are the 
 last in whose hands this great renovation is placed.” 
 
 This course of lectures and the volume embodying them are of the highest 
 importance in the history of German unity. It maybe saicl that the book per¬ 
 formed two important services. In the first place it was the beginning of an ■ 
 anti-Napoleonic revolution in Germany,—perhaps I might say in Europe; and 
 in the second place, what we have more to do with here, it inspired Stein with 
 the ideas that were now to be embodied in the educational reform. In the 
 administrative changes proposed by Stein, the Ministry of the Interior was 
 divided into several departments; one of these was a Department of Educa¬ 
 tion. To the head of this new branch of the government was called Wilhelm 
 yon Humboldt. To Stein we are to give the credit of the conception; hufTTd 
 Humboldt is due the credit of organizing and developing the system. 
 
 In the time of Frederick William I, the supervision of education had been 
 entrusted to a General Directorv. This had had charge of religious as well as of / 
 
6 
 
 THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF GEKMANY. 
 
 educational affairs. But in 1787 matters of an ecclesiastical nature were sepa¬ 
 rated from those pertaining to the schools, and the latter were placed under 
 the superintendence of a General Bureau of Education,— Ober-Schulcollegiu7n % 
 This bureau, or board, had no direct and official connection with the other 
 branches of the government, and did its work in a drowsy and inefficient man¬ 
 ner. It was the work of Stein, then, to break up this board and create an 
 educational department in the office of home affairs, or, as we should say, 
 Office of the Interior. The importance of this educational work was soon seen 
 to be so considerable, that, in 1817, it was raised into an independent Min¬ 
 isterial Department. The two councilors associated with Humboldt were now 
 increased in number to eight. The state was divided into provinces, and these 
 provinces again into districts. Over each district was established a consistory 
 for the supervision of public instruction. Such was the external organization, 
 as then made, and as retained substantially to the present day. 
 
 But it is not so much to the new organization as to the men placed at its 
 head, that Prussia owes her great educational reform. Hum boldt united in 
 himself a rare combination of ripe scholarship and organizing power. He 
 had studied antiquity with F. A. Wolf, the prince of scholars in his day and 
 the father of modern philology. The early part of his life, indeed, had been 
 given up to an unusual quietism. He wrote to Wolf: “Everyday the study of 
 the Greeks enchains me more. I may say with truth that no study, of the 
 many studies I have taken up, has given me such satisfaction; and I may add 
 that the very shadow of a wish to lead a life of business and activity has never 
 so completely left me as since I have grown somewhat more familiar with 
 antiquity.” Humboldt then traveled much, became interested in languages, 
 studied Basque, studied art at Borne, translated /Eschylus, wrote and published 
 original poetry, and then turned his attention to questions of finance and pub¬ 
 lic economy. In the quiet comprehensiveness of his studies there was very 
 much in Wilhelm von Humboldt like that which we find in Goethe. Perhaps, 
 with the single exception of the great poet, Humboldt had a more absorbing 
 belief in culture than any other man of his time. 
 
 But even this was not all. His great exemplar and inspirer had been not 
 only the greatest philologist of his age, but also the greatest teacher and edu¬ 
 cationist of his time. While the greatest scholars of his day, like Boeckh and 
 Bekker, acknowledged that they owed everything to his teaching, Wolf had 
 been theorizing and writing upon education, and had finally become perhaps 
 the most eminent authority to whom the advocates of classical education can 
 appeal. Formed by such teachers and surrounded by such influences, Hum¬ 
 boldt took the portfolio of Education. This was in April, 1809; and from 
 April, 1809, to April, 1810, Prussian history belongs to Wilhelm von Hum¬ 
 boldt and his educational reform. 
 
 But before I proceed to describe the system established by Humboldt, I must 
 call your attention to one other element of the problem. I refer to the 
 altogether exceptional relations, in Germany, at this time, of literature and 
 culture to politics. It is extraordinary that the very period of the great politi¬ 
 cal disasters is the Golden Age of German literature. There had been, for 
 reasons which it is not difficult to understand, but which I cannot stop to 
 describe, a most extraordinary intellectual movement, a great outpouring of 
 genius,—not as the inspiration of political liberty? but in a country and at a 
 time when political liberty was unknown. 
 
 This fact is presented by Gustav Freytag in a passage quite worthy of quota¬ 
 tion: “While thunder and storm,” writes he, “roared so appallingly in 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF GERMANY. 
 
 7 
 
 France, and blew the foam of the approaching tide every year more wildly over 
 the German land, the educated class hung with eye and heart on a small 
 principality in the middle of Germany, where the great poets thought and sang 
 as if in the profoundest peace, driving back dark presentiments with verse and 
 prose. King and queen guillotined—Reineke Fuchs; Robespierre, with the 
 Reign of Terror—Letters on the Aesthetical Education of Man; Battles of 
 Lodi and Areola—Wilhelm Meister, the Horen and the Nenien; Belgium 
 annexed—Hermann and Dorothea; Switzerland and the States of the Church 
 annexed—Wallenstein; the Left Bank annexed—the Natural Daughter and 
 the Maid of Orleans; Occupation of Hanover—the Bride of Messina; Napoleon 
 Emperor—Wilhelm Tell.” The striking antithesis here presented shows how 
 completely literature and culture had been divorced from political life and 
 influence. So complete and striking was this separation, that a writer of the 
 time, Wilhelm Perthes, consoles himself for the disasters of Germany by 
 reflecting that they were likely to bring an end to “that fool’s paradise, that 
 is made up of nothing more substantial than literature.” 
 
 But while there were some to take this superficial view, it was the great good 
 fortune of the state to possess a group of men of whom Fichte, Schleiermacher, 
 and Humboldt were the most distinguished representatives, and “in whom,” 
 as has well been said, “culture returns to politics the honor that has been 
 done to it.” In view of this fact alone can we understand the full force of 
 Seeley’s remark, that “In Humboldt and his great achievements of 1809 and 
 1810, meet and are reconciled the two views of life which found their most 
 extreme representatives in Goethe and Stein.” It was with such an end in 
 view that Humboldt, with the assistance of Schleiermacher, Wolf, and Silvern, 
 began his work. 
 
 This work was reared upon the solid basis of a fundamental law, from which 
 I quote—a law promulgated in 1794 and modified somewhat in 1850: 
 
 “Schools and universities are state institutions, having for their object the 
 instruction of youth in useful information and scientific knowledge.” 
 
 “Such establishments are to be instituted only with the state’s previous 
 knowledge and consent.” 
 
 “All public schools and public establishments of education are under the 
 state’s supervision, and must at all times submit themselves to its examina¬ 
 tions and inspections.” 
 
 “Whenever the appointment of teachers is not by virtue of the foundation 
 or of a special privilege vested in certain persons or corporations, it belongs to 
 the state.” 
 
 “The teachers in the gymnasia and other higher schools have the charac¬ 
 ter of state functionaries.” 
 
 “For the education of the young, sufficient provision is to be made by means 
 of public schools.” 
 
 “Every one is free to impart instruction and to found and to conduct estab¬ 
 lishments for instruction when he has proved to the satisfaction of the higher 
 state authorities that he has the moral, scientific, and technical qualifications 
 requisite.” 
 
 “All public and private establishments are under the supervision of author¬ 
 ities named by the state.” 
 
 These provisions of the fundamental law (Allgemeines Landrecht) show that 
 the central authority of the state has entire supervision of matters of educa¬ 
 tion. We are not, however, to infer from this that Prussia shows a grasping 
 and centralizing spirit; on the contrary, it has always been the policy of the 
 
s 
 
 THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF GERMANY. 
 
 government to make the administration of educational affairs as local as it 
 possibly can, but at the same time it takes care that local authorities shall 
 always be subordinate to those in general control. In this way it provides (to 
 use the phrase of Matthew Arnold) ‘That education shall not be left to the 
 chapter of accidents.’’ 
 
 Now, the supreme excellence and efficiency of the Prussian system of educa¬ 
 tion as reared by Humboldt and his colleagues, depend upon four elements. 
 The temple rests upon four pillars, all of which are essential to the stability of 
 the structure, and all of which it is necessary that I should briefly describe. 
 
 I. The organization of the controlling authorities. 
 
 I can think of nothing in our own government that so well conveys to the 
 mind a notion of that organization as the organization of our federal courts. 
 
 As I have already said, the Ministry of Education consists of eight persons 
 selected by the government to preside over educational affairs. Prussia was 
 divided into eight provinces that would correspond with the circuits of our 
 United States courts. In each of these eight provinces (usually in the chief 
 town) was created what was known as the “Provincial School Board.” These 
 eight provinces were again subdivided into twenty-six districts, and in each 
 district was to sit what is known as a “ District Board.” The state’s relations 
 with the secondary schools are through the provincial boards, while its rela¬ 
 tions with the primary schools are by means of the district boards. These 
 boards consist of from five to eight persons each, a part of whom are commonly 
 Roman Catholics, and a part Protestants. These boards are in constant 
 ■/ communication with the Minister of Education at Berlin. 
 
 Besides all these, in 1810 the government established three Scientific Depu¬ 
 tations; one at Berlin, one at Konigsberg, and one at Breslau, to examine 
 teachers for the secondary schools, and to advise the government in all 
 important matters. You may judge of the sort of persons that Prussia called 
 into these commissions when I name as members Wolf, Schleiermacher, 
 Ancillon, Silvern, and Nicolovius;—Silvern and Nicolovius being members of 
 the Ministry. To this day the schools of Prussia feel the benefits of the 
 superior management thus early established. A few years later the “ Scien- * 
 v tific Deputations” were found to be insufficient, and they were superseded 
 by seven bodies known as “Examination Commissioners.” These seven were 
 located in the seven university towns of Prussia. Each commission was made 
 up of seven persons, representing the seven studies on which teachers are 
 "examined, viz.: Greek, Latin, history, mathematics, pedagogy, religion, 
 natural science. These commissions, usually made up of members of the 
 university faculties, give all certificates of fitness to teach. From persons 
 having such certificates the boards appoint all teachers. University professors 
 / are appointed on the recommendation of the university senate by the Ministry 
 of Education. 
 
 II. The second pillar on which the superstructure rests is the system of nor¬ 
 mal schools, or schools for the training of teachers. 
 
 The art of teaching has doubtless been brought to greater perfection in Ger¬ 
 many than anywhere else in the world. This perfection has been reached, for 
 the most part, through the influence of the normal schools,— schools, the 
 object of which is, not to do work that can well be done in other schools, but, 
 by a careful and systematic course of training, to teach how to teach. Teach¬ 
 ing as an art may be said to have come into the world with Pestalozzi . Of 
 this singular man it is hardly too much to say, as he said of himself, that he 
 “turned quite around the car of education and set it in a new direction.” In 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF GERMANY. 
 
 9 
 
 liis day he was deemed an “unhandy, unpractical, dreamy theorist,” and yet, 
 as has well been said, “he wrought as veritable a reform in matters of education 
 as did Luther in matters of religion.” 
 
 At first sight Pestalozzi must have seemed to have every disqualification for a 
 teacher. He spoke, read, wrote, ciphered badly; as he himself says, he had “an 
 unrivaled incapacity for governing;” he had no comprehensive and exact 
 knowledge of either men or things, and he was never a teacher until he was 
 fifty-two years of age. It was with such an outfit, so far as could be seen, that 
 Pestalozzi, at the age of fifty-two, took charge of a school of eighty children 
 in a tumble-down Ursuline convent at Stanz. Into a room twenty-four feet 
 square were crowded “'these eighty wretched children, noisy, dirty, diseased, 
 ignorant, and with the manners and habits of barbarians.” Such was Pesta¬ 
 lozzi’s school at Stanz. Surely an unpromising field and an unpromising pros¬ 
 pect. And yet, to adopt the words of his biographer, “through the force of 
 his all-conquering love, the nobility of his heart, the restless energy of his enthu¬ 
 siasm, his firm grasp of a few first principles, his eloquent exposition of them 
 in words, his resolute manifestation of them in deeds, he stands forth among 
 educational reformers as the man whose influence on education is wider, deeper, 
 and more penetrating than that of all the rest,—the prophet and the sover¬ 
 eign of the domain in which he lived and labored.” 
 
 And here is Pestalozzi’s own picture of the manner in which he wrought his 
 work,—a picture which embraces most perfectly the principles that were after¬ 
 wards to be embodied in the German school system: 
 
 “I was obliged,” he says, “unceasingly to be everything to my children. 
 I was alone with them from morning till night. It was from my hand that they 
 received whatever could be of service to their bodies and minds. All succor, 
 all consolation, all instruction came to them immediately from myself. Their 
 hands were in my hand, my eyes were fixed on theirs, my smiles encountered 
 theirs, my soup was their soup, my drink was their drink. I had around me 
 neither family, friends, nor servants; I had only them. I was with them when 
 they were in health, by their side when they were ill. I slept in the midst of 
 them. I was the last to go to bed, the first to arise in the morning. When 
 we were in bed, I used to pray with them and talk to them till they went 
 to sleep. They wished me to do so.” 
 
 It was in this way, by his boundless love and devotion, that he first won their 
 hearts and then inspired them with right desires. Here is the way in which 
 this great but simple-hearted man describes his method: “I seldom rebuked 
 them. When the children were perfectly still, so that you might hear a pin 
 drop, I said to them, ‘Don’t you feel yourselves more reasonable and more hap¬ 
 py now than when you are making a disorderly noise?’ When they clung 
 around my neck and called me their father, I would say, ‘Children, could you 
 deceive your father? Could you, after embracing me thus, do behind my back 
 what you know I disapprove of?’ ” 
 
 These extracts are enough to show that in his system the car was turned 
 completely around; that, instead of the old methods of force and constraint, 
 it was the moral sensibilities that were appealed to and made the motive of 
 good acts. 
 
 The pertinence of all this to the subject before us is in the fact that Fichte 
 had recommended at length the methods of Pestalozzi as the ones to be 
 adopted in Prussia; and accordingly Humboldt sent for a pupil of the famous 
 teacher to establish in Prussia a normal school for the training of teachers in 
 the Pestalozzian method. C. A. Zeller was summoned to Konigsberg in 1809 
 
10 
 
 THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF GERMANY. 
 
 to found the first normal school. The new work was begun with the blessing 
 of Pestalozzi, who, in the journal he had established, cheered fallen Prussia, 
 and said to one of the ministers of education that he and his friends were the 
 salt and leaven of the land, and would soon leaven the whole mass.” 
 
 It is not to be supposed that the new method did not meet with obstacles. 
 On the contrary the opposition was exceedingly strong; so strong, indeed, that 
 at one time Zeller was on the point of giving up in despair. But just at this 
 moment a fortunate circumstance occurred. The King, having heard of the 
 complaints and difficulties, determined to visit the school. Accordingly one 
 morning at eight o’clock, without giving any notice, the King, Queen Louisa, 
 and the Educational Ministry walked into Zeller’s school. It was no mere 
 formal or common visit, for the King and Queen remained until one o’clock, 
 examining everything with the utmost minuteness. As a result, the govern¬ 
 ment was, once for all, brought over to the reformer’s side. Normal schools 
 on this model were multiplied rapidly, until, in IS4G, the number of them 
 in Prussia was no less than fifty. 
 
 III. The third pillar on which the system rests is the character of the sec¬ 
 ondary or intermediate schools—the gymnasia and real-schulen. The reform 
 in these that was instituted by Humboldt was thorough and highly success¬ 
 ful. His coadjutor in the ministry, Silvern, had this part of the work espe¬ 
 cially in charge; and it was to the details of this new organization that his 
 friend and teacher, Wolf, was called. We are, therefore, to understand that 
 it was through the influence of this prince of philologists that, in the new 
 arrangement, the classics preserved the traditional position of honor. In this 
 connection it is enough to say that the gymnasia were at this time established 
 on the basis on which they have ever since rested. In 1863 the number of 
 secondary schools ranking as gymnasia was two hundred and fifty-five, of which 
 one hundred and seventy-two were classical schools, or gymnasia proper. Of 
 their importance in the national development we learn from the simple fact 
 that in these secondary schools, in 1865, the number of scholars in Prussia was 
 74,162; while in the same year, according to Matthew Arnold, the number in 
 England in the same grade of schools was only 15,880. 
 
 IV. But it was on the fourth pillar of the new system that Humboldt left 
 his deepest impress, namely, on the department of highest education. 
 
 Among all the losses that befell Prussia by the peace of Tilset, perhaps none 
 was felt more bitterly than the loss of the University of Halle, where Wolf had 
 made his fame. Immediately after the blow had fallen, two of the professors 
 went to Memel to lay before the King a proposal to establish a university at 
 Berlin. On the 4th of September of this same year, 1807, an order came from 
 the Cabinet declaring it to be one of the most important objects to compensate 
 the State for the loss of Halle. But two universities, it was declared, were 
 now left to Prussia, those at Konigsberg and Frankfort-on-the-Oder. Konigs- 
 berg was too remote, and Frankfort was too poor, to supply the place of Halle. 
 It is a curious indication of the manner in which the Prussian government 
 regarded the service of its teachers, that, in this very order of the Cabinet, 
 assurances were given that arrangements would be made by which the serv¬ 
 ices of the expelled professors from Halle would not be lost to the country. 
 
 While Stein was engaged upon his reforms, this subject did not pass beyond 
 the period of discussion. But there is one phase of that discussion which is 
 interesting as showing what they expected of the university, and as provoking 
 in an American some important reflections. Was it desirable that a university 
 should be planted in a great capital and close to the abode of the government? 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF GERMANY. 
 
 11 
 
 Some sort of tranquil retirement has been associated with the idea of a 
 university, and the temptations of a great capital were likely to be dangerous 
 to the morals of the students. We are told that, in view of this prospect, Stein 
 was at first vehemently opposed to the establishment of the university at 
 Berlin, but that, after listening to Wolf’s arguments, he passed over to the 
 other side of the question and supported the choice of Berlin with equal energy. 
 Humboldt, and even his brother Alexander, for a time believed that “the 
 shadow of the capitol would blight the intellectual vitality alike of teachers and 
 of learners.” And what was the argument of Wolf that finally prevailed in 
 opposition to these views? It was that, in the judgment of the ministry, “ the 
 mischievous influence of the government on the university would be less 
 considerable than the beneficial influence of the university on the government.” 
 In the report of Humboldt, made on May 12, 1809, the position is stated in 
 these words: “What can be more desirable than a constant intercourse 
 between the heads of science and the principal officials! How intellectually 
 refreshing, thought-awakening, and naturally elevating, is such intercourse 
 likely to prove to the latter !” And on the fiftieth anniversary of the founding 
 of the University, it was declared that “this anticipation, has been abundantly 
 fulfilled.” 
 
 On the 16th of August following Humboldt’s report, an order of Cabinet was 
 announced founding the University. The King set apart the royal palace of 
 Prince Henry as its abode, and assigned for it an annual gift, from the first, 
 of 150,000 thalers. Under the system I have endeavored to point out, it was, 
 of course, the work of Humboldt and his fellow ministers to select the pro¬ 
 fessors. He at once occupied himself in negotiations with men of learning in 
 all parts of Germany. And what faculties were brought together! Fichte 
 for philosophy; Schleiermacher, l)e Wette, and Marheineke for theology; 
 Savigny and Schmalz for jurisprudence; Friedliinder, Kohlrausch, Hufeland, 
 and Reil for medicine; Niebuhr and Ruhs for history; Wolf, Buttman, 
 Boeckh, and Dindorf for antiquity; Tralles and Gauss for mathematics. 
 
 The University was opened at Michaelmas, 1810; and, in the following year, 
 the first work published from the new University, the first volume of Niebuhr’s 
 Roman History, formed an epoch in modern historical research. This was 
 followed by the works of Fichte, Savigny, Schleiermacher, Raumer, Hoffman, 
 Boeckh, Hegel, Schelling, Ranke, and scores of others, forming a galaxy of 
 names such as no other country or century can show. In view of such an 
 array of genius, brought together at such a time, we are justified in saying that 
 the founding of the University of Berlin was not the least memorable of the 
 great works of that age of reforms. With such a beginning, it can hardly be 
 considered strange that, within three-quarters of a century, it has grown to 
 such power and influence that it may fairly be regarded as the foremost 
 university in the world. From all nationalities, in both hemispheres, congre¬ 
 gate annually not less than about four thousand students to receive instruction 
 and inspiration from teachers whose fame is known wherever scholarship is 
 respected and admired. Nor was the spirit shown in the founding of this 
 University an exceptional one. As the King vacated his palace in Berlin for 
 the University there, so in 1818, after Waterloo had given back to Germany the 
 left bank of the Rhine, he consecrated the electoral palace at Bonn to the 
 same noble use. 
 
 Such, then, was the system. But machinery without motive power is help¬ 
 less. In Germany the propelling force was provided by general law. Every 
 professional man, whether lawyer or clergyman or teacher, before entering 
 
12 
 
 THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF GERMANY. 
 
 upon the work of bis profession, was obliged to pass an examination that pre¬ 
 supposed a liberal education. No lawyer could collect a fee for advice or ser¬ 
 vice unless he had previously received the training of a university. No physi¬ 
 cian could write a prescription until he had received the same liberal outfit. 
 And, most important of all, no person could teach in a gymnasium, or swing a 
 ferule in a district school, until he had first received the training of a profes¬ 
 sional teacher either in a university or in one of the state normal schools. It 
 will be seen that here was the force that put life into the system,—that made 
 the schools pulsate with all the potencies of national greatness. 
 
 Having studied the system, and the legal requirements that form the motive 
 power, we are now in condition to inspect, with a little more care, the individ¬ 
 ual parts. Let us look especially at the normal schools, the secondary 
 schools, and the universities. But while we examine each of these parts of 
 the system, let us not forget its organic connection with the others. The sys¬ 
 tem is a means to an end. It is framed to accomplish a certain result. It is 
 like an army made up of different divisions and corps; and we must keep in 
 mind the fact that the best results are reached only when the respective parts 
 reach their destination in such order as to cooperate perfectly with the others. 
 It is in the massing of forces that a general shows his greatness or his weak¬ 
 ness. And so it may be said that the Prussian system of education reveals its 
 true excellence, not so much in the character of any one part, as in the unity 
 of the whole, and in the perfection with which each part is fitted to do the par¬ 
 ticular work assigned it. 
 
 What we might call the fundamental idea of the Prussian s ystem , what the 
 German perhaps would, call the Begriff, may be stated in this way: Whatever 
 j. you want a man for, there is no way in which you can make so much of him 
 or get so much out of him as by training him. Society needs everything that 
 1 . can be got out of its people. The state therefore should furnish the most sys- 
 , tematic means of training for different purposes; and, secondly, it should 
 x make this training compulsory. In order to furnish the means of training it 
 must provide the most skillful teachers. In order that training may be com- 
 .pulsory it must allow no person to practice a trade or a profession until he has 
 been properly trained for the work. While in America we have always placed 
 emphasis upon liberty in the choice of work, in Prussia emphasis is placed upon 
 protection from the imposition of bad work. 
 
 But how are skillful teachers secured? The answer is, by making teaching 
 ^ a profession and by elevating it to the rank of an honorable one. With us 
 teaching can hardly be said to be a profession. Some of the best teaching done 
 • in our secondary schools is by persons who are simply filling the chasm between 
 their undergraduate and their professional studies. There is reason to believe 
 that if all our teaching were equal to that done by this class of persons, some 
 of it would be very much less faulty than it is. That is not saying that it would 
 not still be poor. A Prussian looks upon such a system as ours much as we 
 would look upon a custom that should drive students for two or three years 
 into the practice of law, or medicine, or theology, under similar transient 
 inducements. The Prussian method, on the contrary, will allow no man to 
 , teach until he has fitted himself for teaching as a profession. Nor is this a 
 "L mere nominal condition. The teacher enters upon teaching for life. He is no 
 more likely to abandon it for another profession than the physician is likely to 
 abandon medicine. After he is once appointed to a place he cannot be 
 3 removed but for cause. He has a house and garden furnished him as the 
 church furnishes a rectory or parsonage; and when he dies or is disabled his 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OB" GERMANY. 
 
 13 
 
 family receives a pension for the support and protection of old age. Such is 
 the career to which the teacher looks forward. 
 
 But how is he prepared for his work? This brings us to an examination of 
 the normal schools. 
 
 In the first place it should he said that these are as strictly national institu¬ 
 tions as are our academies at West Point and Annapolis. They strive to make 
 teachers just as strictly as our military academy strives to make soldiers. Of 
 these normal schools there are seven or eight in each province; and admission 
 to them is secured just as at West Point, as the result of competitive examina¬ 
 tion. The examination is severe and searching. The number of applicants is 
 always much greater than the number to be admitted; and competition at the 
 entrance examinations is very great. No person is admitted even to examina¬ 
 tion until he has produced a physician’s certificate of health and of freedom 
 from all chronic complaints. Every one is debarred who has a weak voice or 
 any physical defect or infirmity. These provisions make it certain that none 
 but picked men shall become teachers in Prussia. Of applicants examined 
 enough of those standing highest are admitted to fill the vacancies in the nor¬ 
 mal school. The period of residence in the school is never less than two yearsy* 
 nor more than three. The branches pursued are chiefly a continuation of those 
 previously studied at the primary and superior schools. Great attention is also 
 paid to drawing, writing, and the natural sciences. Every teacher in a Prus¬ 
 sian school must write a good hand, must be skillful in drawing, and must 
 know enough to teach well the elements of botany and zoology. Besides these 
 all students in the normal schools must learn the violin, the organ, and the 
 piano. Mr. Kay relates that he heard three organs, three pianos, and a hun¬ 
 dred violins in one normal school. As each teacher is to have a garden fur¬ 
 nished him, he is taught to make good use of it, by careful instruction in 
 gardening, horticulture, and floriculture. The age at which pupils are admitted 
 to the normal schools is eighteen. The cadets, for such they may be called, 
 are often sons of peasants; often persons who have been fitted to enter the 
 normal school by the village minister, or by some other interested person. 
 The students live in the college as a dormitory, and are supported chiefly by 
 the state, as are our cadets at West Point. The only expenses of the students 
 are for their clothing and the payment of about fifteen dollars a year. All 
 else is borne by the state. Such, then, are the provisions by which Prussia 
 strives to fit its teachers for their work. 
 
 At the final examinations students receive a diploma marked first, second, or 
 third class, as the acquirements of the students justify. Only holders of 
 diplomas of the first class are eligible to appointment at once. Students of 
 the second and third grades are put on probation of one and two years respect¬ 
 ively, after which they may be re-examined for a place in the first class. They 
 sometimes return three or four times before they are successful. 
 
 Such was the provision made in 1810 by Humboldt. In 1826 it was still 
 further determined that even those holding diplomas of the first class should * 
 subject themselves to one year’s probation before they could be permanently 
 employed. It is not absolutely essential that a person, to be a teacher, should 
 pass through a normal school; but it is essential that such person pass an 
 equivalent examination before the examining commission. As this is exceed¬ 
 ingly difficult, it is, in fact, almost never accomplished. Without the diploma 
 of the first class from a normal school, or a certificate of having passed an 
 equivalent examination, then, no person in Prussia is allowed to teach. It is 
 even made a misdemeanor to employ any other person. 
 
14 
 
 THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF GERMANY. 
 
 There is one further provision that is worthy of note. It is, that, although 
 the proper authorities of a district may select from those having the requisite 
 acquirements a teacher for their school, when he has once been installed, they 
 cannot remove him. Such removal can be brought about only by the pro¬ 
 vincial board. The object of this provision is easily seen. The government 
 says: The teacher has made a long study of pedagogy, and he has greater 
 ability to judge of the art of teaching and managing scholars than those can 
 have who have had no such training. We will no more allow the people of a 
 district on their whim to turn out a teacher whom we have educated, than we 
 will allow a military company to turn out a captain. If it can be made to 
 appear that there are good reasons why he should be turned out, those reasons 
 must be presented to the provincial board, since they are so far removed as to 
 be free from prejudice. Thus you see that the teacher not only has an 
 excellent outfit, but in the exercise of his vocation he is practically independent. 
 
 I said that the teacher is furnished in each district with a house and garden. 
 These are usually joined with the school building. Rather, perhaps, 
 it should be said that the school-room is usually in the house of the teacher. 
 The consequence of this provision is that the teacher is practically a permanent 
 officer of the village or district, and is so situated as to have a vast influence 
 on the life and development of all of his pupils. The affectionate and 
 tender relations established between teacher and pupils in Prussia are the 
 subject of constant remark by those who have inspected the workings of the 
 common schools. It is in such schools, and by such teachers, that the 
 Prussian children are taught. I think you will agree with me that it becomes 
 us, in view of such facts, to be modest in what we have to say of our own 
 primary schools. 
 
 Suppose that a boy is destined for one of the professions, say theology, law, 
 medicine, or higher instruction. Between the age of eight and twelve he 
 leaves the primary school and goes to a gymnasium, or to a real-schule. Insti¬ 
 tutions of this grade constitute the famous secondary schools of Prussia. As 
 I have already intimated, the number of these schools in Prussia is nearly 
 three hundred. Of these, about two-thirds are gymnasia, or classical schools, 
 and one-third real-schulen, in which the study of Greek is not pursued. 
 
 In all of these schools the curriculum of study is the same, and is deter¬ 
 mined by the government,—that is to say, by the Educational Bureau, of 
 which I have already spoken. The gymnasia are regarded as government 
 schools, though the students are not supported by the government, as in the 
 normal schools. The course of study embraces six classes, running from 
 sexta to prima. The work of several of these classes requires two years,— 
 prima, always two years. The length of the course in the gymnasium, there¬ 
 fore, is from eight to ten years,—say while the scholar is from nine to eighteen 
 or nineteen years of age. 
 
 From what has been said of thoroughness in the outfit of teachers for the 
 primary schools, we should expect to meet a similar adaptability of means to 
 ends in the gymnasia. And we are not to be disappointed. The teachers are 
 all teachers by profession. They are all appointed by the Educational Bureau 
 of the Province, and from those who have passed the requisite examinations. 
 
 These examinations (‘ ‘Die Priifungen der Oandidaten des holieren Scliulamts ’’) 
 are an important part of the great reform instituted by Humboldt. The rules 
 for conducting the examinations have been modified slightly from time to time ; 
 but those now in force were adopted as early as 1831. The examinations are 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF GERMANY. 
 
 15 
 
 conducted by the High Examining Commissioners of whom I have already 
 spoken. 
 
 The candidate who presents himself for examination must first hand in a 
 school certificate of fitness for the university, and then a certificate of three 
 years’ attendance at university lectures. Accompanying this must be a cur¬ 
 riculum vitce , written in Latin if the candidate is an applicant for a position 
 in a gymnasium; in French if an applicant for a reai-schule. The examina¬ 
 tion, if successful, results in a certificate conferring the right to teach,— facultas 
 docencli; and this is conditional or unconditional,— hedingte or unbedingte. 
 The “hedingte facultas'” allows the holder to teach only the lower classes of 
 the gymnasia and real-schools, while the “unbedingte facultas ” confers the 
 right to teach some one subject in secunda or prima. From the persons that 
 have passed this examination the Provincial School Board selects the teachers 
 in the gymnasia. Every teacher is required to know French and something of 
 English, besides Latin. Teachers in the real-schools are not required to know 
 Greek. The Probejahr , or year of probation, is also insisted on in the gym¬ 
 nasia. These requirements show us that boys fitting for the university are 
 taught by none except such as have, in the first place, received a liberal uni¬ 
 versity education in addition to the preliminary education procured at the gym¬ 
 nasium ; and have, in the second place, passed a special examination before 
 the Examining Commission. Into the hands of such a corps of teachers, then, 
 our boy of eight or ten falls when he enters the gymnasium. 
 
 We sometimes hear complaints that our scholars in America are kept at too 
 hard work. Such complaints are doubtless sometimes well founded, but gen¬ 
 erally they are as rudiculous as they are unworthy of our physical and mental 
 stamina. The student of the German gymnasia is kept in school in summer 
 from ? to 12 o’clock, in winter from 8 to 12, and during all seasons of the year 
 from 2 to 4. The number of his exercises per week is never less than thirty, 
 and, during half of the course, is thirty-five. These, it is true, are not all what 
 we call “recitation work,” but they are all work under the immediate direction 
 of a teacher. This curriculum includes, besides the heavier studies, book¬ 
 keeping, reading, penmanship, gymnastics, and music. The students in the \ 
 hands of such teachers, then, have six lessons a day five days in the week, and 
 five lessons on Saturday. 
 
 The results of this kind of work seldom fail to awaken astonishment in the 
 American who visits the gymnasium. Of the various interesting things I saw 
 in the German schools, there were two that surprised me more than all the 
 others. The one was the performance of one of the oratorios of Handel, from 
 beginning to end, by the scholars of one of the gymnasia in Leipzig. The 
 choruses, rendered by two hundred voices from the gymnasium, in the very 
 church where Bach had won his fame, seemed like a chorus of angels. The 
 principal solos were rendered by a boy of thirteen, with a power, an accuracy, 
 and a sweetness that brought tears to many an eye in that vast congregation. 
 Not more than a month later, the boys of the same school put upon the stage 
 the Antigone of Sophocles, in the original tongue. The other exhibition of 
 skill and attainments to which I allude, was at a gymnasium in Bonn, and was a 
 discussion carried on by the scholars of prima, under the direction of Dr. 
 Schopen, one of the teachers. From beginning to end the discussion was con¬ 
 ducted in Latin, was carried on with fluency, and with such accuracy that very 
 few corrections in the course of two hours were called for by the professor. 
 
 It is a matter of interest to us to note that final examinations for admission 
 to the university are conducted, not at the university, but at the gymnasium. 
 
16 
 
 THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF GERMANY. 
 
 O' 
 
 This custom is a result of much experimenting, extending over the whole 
 period from 1812 to 1856. Schleiennacher was, from the first, in favor of 
 having the examinations entirely with the gymnasia; but Humboldt favored 
 taking them to the university. Experience, however, has proved conclusively 
 to those in authority that the examinations are held with best results at the 
 gymnasium ; and there, since 1856, they have uniformly been conducted. 
 
 But the final examination is a genuine test of scholarship. The examining 
 committee consists of the Director of the gymnasium, the teachers of prima , 
 one member of the Provincial School Board, and two members of the “Joint 
 Patronage Commissary.” The law provides that the examination shall be of 
 the same severity as the ordinary work in prima ; but one condition is note¬ 
 worthy, the examination is not to he on loork that has been done in school. The 
 examinations are to be both by writing and oral. The written examination 
 continues a week, and those who fail in it are excluded from the examination 
 viva voce. The tests in Latin, German, and French are chiefly by means of 
 extemporaneous compositions in those languages. The papers are marked 
 either “insufficient,” “sufficient,” “good,” or “excellent.” At the end of 
 the examination, the pupil is voted upon by ballot, and finally receives a 
 diploma marked either “ reif ” or “ unreif .” The papers are all preserved; 
 and an “unripe” student may appeal to the Highest Examining Authority, in 
 which case the examination papers are sent up for inspection. The final exam¬ 
 inations take place near the end of each semester; and the public occasion of 
 the conferring of the diplomas is known, not as “Commencement,” or “Exhi- 
 
 
 v 
 
 bition,” but as the “Solemnity/ 
 
 The “scholar” is nowready to become a “student.” The two words in Ger¬ 
 many have very different significations. The scholar is kept under the severest 
 discipline until it is believed his habits and tastes are fixed. The student, on 
 the other hand, is regarded as having come to mature years, to years of discre¬ 
 tion, as having completed his preliminary training; and, therefore, he is given 
 what is, practically, absolute liberty. At the age of nineteen or twenty, then, 
 he goes to the university. Here he finds the organization of the highest grade 
 of schools substantially as it was fixed by Humboldt and his colleagues in 1810. 
 There are four or five faculties: one of Philosophy, one of Law, one of Medi¬ 
 cine, one of Protestant Theology, and sometimes, in addition, one of Catholic 
 Theology. 
 
 In each of these faculties the instructors are divided into three grades : Ordi¬ 
 nary Professors, Extraordinary Professors, and Privat Docenten. These offi¬ 
 cers are always appointed by the Ministry of Education, on the recommenda¬ 
 tion of the university senate, the ministry selecting one from the three per¬ 
 sons nominated by the senate. The Ordinary Professors constitute the Fac¬ 
 ulty, and each faculty has a dean or presiding officer, chosen from its own 
 number. All the faculties acting together choose from their own number the 
 Rector Magnificus , who, for one year, is President of the Senate, and official 
 head of the university. The deans of all the faculties, together with the uni¬ 
 versity judge, the rector, and the pro-rector (that is, the rector of the preceding 
 year), constitute the university senate,—the board for the administration of 
 all matters of general university interest. The university judge, always a 
 member of the Faculty of Law, constitutes the court before whom all students 
 accused of violating law are tried. The university has its jail (career), and 
 its system of fines, and testimony is taken according to the rules of evidence. 
 
 The two characteristics which impress a foreigner most deeply on visiting or 
 entering a German university, are the freedom of the professors and the free- 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF GERMANY. 
 
 17 
 
 dom of the students,—what the Germans call Lehrfreiheit and Lernfreiheit . 
 The freedom of the professors is almost absolute. Each is required to deliver 
 one or two public lectures a week, but that is all. Beyond that he may lecture 
 as little as he chooses or as much as he chooses, and on any subject he chooses. 
 This freedom has its element of safety in the fact that for all instruction, 
 except the public lectures already alluded to and perhaps a little very advanced 
 private work, the student pays a fee that goes to the professor. If the pro¬ 
 fessor nods too often, or reads lectures that have taken on too much of the 
 smoke and veneration of age, the students desert him and his income is re¬ 
 duced. While, therefore, there is no requirement , there is every inducement to 
 industry. A still further guarantee against dullness and indolence on the part 
 of the professors is, that, close behind him, there is a vigorous corps of ambitious 
 young teachers who enjoy the same liberties accorded to him, and who, there¬ 
 fore, are sure to draw away his students if his lectures cease to be of value. 
 The system of privat docenten is unquestionably one of the most important 
 elements of university thoroughness and success. Some of the most careful 
 observers regard it as the key to the whole excellence of the German univer¬ 
 sity education. 
 
 A word in explanation of the system may not be out of place. It is this: 
 If a student, at the time of completing Ins university studies, has shown 
 superior excellence, and has manifested a desire to devote himself to univer¬ 
 sity teaching as a profession, he receives what is called a facultas docendi. This 
 is simply a privilege of lecturing in the university. When he has received 
 this he may lecture on any conceivable subject. He receives no pay from the 
 university. He must rely exclusively on his ability to draw students, and to 
 get money from them in the way of fees, for his income. The university 
 puts upon him this simple limitation : he is not allowed to sell his wares 
 cheaper than the full professors sell theirs,—is not permitted to receive 
 smaller fees than the others, the rates of which are determined by the uni¬ 
 versity senate. The attendance at the lectures of the privat docenten is 
 usually small; sometimes it is limited to two or three persons; sometimes even 
 courses are announced at which not a single student appears. All these facts 
 are constantly giving hints, of course, to the docen' , as to what is wanted by 
 the students. In general the lectures of a renowned professor are preferred. 
 A docent, for example, would find it hard to get students in Physics in compe¬ 
 tition with Helmholtz, or in Philology in competition with Ourtius. But, on 
 the other hand, the docent offers some advantages, lie can give more individ¬ 
 ual attention to his students. He is not yet removed completely from the stu¬ 
 dent world. He goes to the old resorts with the students themselves. He eats 
 with them, drinks with them, is, in short, in a condition to render such prac¬ 
 tical assistance to a student as a professor could not. In this manner the 
 docent pushes himself on. If he does not succeed, his lot is like that of fail¬ 
 ure elsewhere; but as no students are obliged to hear him, the mischief falls 
 chiefly upon himself. If, on the other hand, he is successful as an author and 
 lecturer, as soon as his success is pronounced, he is likely to be called to a pro¬ 
 fessorship either in his own or in some other university. In the position of 
 privat docent the spurs of nearly all the great men now in professors’ chairs in 
 Germany have been earned. The system affords an admirable example of a 
 thorouglily organized method of competition and of the survival of the fittest. 
 Appointments to professorships are permanent, and removals never take place 
 
 but for most 
 
 flagrant 
 
 u 
 
 reasons. Professors, therefore, feel secure in their 
 
 
 v 
 
 o 
 
18 
 
 THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF GERMANY. 
 
 seats, and exercise freedom of opinion with absolute and often startling inde¬ 
 pendence. The universal maxim seems to be that intellectual integrity is the 
 basis of all true development. Therefore, in Germany, what a professor 
 thinks, that ho is expected to say. 
 
 The number of courses of lectures given at the University of Berlin in each 
 semester is about four hundred. In the first term of last year there were, in 
 Theology, thirty-six courses; in Law, sixty-two; in Medicine, one hundred and 
 ten; and in Philosophy, one hundred and seventy-five. During the year, then, 
 no less than about eight hundred courses are ottered at this one University, 
 from which the student can freely make his choice. 
 
 But a very few moments remain to me for what I have to say of student 
 life in Germany. 
 
 The German student is a person of a very different nature from the old- 
 fashioned American student. I say the old-fashioned student, because I am 
 convinced that a rapid transformation is taking place in student life in this 
 country. The student of former days was simply a school-boy of a larger 
 growth. But it is simple truth to say, and it is a great source of satisfaction 
 to observe and to recognize the fact, that, in ten years, students in the Univer¬ 
 sity of Michigan have made a great advance in the direction of better order 
 and a higher manhood. All sympathy for the old days of college pranks is 
 coming to be recognized as a sympathy for barbarism; and it is safe to assert 
 that we are fast leaving behind us the time when a student can be a rowdv 
 without being a social outcast. I am persuaded that this change is the result 
 very largely, if not entirely, of the recent advances that have been made in 
 several of our larger universities, and especially in the University of Michi¬ 
 gan, toward the liberties accorded to students in the universities of Germany. 
 A study of different institutions would probably reveal the fact that, in those 
 colieges where the old methods have been rigorously adhered to, the improve¬ 
 ment has been very slight; while the introduction of larger privileges of elec¬ 
 tion has everywhere been followed by a more healthy and manly tone of ear¬ 
 nestness and scholarship. The explanation of the fact is easy. While well 
 regulated liberties encourage good order, too many restraints provoke lawless¬ 
 ness. Goethe, with that profound insight into human nature which was one 
 of his most striking characteristics, put the explanation into the mouth of 
 Wilhelm Meister: “In well adjusted and regulated homes,” said he, “chil¬ 
 dren have a feeling not unlike what I conceive rats and mice to have; they 
 keep a sharp eye on all crevices and holes where they may come upon some 
 forbidden dainty. They enjoy it also with a fearful stolen satisfaction which 
 forms no small part of the happiness of childhood.” And the characteristic 
 so well described by Goethe is not confined to very young children. It is un¬ 
 questionably true that even adult human nature experiences a delicious satis¬ 
 faction in outwitting those who are believed to have imposed irksome and need¬ 
 less restraints. When monks were forbidden to look upon women, and nuns 
 were forbidden to look upon men, monasteries and nunneries became what they 
 were represented to be by the Italian literature of the fourteenth century. 
 
 -✓Men and boys will not be kept out of the water by being told that certain 
 waters lead to Niagara. If it is not courage itself, it is something akin to 
 courage, that leads great natures to dare that which is dangerous, and 
 which accomplishes great results. Say to a group of boys, “That cliff 
 yonder is dangerous, and you must not approach it,” your young Napol¬ 
 eons and Cromwells and Clives and Luthers and Wesleys will probably be at 
 the top of it the next morning before you are up. And society is in a wrong 
 
THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF GERMANY. 
 
 19 
 
 condition which condemns them as hopelessly lost because of their superabund¬ 
 ance of human nature. 
 
 It is these considerations, doubtless, that afford the explanation of what has 
 often been a puzzle. The saddest and most disheartening experience of a col¬ 
 lege professor is probably that which comes to him when he sees, as he some¬ 
 times does, full-grown and full-bearded men forgetting the avowed object of 
 their university life, and devoting the full energies of their maturity to trivial 
 pastimes and trickeries that are scarcely worthy of pupils of half their years. 
 x\nd yet, whenever this full-grown and full-bearded youth is separated from his 
 fellows and interrogated, he is generally found to be a reasonable human 
 being, and one free from vicious purposes, if not, indeed, inspired with correct 
 ideals. But, what is equally important, it will also be found that he is chafing 
 under restraints and requirements and restrictions and usages that are imposed 
 upon men of his age in no other relation of life. It is a curious fact, that in' 
 this country, the most prominent characteristic of which is supposed to be 
 freedom, the university student, up to within the last ten years, and, in many 
 quarters, even up to the present time, has enjoyed less of freedom than the 
 university student of any other country in the world. It is also worthy of note, 
 that, in no other country, have the students, to such an extent, carried up into 
 manhood the unworthy and mischievous trivialities of childhood. Reason, as 
 well as the fruitful experience of the last ten years, goes to show that these 
 two facts will stand and fall together. 
 
 I have been led to these reflections by the sharp contrast between the German 
 student at the university and the student in a similar position in America. 
 The ages of the two are about the same. But the German is in every way 
 taught to feel that he has ended his childhood and has begun his manhood. 
 He is now free and is henceforth to work for nobody but himself. He is no 
 longer to be marked for good or bad recitations, is no longer to be subjected 
 to grading or surveillance of any kind. He feels himself a free man. He can 
 select his studies, his professors, his hours; can hear lectures from eight in the 
 morning to six at night, or, if he choose, he can hear absolutely none at all. 
 He knows that there is no rector or dean or professor to trouble himself about 
 him; to care whether he ‘•'cuts” regularly or not at all, whether he fights a 
 duel every week or never, or even whether he goes to bed sober or drunk. All 
 that is entirely his own affair. He knows that henceforth his destiny is in his 
 own hands, and in his alone. What is the consequence? The Primaner, or, 
 as the students generally call him, the Fuchs ,—what we should call the Fresh¬ 
 man,—is often wild. He is experiencing the first delicious sense of freedom. 
 He has had ten years of hard work, during the last three or four or which he 
 has worked up to his full capacity, tie has been borne down to the water’s 
 edge. He has had scarcely a day that he could call his own. lie now feels an 
 inclination to let his mind lie fallow awhile. He is restless. He visits the 
 lecture rooms of all the professors in the university. He annoys his landlady 
 by giving up his room for other quarters. He has much of the verdancy of an 
 old-fashioned freshman, added to something of the bravado of an old-fashioned 
 sophomore. If, in addition to his mental outfit, he has a good deal of physi¬ 
 cal exuberance, he is likely to join a corps, or a verb inching. He perhaps 
 drinks heavily, and in that curious kind of sword practice not very correctly 
 called a duel, sets his face scarred a few times by older and more skillful 
 swordsmen. 
 
 But after a short period this spurt of folly generally wears away. If the stu- 
 
20 
 
 THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM OF GERMANY. 
 
 dent has the making of a man in him, he gradually abandons his excesses and 
 settles down to hard work. It is said even that the roll of professors and docents , 
 as well as of the eminent men in all the walks of life, shows a very large pro¬ 
 portion of persons who were given to wild excesses during the first months of 
 their University career. 
 
 But here again is a marked difference between the American student and 
 the German. Our student, if lie resorts to places of public amusement for his 
 recreation, is unquestionably in real danger. He seems to have left behind 
 him all sense of restraint when he crossed the threshold. But not so with the 
 German. He is still in company with those whose character and conduct he 
 respects. He has the same reasons for conducting himself properly that he 
 has on the street or in polite society. He seldom forgets that his vocation is 
 one of dignity. Students, therefore, are uniformly deferential toward one 
 another. Every hour thousands of students are emptied from the lecture 
 rooms into the narrow corridors of the University of Berlin, but the order is as 
 perfect as that of a congregation passing from a church. If one were to jostle 
 another without an immediate and satisfactory apology, the act would be 
 regarded as a gross infraction of that line code of deference which universally 
 prevails. They are not very scrupulous about dress; but they allow no per¬ 
 sonal familiarities or disparaging personal remarks. It is true that the most 
 intimate friends, on meeting, embrace and kiss each other; but they do it in 
 a very gentlemanly, or, perhaps I ought to say, in a very lady-like way. 
 
 But 1 must bring this discussion to a close. It remains only to add that the 
 German system of education, at once the most carefully designed, the most 
 comprehensive, and the most efficient the world has ever known, has borne 
 fruits worthy of its intrinsic excellence. Within the present generation we 
 have had abundant evidence of the way in which it developed the resources 
 of the nation in all the manifold forms of literature, science, art, and action. 
 On the one hand Germany has become the educational Mecca, toward which 
 all those who seek the best that the world has to give must make their way; 
 while, on the other, the fragments that seemed hopelessly scattered and separ¬ 
 ated have been brought together, and bound into a living organism that throbs 
 with the pulsations of a vigorous political life. One of the princes who fleshed 
 his sword at Waterloo, and saw his queen-mother die of a broken heart, be¬ 
 cause Prussia seemed hopelessly crushed, lived not only to be crowned king of 
 the most powerful nation of Europe, but also to be hailed as emperor of a 
 united German people. And thus the most sanguine hopes of Fichte and 
 and Humboldt have been more than fulfilled. 
 

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