The Student Life of Germany Part 18

With the fall of Rome fell also the schools, and all the higher inst.i.tutions for the diffusion of knowledge; but with the spread of Christianity they began again to rear their heads, but with a very essentially different character. Their tendency was preeminently theological,--as the theological seminaries, and the catechetical schools, especially at Alexandria, testify; which latter maintained the highest celebrity, from the second to the fourteenth century. This theological tendency manifested itself still more in the episcopal and cathedral schools, where indeed the so-called Seven Free Arts were also taught, but in the most miserable and imperfect manner. Theology, growing every day more sterile, yet exercised a perpetually increasing lordship over philosophy, and formally subjected it to tutelage, as the monastic schools from the sixth to the eleventh century most strikingly show. These inst.i.tutions sought the immediate protection of the hierarchy, and the result of their labours was the School Philosophy.

Charlemagne and his friend Alcuin again first comprehended the idea of a general humane accomplishment. The former founded the Schola Palatii, for princes and young men of condition, and Alfred in England established similar ones there; but with the death of these remarkable men, all seemed to fall back again into the old track. These cloister schools, however, in the ninth century, merged into the so-called Faculty Schools; which again in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries lived anew as Universities. Thus, in consequence of the schools of Charlemagne and Alfred, a free spirit of scientific inquiry evolved itself from the cloister schools, which found a corroborating co-operation in the Rabbinical schools of North Africa, in Spain, and France, and still more, in the schools of the Arabs. There, such Faculty Schools stood forth with especial prominence; the one for medical science at Salerno; for jurisprudence at Bologna, which possessed distinguished privileges as the gift of the Emperor Henry I.

through the _Autentica_ of the year 1158. The scholastic theology soon separated itself from the Aristotelian-Arabic Philosophy, and the seat of the latter became Paris. Amongst many precious privileges, which these three inst.i.tutions received in consequence of the _Autentica_ of Frederick I., that of Philip Augustus for Paris was the most remarkable. It freed it from the civil jurisdiction, and placed it under the jurisdiction of its own teachers. Paris was also the first university in which all branches of education were taught; yet even there, still theology continued to be the prominent study, and none of the universities could confer all kinds of academical honours. So, doctors of theology could only be created in Paris; of law, only in Bologna, and so on. As these schools now became actually universities, they ceased to bear the names of scholae, studia, studia generalia, and the name of universities was adopted, and has ever since continued in use.

The teachers of the universities received originally no stipend from the state. Frederick II. paid to the teachers of the newly-founded university at Naples in 1224, the first fixed stipend. The great advantages of a university education becoming, by degrees, generally known, occasioned many cities, which saw these advantages, to endeavour to become university-cities themselves, so that from the thirteenth century the number greatly increased. Universities were founded in Montpellier in 1220; in Orleans in 1312; and in Prague in 1348; the last in particular formed on the model of that of Paris. Independence of the state created, especially in Prague, a most beneficial freedom of doctrine in the teachers, which was often directed against the prince, and often against the church, with the most distinguished consequences.

We are once more conducted by the mention of Prague back to the universities of Germany, and it must be, in the first place, observed, that this university for a considerable period was, and continued to be, the only one. But as knowledge penetrated more and more into Germany, and especially as it was cherished and promoted by the princes, the want of such higher educational inst.i.tutions was more and more felt, and thus arose in the German territory, previous to the end of the fifteenth century, fifteen universities,--of which Vienna was founded in 1365; Heidelberg in 1387; Cologne in 1388; Erfurt in 1392; Leipsic in 1409; Rostock in 1419; Freisburg in Breisgau in 1452; Greifswalde in 1456, 1472; Trier in 1454, 1472; Basle in 1460; Ingoldstadt in 1471; Tubingen in 1477; Mayence in 1471. At the beginning of the sixteenth century arose Wittenberg in 1502, and Frankfurt on the Oder in 1505; Marburg in 1527, the first Protestant university; Konigsberg in Prussia in 1544; Jena in 1554, 1557; Altdorf in 1675, 1678; Helmstadt 1575.

At that period, however, the Protestant princes only could be justly praised for their care to provide able professors; the universities which continued Catholic, or which were newly-founded by Catholic princes, as those of Dillingen in 1613; Paderborn in 1615; and Molsheim in 1618; were occupied by the Jesuits. In consequence of the unfortunate Thirty Years' War, many of these universities fell; many suffered much from the chances of war; and these circ.u.mstances incited neighbouring princes to found new universities. So arose the university at Giessen in 1650; at Duisburg in 1655; at Kiel in 1665. The Elector Frederick III. of Brandenburg--King Frederick I.--changed in 1694 the Ritter School at Halle into a university. A general improvement of the instruction given in all the universities in this century is observable: but spite of all endeavours at improvement in this respect, the sciences all continued to be taught in a very unphilosophical manner, and in the Latin tongue.

The necessary advance from this wretched state of things began with the eighteenth century, through the universally restless activity of the philosopher Leibnitz. Christian Wolf taught first in the spirit of Leibnitz and in the German tongue. George II. seconding the better spirit of the time, founded a new university at Gottingen in 1734; Margrave Frederick of Brandenburg-Ans.p.a.ch one at Erlangen in 1743; and a Catholic one arose through the Prince-Bishop of Dalberg in 1734 at Fulda, but was dissolved again in 1804. The good spirit continued to work on through the remaining half of the eighteenth century, and thus in 1760, Duke Frederick of Mecklenburg founded a university at Butzow, which was in 1789 united to that of Rostock. The Duke Karl Eugen of Wurtemberg in 1770 founded that of Stuttgardt, which was, however, again dissolved in 1794. Bonn also at that period received the foundation of its university. More recently was founded that at Landshut, whither the university of Ingoldstadt was removed in 1800, and again in 1827 removed to Munich. Wittemberg ceased in 1816, being united to that of Halle; and in 1810 a new university was founded at Berlin.

We have now, gentlemen, taken an historical glance at the German universities, and at their foundations, so far as is necessary. They were called forth by the ruling circ.u.mstances of the times, and established themselves now in this manner and now in that. But it is especially interesting to us to have seen that the university of Heidelberg was one of the earliest, and continues one of the first; its rank no one will presume to contest. She has raised her n.o.ble head amid all the storms of time, and no state revolutions or other political epochs could make her bend. Ruperto-Carolo shone like a morning sun on the horizon of scientific endeavour, and we now shall take with particular pleasure the opportunity----

"To invite the honourable listeners politely to partake of a modest supper;" interrupted Hoffmann. "Thou mayst finish thy learned lecture another time."

Von Kronen.--Far be it from me to throw any obstruction in the way of so praiseworthy a proposition; especially, as the favourite adage of our city of the Muses has always been--the utile dulci.

Mr. Traveller.--So postpone we then the continuance of the discourse to a future day.

PHRENOLOGY.

The little collation was in the mean time brought up, and the company, under the conduct of the musical artist, made the most successful attacks on the ham and veal cutlet. The Gottingen sausage, moreover, an imitation of the renowned Sulzer, was as little spared as the potato-salad, and the scattered remains soon alone marked the battle-field. A n.o.ble Rhine-wine recruited the muscles of the jaw, and loosed again the tongue of the brave combatants. The affairs of the day became the subject of discourse, and occurrences in Hanover, which then appeared likely vitally to affect the interests of all Germany, were eagerly discussed by all. Mr. Traveller, as the representative of England, stated the strong feeling which there prevailed against the King of Hanover, and so they came to talk of the prevailing views and theories in England, on many subjects, and Mr. Traveller speedily entangled himself in a discussion on Phrenology, which he endeavoured to defend. Freisleben, a determined opponent to the theory, immediately took up the subject zealously.

Freisleben.--They are now signs on the skull that man will expound, formerly they were signs in the heaven. What unpardonable presumption, from certain deviations from the regularity of the outer form, to infer an a.n.a.logical change of the soul. A leap which, according to my opinion, is not less than from comets' tails to war. What presumption, from the body to seek to form conclusions upon the spirit, whose mode of connexion with it is to us totally unknown! It strikes me exactly as if any one should infer or a.s.sert the possession of a fine sense of smell, from the existence of a huge nose, or, as dancing is a function of the foot, that he who has a great foot must be a capital dancer.

Mr. Traveller.--Throw the matter into ridicule as much as you please, but take along with you at the same time the evidences which experience furnishes.

Freisleben.--These evidences have long been shown to evidence nothing, and it astonishes me that this doctrine of Gall and Spurzheim, this ephemeral structure, can find so much acceptance in England.

Mr. Traveller.--I know the thing only by popular representations. But the principles which are herein derived from anatomy and physiology, to which Gall and Spurzheim have rendered much service, the grounds which pathology and comparative anatomy also furnish, appear to me worthy of all attention.

Pittschaft.--That n.o.body denies; but Gall having rendered essential service to the anatomy of the brain, by no means justifies his doctrine.

Freisleben.--His theory must fall, when it is a.s.sailed _a priori_, or by experience. Above all things, unphilosophical, not to say ridiculous, is his distribution into twenty-seven senses. By what right has he only so many set forth; and why is a boundary drawn here?

Mr. Traveller.--Though many things may be said against this distribution, yet it is often seen in life that an individual sense as marked out by Gall, is pre-eminently developed and frequently almost exclusively predominates; I remind you of his five-sorts-of-memory sense.

Freisleben.--Certainly. But what is the cause of this? Is it not to be sought rather in external influences, which especially develope this kind of memory? And if we leave this out of view, then must we go still farther. So there is a painter who can paint only landscapes; and I recollect in Matthisson's Reminiscences, to have read of a Cretin in Berne, who could paint cats, and cats only, but them most excellently.

How much farther must Gall's artistical faculty be subdivided, till it reaches down to the cat-painting faculty!

Mr. Traveller.--The artistical faculty is probably in this painter, but we must a.s.sume that it is prevented from unfolding itself in all directions.

Freisleben.--But there you knock yourself down. Since, if we a.s.sume that there is no necessity for the faculty, which the external elevation of the skull indicates, to develope itself, then the whole pile of Phrenology tumbles to the ground. But does it develope itself, and is this acknowledged as necessary, what incalculable and horrible consequences must this have! All moral responsibility ceases: the criminal escapes punishment, since he can show on his skull the irresistible murder-sense. But I will not pursue this farther, since, happily, we have nothing to fear from it. Scarcely in a single instance do the outer plates of the skull-bones correspond permanently with the inner ones, and therefore not with the brain. I call to your recollection only the skulls of certain animals, in which, between the two skull-plates, is to be found a large hollow, as we, indeed, also find in man; as, for instance, the hollow of the forehead--the frontal sinus--which is, in different individuals, very differently developed.

Then again the most recent physiological experiments show, that in occurring injuries, they are not by any means of so much consequence in the external portion of the brain, in the hemisphere, but that it is exactly the inner portion which is of the most importance, and which also has a much more determinate shape. In injuries of the head too, cases have occurred, where whole spoonsful of the hemisphere of the brain have been taken out without the slightest diminution of the actively intellectual powers. Object not to me that the convolutions of the hemisphere of the brain have been particularly developed in distinguished men--here it was also the case with the inner portion: one part does not develope itself without the other. Object not that the anatomy of beasts gives no secure result, since if this is the case, how can phrenology itself dare to hope to give more certain judgments? The firm and immovable part--the form of the bones especially--is delusive: in the first place, since they have long acquired their form and consistency before every species of improvement of the improvable creature takes place, which comes long after the complete fixidity; and secondly, since this form depends so little upon our will, while the influence of external causes is so unavoidable, and a single pressure or stroke can gradually work a change, whose progress no art is capable of restraining. Moreover, even could any thing be deduced from this, still the firm parts yet const.i.tute but a certain and perpetually fixed proportion, a single and insignificant link in the chain of countless circ.u.mstances, which go to the formation of the human character.

Mr. Traveller.--My G.o.d! my head is in a whirligig with all this--with all this rapid German.

Freisleben.--One must not allow one's-self to speak of the outer form of the head in which a free spirit dwells, as one would of a pumpkin; as little must we calculate circ.u.mstances which depend upon it, as we would calculate an eclipse. Others a.s.sert, with equal probability, that the character of a man lies in his countenance, whilst they appeal to the capability of drawing a conclusion on the whole from the indications of a part; as others, supporting themselves on this sufficient ground, a.s.sert, that man must act as a machine. And to this cla.s.s of reasoning belongs--"in a handsome body dwells a handsome soul."

Ridicule majis hoc dictum, quam vere aestimo, Quando et formosos saepe inveni pessimos, Et turpi facie multos cognovi optimus.

_Phaedrus_.

Pittschaft.--Ah, if we could but first rightly understand the changes in the brain itself. But a great visible change in the brain may be a very little change for the soul, and _vice versa_. And how will people draw conclusions from the very vault of the brain?

Mr. Traveller.--But, gentlemen, recollect how often phrenologists, from the outward form of the skull, have drawn correct conclusions.

Recollect the allocation of distinguished heads as they are to be seen in plaster in the English and German museums.

Freisleben.--Yes, they have drawn some very neat conclusions, but we know very well how that stands. The false conclusions have been carefully put out of sight; and yet sufficient of them have come to the daylight to render the phrenologists ridiculous. They are, indeed, often still more innocent, the worthy demonstrators only seeing that which they knew very well before. Recollect also what a sagacious German naturalist says:--"The proof of the demonstration which the phrenologist makes is, in most cases, as superficial as the demonstration itself. Let a man eat a shovelful of salt, according to the prescription of Aristotle, with the person upon whose head and heart he makes so superficial a judgment, and he will then find what will become of his former judgment. But to err is human, and that not exclusively, for it is sometimes the fate of angels." Talent, and the endowments of the spirit, generally have no signs in the solid portion of the head. To prove this, let the selected casts of thinking heads, and selected ones of fools and not-thinking men, be placed side by side; and not the head of the learned man, of a careful education, be placed in opposition to that of the worst specimen of the totally uneducated country b.o.o.by. Bedlam is peopled with inhabitants, who, if they did not stand staring as if chilled into stone, or smiling at the stars, or listening to the song of the angels, or would blow out the dog-star, or stood trembling with folded arms,--if, in fact, they were not judged by these aberrations, but by the shape of their heads alone, would command the highest respect. Still less can we draw correct conclusions from the shape of the living head than from the bare skull itself. A skilful artist, without exceeding the bounds of the probable, would be able to cast in wax a covering of muscles and skin for the head of any skeleton, and give it an expression which should possess any aspect that he pleased. And thus may the skull of a living person be, in reality, so covered with an irregular ma.s.s of muscular and cuticular integuments, as shall give an equally delusive effect.

Von Kronen.--whose attention had become excited by this ill.u.s.tration--here interposed. What an immeasurable leap from the exterior of the body to the interior of the soul! Had we a sense which enabled us to discover the inner quality of bodies, yet would such a leap still be a daring one. It is a well established fact, that the instrument does not make the artist; and many a one with a fork and a goosequill would make better sketches than another with an English case of instruments. Sound manly sense soon sees into this; it is only the pa.s.sion for innovation, and an idle sophistry, soothing itself with false hopes, which will not see it. If a ship-captain answered a fellow who offered himself to his service with enthusiasm--"Thy will is good, but, nevertheless, thou art of no use to me. Thy shoulders are too narrow, and thou art too small altogether for the service," then must the good fellow probably put his hand on his mouth; but if the captain said, "Thou actest like a worthy fellow, but I see by thy figure that thou constrainest thyself at this moment, and art a scamp in thy heart;" in truth, such an address would, in any place, to the end of the world, be answered by any honest fellow with a box on the ear.

Mr. Traveller.--You will make me in the end suspicious of the whole circle of physics, or otherwise I must believe that you allow no place to the phrenologist amongst natural philosophers.

Freisleben.--I permit him freely to cla.s.s himself amongst the naturalists; but he must attempt to take no greater rank amongst them than the _soi-disant_ political prophet does amongst subtle statesmen.

But one can by no means cla.s.s the genuine natural philosopher and the phrenologist and physiognomist together. The first err often humanly, the others err continually and monstrously.

While this discussion had grown warm, amongst the others a lively conversation had arisen on recent literature. They gave their opinions on the recent English romances of Bulwer and Marryat, which then were the order of the day. They condemned some of the later productions of the French. They contended for and against the influence of the young Germany; criticised Gutzhow's newest romance; and soon were upon a general theme, the different tendency of the public in England and Germany. There the preference for popular representation; the neglect of scientific reading, together with the very superficial school education; here, on the contrary, reverence for science, and over-driven grasping after scientific things, and a pa.s.sion to be learned, which especially shows itself repulsively in the ladies, when they are carried away into the scientific vortex; they bewailed the wretched ma.s.s of rubbish that was now read, and especially that the Germans by reading too much did themselves injury. That, in particular, in the schools the children were held more to learning by rote than to thinking; at the same time thankfully acknowledging that it was sought with all diligence, to correct this error in the new Folks' Schools.

"In England," says Freisleben, "one finds more original character in company, and amongst the common people, as may be seen in the English writings. In Germany it is totally different. And if any one stumbles on an original discovery, how long it continues, till his discovery, and till he himself become known. In Germany the greatest discoveries have been made, but they weighed them, and doubted so long whether they were new and would be useful, that their neighbours the French or the English seized on them, and secured the advantages of them to themselves."

Eckhard.--No nation feels so much the worth of other nations as the Germans; and yet is, alas! so little regarded by most of them, even for this obeisance.

Enderlin.--I think the other nations are quite in the right. A nation that would please all, deserves to be despised of all. This has been pretty much the case with Germany, and it is only just now that other people have learned to estimate her properly.

Von Kronen.--Lichtenberg in his time said justly--"The character of the Germans lies in two words: patriam fugimus."--_Virgil_.

Hoffmann.--Yes, Lichtenberg--_that_ is an original character! I have learned to prize him properly from Von Kronen. Yesterday, for the first time, I read his famous essay on the state of the German Romance of his time. It pleased me so much that I must read it out to you. It is short, and will at least be finished before the Phrenologists and Anti-Phrenologists there have finished their discussion.

ON THE GERMAN ROMANCE.

Our mode of living is become so simple, and all our customs so little mysterious; our cities are, for the most part, so small, the land so open; all is so simply true, that a man who is desirous to write a German romance, hardly knows how he is to bring the people together, or to lay his plot. Then, as the mothers now in Germany suckle their own children, there is an end of all exchanging them, and a fountain of emotion is thus stopped, that is not to be purchased with money. If I would persuade a maiden to come out in man's clothes, that is immediately discovered, and the servants betray it, before she can get out of the house; and besides, our ladies are educated in such housewifely notions that they have not the heart in them to do any thing of the kind. No, to sit fine by mamma, to cook and to sew, and to become themselves cooks and sewing mothers, that is their business. It is undoubtedly very convenient for them, but it's a shame to the Fatherland, and an invincible obstacle to the romance writer.

In England, people think that if two persons of the same s.e.x sleep in the same room, a fever is unavoidable, on which account the people in one house are by night, for the most part separated, and a writer has only to take care that he sets open the house-door, and he can let who he will into the house, and need not fear that any body will awake sooner than he would have them. Furthermore, in England the chimneys are not merely the channels of smoke, but the especial windpipes of the chambers, and afford at the same time such an excellent way to come down into any room of the house, at once and unheard, that I have often been told that he who had once gone up and down a chimney would prefer it to a staircase.

In Germany a lover would make a pretty journey if he were to come down a chimney! Yes, if he had a mind to fall into a fire-hearth, or into a wash-kettle with lye, or into an anti-chamber with two or three stoves, which one probably could not open from within at all. And suppose one should let the lover come down into the kitchen, the question then is, which way would you bring him first upon the roof? The cats in Germany can take this way to their loves, but not men. On the contrary, in England, the roofs make a kind of street which sometimes are better than those on the ground; and when a man is upon one, it costs him then no further trouble to get upon another than to run across a village street in winter.

People will say that those contrivances have been hit upon on account of fires; but as these scarcely occur once in one hundred and fifty years in any house, so I conceive that they have rather been found advantageous to lovers driven to extremity and to thieves, who very often take this way, when they might have chosen others, and certainly always when a hasty retreat is necessary, exactly as the witches and the devil are wont to do in Germany. Finally, a right powerful prevention of intrigues is that otherwise fine and praiseworthy conceit of the post-directors in Germany, by whom a vast amount of the virtues of the times are preserved, since instead of the English coaches and chaises, in which a princess in the most delicate condition would neither fear nor be ashamed to travel, they have subst.i.tuted those so-beloved open Rumpelwagen. For what mischief the convenient coaches and the most excellent highways of England may occasion, is not to be expressed by words.

For, in the first place, if a maiden goes out of London with her lover of an evening, they may be in France ere the father awoke, or in Scotland ere he has come to resolve with his relations what he shall do; therefore, a writer has need of neither fairies, conjurors, nor talismans in order to bring the beloved into security, since if he can only bring them to Charing-Cross or Hyde-Park Corner, they are as safe as if they were in Weaver Melek's chest in the Persian Tales.

On the contrary, in Germany, if the father misses but his daughter on the third day; if he only knows that she is gone by post-wagon, he can mount his horse and seize her again at the third station. Another mischievous circ.u.mstance is the, alas! much too good company in the commodious stage-coaches of England, which are always filled full of beautiful and well-dressed ladies, and where--a thing which parliament ought not not to suffer--the pa.s.sengers so sit, that they must gaze upon one another; whereby is endangered, not only a highly dangerous bewilderment of the eyes, but sometimes a highly shameful, and on both sides a smile-exciting bewilderment of the legs of the opposite traveller; and finally, as frequently as dissolving a bewilderment of souls and thoughts arises, so that many an honourable young man who was proposing to travel from London to Oxford, has instead of that travelled to the devil. Such things, thanks to heaven, are impossible in our post-wagons; since, in the first place, no genteel ladies could possibly seat themselves in such a conveyance if they had not in their youth been after climbing hedges, magpie-nesting, apple-gathering and battering down of walnuts; since the spring over the side-ladder requires a remarkable nimbleness, and no lady can do it without setting the coach-master and the ostler-fellows that are standing round, laughing. In the second place, the pa.s.sengers so seat themselves, when they at length do seat themselves, that they cannot look each other in the face, and in such a situation, whatever may be said to the contrary, cannot very well begin an intrigue. Conversation loses all its spice, and one can at the most only understand what another says, but not what he desires to say. In short, one has something else to do in a German post wagon than to gossip; one must hold one's-self fast when we come to holes, hold ourselves in readiness for a spring in case of accident; must keep an eye on the boughs, and duck at the proper time, that one's hat or one's head may be left in its place; keep an eye to the windy side, and keep strengthening the clothing on that quarter from which the attack comes; and if it rains, why then one has the property common to other creatures that live neither in the water nor on the water, of being silent when it is wet; and thus the conversation stands at once stock still. If one at length reaches a Wirthshaus (inn,) thus pa.s.ses the time amongst other things--one dries himself, another shakes himself, one sucks his lozenge, another blows up his cheeks, or enacts whatever other child's megrim he may be in the habit of on such occasions. And hereby comes a circ.u.mstance into notice which makes all friendly intercourse in a Wirthshaus impossible; to wit,--that since so many miseries are bound up with post-wagon travelling, so care has been taken that the Wirthshauses shall be made so much worse than is necessary, in order to render a return to the post-wagons the more tolerable. And n.o.body can imagine to himself what an effect that has too. I have seen people who were pounded and knocked to pieces, and sighed ardently for repose, that when they saw the Wirthshaus in which they were to refresh themselves, with the courage of heroes, have resolved to travel on, which was similar to the fort.i.tude of Regulus, which drove him back to Carthage, although he knew that they would there put him into a sort of German post-wagon, and so let him roll down the hill.

So fall through altogether the stage-coach intrigues with the stage-coaches themselves, those true hot-houses of episodes and declarations. But, it will be said, there is now a stage-coach in Hanover. Good, I know it; and one quite as good as an English one. And must we, therefore, begin all our romances on the way between Haarburg and Minden, which we now leave so swiftly behind us that we have hardly time to see it? All that the travellers do there, is to break out in praise of the king who has ordered this coach, and to sleep; for they are generally so wearied before they get into this coach, that they then fancy they are got home, or that they lie in bed. But those are proper objects truly to fill a romance with! To introduce five sleeping merchants, all snoring; or to fill out a chapter with the praises of the king! The first is by no means a fit subject for any book, and the latter for no romance.