"Phædrus," where Socrates discusses with his adept the superiority of oral delivery to written essays for philosophical purposes. But even without appealing to any authorities, we may easily conjecture that the living word must supersede the dead letter in power and efficacy. There must be more effect in listening to a Newton in the chair demonstrating the laws of motion in their eternal necessity, than in reading his "Principia Philosophie Naturalis." As for the habit of writing down from lectures, we should not quarrel too much with that; as it is by far the most immaterial part of the proceeding, it should be left to individual choice, and may have its good, partly by affording a document to which the student may refer, and by which he may recall the thread of the lecture to his mind, and partly by fixing the attention of the hearer on the words and thoughts of the lecturer by an outward and physical means.

Opinions will probably always be divided on the question, What means are the best for educating young men of an advanced age. Some will advocate close superintendence, frequent examinations, and direct personal influence of the masters upon the student, as the safest course. The German Universities have followed the opposite course, and look upon a system like that of Oxford, Dublin, or Cambridge, or to turn to a different part of the globe-of Riga and Dorpat, and of most Universities in other countries, as derogatory to the dignity both of the professor and student. It may indeed fairly be questioned whether anything is won at all for the purposes of an University, by reducing the professors to the drudgery of daily tuition, with all its concomitant toil, unpleasantness, machinery, and repetition, and on the other hand, by ushering each student into some pre-established method or traditional frame of teaching. The mind is an organism infinitely finer and more self-acting than any other organism nature presents. Yet, the more independent the mind is in its growth than a plant or a tree, and the more such a comparison must be considered as inadequate, the more correct and justified we shall be in choosing an inference from the practice of a gardener. You may bend and twist a tree, almost into any shape, whilst it is young: this is both conducive to its

growth, and indispensable to its proper formation; but, when stem and root are once developed, you must leave them to their own direction and impulse, and, provided that sun and rain are fairly and in due time afforded, the tree will grow of itself, whereas it will fade and be crippled under a continued artificial treatment which extends beyond the acme of its growing powers. Much more so the mind. University education is to be the last stage of mental growth. It comes at a time when body and mind are adult, and all but finished in their natural stage of development. For this reason a considerably wider field ought to be left to the intellectual individuality of the student. It is a great mistake to believe that doctrines or knowledge were best imparted to that age by means of the most direct and most practical training. The best kind of education for adults is that which is most calculated to produce self-exertion and voluntary efforts of the learner. For self-exertion is the only true and genuine spring of mental improvement. An uniform and authoritative mode of teaching is often even calculated to do much mischief. It bars true genius up within the trammels of learned traditions; it deflects or suppresses talent in its yet infantine guesses or stammerings; it denies or misapprehends the instinctive gifts of the mind, the innate love of truth, and forgets entirely that we learn nothing so well and so convincingly as what we acquire by self-made researches.

There is certainly as much danger in educating too much as there is in educating too little. The German professorial system is intended to steer clear of both these extremes, by giving the most easy and accessible instruction, together with the least degree of direct teaching. It offers the most varied, the most attractive, and the most suggestive form of instruction, and leaves the student entirely to judge and use it as he feels himself disposed. Let no one suppose that such a system would endanger rather than promote the exertions of the student, by the absence of more direct inducements for learning.

It is well known that the German student is not behind in industry and in patience; nor can we conceive why this system should lead to a different result. A young man has,

in his twentieth year, we should say, become wise enough to know that he does not merely learn in order to please his professors, and he labours no more under the delusion of the school-boy, who fancies he is nicely tricking his master whilst he steals away from his school-form. But if the student should ever cease to remember the object of his stay at the University, the thought that he is, by his own choice, remaining ignorant amidst a crowd of assiduous and intelligent fellow-students, will induce him more effectually to amend, than any disciplinary notices or tutorial remonstrances.

We cannot pass by this occasion without stating some of the historical effects by which the German University system has been attended. Impartial observers will admit that Germany boasts of students who are willing and able to exert themselves in the highest degree possible. Their plodding disposition has become a standing jest to some English writers, who could be foolish enough even for a moment to depreciate the zeal and fervor of those youthful and disinterested searchers after truth. Is not the toilsome and self-dictated, unwearied patience of the German student, over his midnight lamp, quite as worthy of respect and praise as the daily reading hours of an Oxford or Cambridge student, who often works for prizes or honours, under the direction of his tutor? And who that truly appreciates learning and science will ever indulge in sneering at the means and trouble by which it must be acquired? The German Universities have no cause to disclaim the epithet with which their adepts are honoured, as long as German University-men are sought and respected, and as long as their writings, the fruit of their plodding qualities, are read and appreciated.

With equal truth it may be said of the German Universities that they promote individuality of intellect and opinion almost to an excess; of course, for every one is there led, nay, compelled to think and judge for himself, and to take nothing on trust. It is certainly true that lately a great many learned novelties and doctrinal schools have been hatched at the German Universities. We do not want to denyin fact it would be useless-that Germany is possessed of the largest amount of intellectual fertility. Its

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Universities have, indeed, put forth all kinds of theories- sometimes useful, but often fantastic-in many cases profound, in some revolutionary ; here with an air of venerable antiquity, there again with the artificial hot-house forcing of modern wit. Homœopathy has come from Germany-mesmerism had its origin there-hydropathy emanates from thence; rationalism and mysticism, too, have their adherents there in innumerable shades and ramifications. Pantheism is maintained by some philosophers; scepticism is the result of others' views, and schools follow each other there, thick and quick. Leibnitz, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel have peopled the German Universities with their followers. to a University, there are not two doctors in law or divinity who hold the same opinions; and even their lectures often have a strong admixture of individual views and even polemics: the students, of course, choose their party too for themselves. This mushroomlike fertility of doctrines in Germany forms a striking contrast to the steady, undeviating march of intellect in the learned circles of Oxford and Cambridge, Dublin or London. At the British Universities, doctrines and education are infinitely more positive and alike. All the students receive, within each College, one and the same kind of education; they are all taught in the same fixed way, and depend for their opinions almost solely on the opinions of their tutors or professors, who do not much differfrom each other. For this reason it often appears to observing foreigners as if the intellects of English University-men were all moulded in one and the same national shape, and stamped by the same influence; nor can it be astonishing that the authoritative character of English University education should have this effect. Compare with them an adept from a German University, and you will find him usually swayed by a restless and independent, nay, frantic desire of research and of theorising on his own account. There is, undoubtedly, much danger as well as some good with either of these two different tendencies, which it is not our business here to discuss. But we may, without great fear of erring, set it down as a fact, that the German University system, devoid as it is of the principle of authority, has gained in intellectual

fertility, in the quick growth of science, in production of individual views, whereas it has, at the same time, lost in steadiness and concentration of aim, and in unity and firmness of doctrine, which have their own particular good, not in science, but in moral and political views, and may rather be said to belong to the properties of English education.

We trust that the mode of instruction usual at the German Universities is so far sufficiently characterised in its main features. It embraces, as we have stated, four distinct branches of science divinity, law, medicine, and philosophy (that is, classies, natural sciences and history); four deans and one rector are annually chosen by and from among the regular professors, to represent these four learned fuculties, sa they are denominated. These five men constitute the University Senate, who hardly ever interfere with the students, over whom they have only a nominal control, except in coming and leaving, at their matriculation, and at their asking for a testimonial or a degree. They preside, together with the ordinary and extraordinary professors, at public occasions and festivities, invested with richly-decorated velvet robes. Connected with the Senate is also an University Judge, before whom students may be taken who incur debts, or have been found out duelling, or have committed themselves politically.

The reader will perceive that the above division into four faculties implies a professional character which does not belong to the British Universities. Every German student decides before his matriculation which profession and which class he will join. The whole plan of his studies and the choice of his lectures will depend upon this decision. A medical student will hear lectures on anatomy, physiology, chemistry and phrenology; a lawyer will attend prelections on civil, crimi nal, and common law, or the ancient and modern codes; the divinity student will frequent exegetical lectures, learn Hebrew, read the fathers, hear lectures on church history, ethics and the dogmas of the Christian faith; whilst the classical student, according to his particular intentions, will be present at interpretations of Horace, Pindar, Plato, and Sophocles, or else hear some historian, geographer,_mathematician, or astronomer. Thus each student, though fully at liberty

to hear and learn what he likes, will generally choose but such lectures as fall in with his particular profession, and the different halls of a German University are usually filled but by one of the four classes of students. There are but few lectures of common and general interest, such as logic, metaphysics, and those on all general topics, historical, or philosophical; the great stock and majority of lectures are altogether addressed by professional men to professional adepts. In this respect the British Universities form a wide contrast with those of Germany, and the Continental High Schools in general. British students receive within their colleges all oneand the same kind of education, and no regard is paid to any individual profession. Their object is said to be general knowledge, and not professional knowledge, and for law and me. dical science, as well as all more practical pursuits of any kind whatever, little or no preparation is made, except in establishments independent of the Universities themselves. It is certainly not the design of the Universities to form mere business men; but it may be hardly advisable to defer the ap prenticeship for the learned professions too long. Universities should not merely be considered as intended to turn out gentlemen, or to delegate a multitude of scientific drones, or to create a number of young Grecians, with a great amount of general taste and little practical skill. The country derives no use from general philosophy and universal information. Its wants are of a more imperative and indivi dual nature. It requires men fit for the higher branches of administrationmen qualified to preach the Gospel, to guard its laws, to cure the sick, or to instruct the rising generations. If the Universities were either too haughty or too short-sighted to attend to the actual requirements of the country, they would earn little gratitude from a people for whom they did not provide, and from pupils whom they left unfit for their vocation. General knowledge is the province of elementary schools and preparatory colleges; in Germany it is the professed aim of the gymnasia. But it is both natural and indispensable that education, in its final and most advanced stage, should become professional, or else Universi ties can never be seriously said to pre

pare young men for the higher and learned branches of society.

We will add here a few words on University degrees and examinations. It will be understood from the preceding explanations that the German Universities do not examine their students at all. As they do not engage themselves to teach practically, and decline every direct responsibility for the actual improvements of their scholars, they have no occasion to examine any student on the use he has made of his time and of the University lectures. No prizes are awarded, no inducements for industry beld out. It is true that each faculty annually proposes one prize-question; and that students of moderate means may, upon applying and giving some test of industry, often receive presents from the assisting-funds of the University or the Government; but these solitary and exceptional cases are by their nature and extent without effect or importance for the mass of students. Their industry is not stimulated by love of gain or love of honour. There is no list of wranglers or classmen inviting the academician to labour; no fear of being plucked, to hinder him from being as lazy as he likes. The industry of the German student is unselfish and disinterested; he works for his own good and for the love of science, and not from ambition or want. We do not think that his assiduity would in general be increased, and we feel confident it would not be ennobled, if the somewhat mercenary system into which-to German eyes at least the English universities seem to have fallen, was substituted for the German system. When a student leaves his university, he receives a testimonial whereon the lectures which he has paid for and attended are mentioned, from half-year to half-year; each professor usually is requested to witness his attendance by some little epithet, as Besucht, fleissig besucht, etc. Beyond this a University does not go. The only case where examinations take place is when application is made for a degree. Any person may get a degree from a German University, if he can pass the requisite examination, and send in a printed essay, with other testimonials to prove his capacity. The candidate, who may be from any country or school, has only to pay the fees, get his essay acknowledged as satisfac

tory, and then present himself for the oral examination, which is conducted by ordinary professors of the University, whom the candidate may choose for himself.

Let no one suppose that the examination for a degree of Doctor et Magister, or Doctor of Medicine, was given away to undeserving persons at any of the Prussian and most of the larger German Universities. It is true that, of late, some of the obscurer Universities have established quite a traffic with diplomas, and have granted them to foreigners, without requiring any oral examination, merely on paying their fees, and sending some essay, with other testimonials. This has brought academical degrees into disrepute in Germany as well as abroad; but, as the other Universities did not fail to complain of the said abuse at the Diet at Frankfort, and took other effectual steps in order to compel the governments of the lesser German States to check it, a more scrupulous mode of examining has been enforced, and is conscientiously observed in Prussia.

Degrees are merely ornamental; they give a title or public character, but are no legal test of capacity. Now, in order to ascertain the fitness of young men for office, either for the church, or the bar, or the gymnasial or academical chair, or for surgical practice, it appears a public test is requisite. But the Universities could, according to their design and nature, not meddle with it. The necessary examinations, therefore, are conducted by commissions appointed by Govern. ment to examine young divines, scholars, lawyers, and surgeons, before they are permitted to hold office. Here, of course, difference of skill among the candidates is a matter of the highest importance; and the result of these examinations usually decides the actual improvements of the student, as well as his future prospects. These examinations are, therefore, the final aim and conclusion of the student's effort, who passes them sometimes immediately, sometimes from one to five years after his University-triennium. Hic Rhodus, hic salta! hereafter will be all plain sailing.

The British Universities are inde pendent corporations, but those of Germany are in a great measure dependent on the governments. It was

the princes who founded and endowed them, and it is the princes too who can, if they choose, keep them in constant check. Therefore, the German Universities are often degraded into a kind of political engines, which the minister of public instruction must work, according to the wind of the court or the immediate inspiration of the sovereign. Science ought, by its nature, to be independent; and as the censorship of an overruling power must needs tend to fetter and degrade its representatives, we will trust in a future generation, and an age yet to come, when the German Universities may be emancipated from the interference of their governments. Hitherto oppressive measures have only now and then been carried into effect, and an appearance of autonomy has been left to the Universities of the Protestant and northern states, though less so in Austria. Every person can become a lecturer upon proving his ability before the existing professors; but his promotion and salary depend on the intentions of government, and the support of his colleagues. If he can meet with an audience, if he attracts the students by his lectures, he cannot well be refused a professorship for any length of time. The German Universities boast of the principle of universal admissibility both for those who want to teach and for those who want to learn. No creed or birthplace disables a person who can prove his capacity, from becoming either a lecturer or a student on whatever subject he pleases. There are no sectarian or religious disabilities at any German University; in this respect they differ widely from the older British Universities. Thus you may find at any German University Lutherans, Calvinists, Roman Catholics, Jews, foreigners from Greece, Russia, England, and America, Sweden and Norway, Switzerland, Hungary, and Poland, &c., amongst the students. Nor are the protessors all of the same creed, except in faculties of divinity, which, by their nature, present entire uniformity of confession. Some Universities contain two faculties of divinity, one for Roman Catholics and another for Protestants. This order of things is perfectly compatible with the German system of non-interference in delivering and receiving knowledge; whereas it can, of

course, never be made to agree with the present English system. The German High Schools profess to teach all to all, and consequently know of no creed; but as true scientific bodies, they admit argument as the only proof of truth, and do not shut the mouth of all other confessions, in order that one privileged doctrine may claim the battle-field undisputed.

The German princes and ministries are more inclined to interfere with the political than with the religious opinions of the people. They have in some cases deposed, or not promoted, such professors or lecturers as had offered to their measures an unpalatable resistance. Some time ago the King of Hanover put in force a new constitution in his dominions. He required all the higher officers of his State to swear allegiance to the new laws. But seven professors of Göttingen refused doing so, and published a protest against the proceedings of Government. Some eminent lawyers and scholars were amongst them, such as the two brothers Grimm, Gervinus, and Dahlmann. They were all deprived of their chairs in one decree. But this measure only tended to ruin the University. For one morning some hundred students led the seven victims in triumph out of the town, shook the dust off their feet at the gates of Göttingen, and went into exile with their seven professors. The acclamations of all Germany were so loud, and the reputation of the professors rose so high, that they got all of them other chairs at other Universities, and thus drew the majority of the Göttingen students with them into other States. Suchlike demonstrations of liberal sympathies have at all times been frequent in Germany, and the princes well know that every oppressive measure they may adopt is sure to be counteracted by the independent and turbulent spirit of the students.

We cannot here give a full account of the true prevailing features of German University life a topic which has certainly its peculiar attractions, partly for the singularity of the facts to be described, partly for the difficulty of a correct and impartial appreciation of their ultimate import. Some English travellers, such as Russell, Laing, Talfourd, and others, have spoken of German students in terms little flat