the knowledge of literature, and of the German language, which had been generally diffused of late, contributed to render Berlin the real metropolis of modern, of enlightened Germany. The French refugees somewhat weakened that entirely German impulse of which Berlin is susceptible; they still preserved a superstitious reverence for the age of Louis XIV; their ideas respecting literature became faded and petrified at a distance from the country which gave them birth; yet, in general, Berlin would have assumed a great ascendency over public spirit in Germany, if there had not still continued to exist (I must repeat it) a feeling of resentment for the contempt which Frederick had evinced towards the German nation.

The philosophic writers have often indulged unjust prejudices against Prussia; they chose to see in her nothing but one vast barrack, and yet it was in this very point of view that she was least worthy of observation. The interest which this country really deserved to excite, consisted in the enlightenment, the spirit of justice, and the sentiments of independence, which are to be met with in a number of individuals of all classes; but the bond of union of these noble qualities had not yet. been formed. The newly constructed State could derive no security, either from duration or from the character of the materials which composed it.

The humiliating punishments generally resorted to among the German soldiery stifled the sentiments of honor in the minds of the soldiers. Military habits have rather injured. than assisted the warlike spirit of the Prussians. These habits were founded on those ancient methods which separated the army from the body of the nation, while in our days, there is no real strength except in national character. This character, in Prussia, is more noble and more exalted than late events might lead us to imagine; "and the ardent heroism of the unhappy Prince Louis ought still to shed some glory over his companions in arms."

1

1 Suppressed by the censors. I struggled during several days to obtain

CHAPTER XVIII.

OF THE GERMAN UNIVERSITIES.

ALL the north of Germany is filled with the most learned universities in Europe. In no country, not even in England, are there so many means of instruction, and of bringing the faculties to perfection. How is it then that the nation is wanting in energy, that it appears generally dull and confined, even while it contains within itself a small number, at least, of men who are the most intellectual in all Europe? It is to the nature of its government, not to education, that this singular contrast must be attributed. Intellectual education is perfect in Germany, but every thing there passes in theory: practical education depends solely on affairs; it is by action alone that the character acquires the firmness necessary to direct in the conduct of life. Character is an instinct; it has more alliance with nature than the understanding, and yet circumstances alone give men the occasion of developing it. Governments are the real instructors of peoples; and public education itself, however good, may create men of letters, but not citizens, warriors, or statesmen.'

the liberty of rendering this homage to Prince Louis, and I represented that it was placing the glory of the French in relief, to praise the bravery of those whom they had conquered; but it appeared more simple to the censors to permit nothing of the kind.

1 "By Germans themselves, German universities are admitted to have been incomparably inferior to the Dutch and Italian universities, until the foundation of the University of Göttingen. Muenchhausen was for Göttingen and the German universities, what Douza was for Leyden and the Dutch. But with this difference: Leyden was the model on which the younger universities of the Republic were constructed; Göttingen, the model on which the older universities of the Empire were reformed. Both were statesmen and scholars. Both proposed a high ideal for the school ounded under their auspices; and both, as first curators, labored with par smount influence in realizing this ideal for the same long period of thirty

In Germany, the genius of philosophy goes further than any where else; nothing arrests it, and even the want of a political career, so fatal to the mass, affords a freer scope to the thinking part of the nation. But there is an immense distance between the first and second orders of minds, because there is no interest, no object of exertion, for men who do not rise to the height of conceptions the most vast. In Germany, a man who is not occupied with the universe, has really nothing to do.

The German universities possess an ancient reputation of a date several centuries antecedent to the Reformation. Since that epoch, the Protestant universities have been incontestably superior to the Catholic, and the literary glory of Germany depends altogether upon these institutions.' The English uni

two years. Under their patronage, Leyden and Göttingen took the highest place among the universities of Europe, and both have only lost their relative supremacy by the application in other seminaries of the same measures which had at first determined their superiority.

"From the mutual relations of the seminaries, states, and people of the Empire, the resort to a German university has in general been always mainly dependent on its comparative excellence; and as the interest of the several States was involved in the prosperity of their several universities, the improvement of one of these schools necessarily occasioned the improvement of the others. No sooner, therefore, had Göttingen risen to a decided superiority through her system of curatorial patronage, and other subordinate improvements, than the different governments found it necessary to place their seminaries, as far as possible, on an equal footing. The nuisance of professorial recommendation, under which the universities had so long pined, was generally abated; and the few schools in which it has been tolerated, subsist only through their endowments, and stand as warning monuments of its effect. Compare wealthy Greifswalde with poor Halle. The virtual patronage was in general found best confided to a small body of curators; though the peculiar circumstances of the country, and the peculiar organization of its machinery of government, have recently enabled at least one of the German States to concentrate, without a violation of our principles, its academical patronage in a ministry of public instruction. This, however, we cannot now explain. It is universally admitted, that since their rise through the new system of patronage, the universities of Germany have drawn into their sphere the highest talent of the nation; that the new era in its intellectual life has been wholly determined by them; as from them have emanated almost all the most remarkable prodicts of German genius in literature, erudition, philosophy, and science." -(Sir Wm. Hamilton's Discussions, p. 381.)-Ed.

A sketch of these institutions is presented to us in a work on the sul➤

versities have singularly contributed to diffuse among the people of England that knowledge of ancient languages and literature, which gives to their orators and statesmen an information so liberal and so brilliant. It is a mark of good taste to be acquainted with other things besides matters of business, when one is thoroughly acquainted with them; and, besides, the eloquence of free nations attaches itself to the history of the Greeks and Romans, as to that of ancient fellow-countrymen. But the German universities, although founded on principles analogous to those of England, yet differ from them in many respects the multitude of students assembled together at Göttingen, Halle, Jena, etc., formed almost a free body in the State: the rich and poor scholars were distinguished from each other only by personal merit; and the strangers, who came from all parts of the world, submitted themselves with pleasure to an equality which natural superiority alone could change.

There was independence, and even military spirit, among the students; and if, in leaving the university, they had been able to devote themselves to the interests of the public, their education had been very favorable to energy of character; but they returned to the monotonous and domestic habits which prevail in Germany, and lost by degrees the impulse and resolution, which their university life had inspired. They retained nothing of it, but a stock of valuable and very extensive information.

In every German university, several professors concurred together in each individual branch of instruction; thus, the masters themselves were emulous from the interest which they felt in attaining a superiority over each other in the number o scholars they attracted. Those who adopted such or such a particular course, medicine, law, etc., found themselves naturally impelled to require information on other subjects; and thence comes the universality of acquirements, which is to be remarked

ject, just published by M. de Villers, an author who is always found at the head of all noble and generous opinions; who seems called, by the elegance of his mind and the depth of his studies, to be the representative of France in Germany, and of Germany in France.

in almost all the educated men of Germany. The universities had a separate property' in their possessions like the clergy, they had a jurisdiction peculiar to themselves; and it was a noble idea of our ancestors, to render the establishment of education wholly free. Mature age can submit itself to circumstances; but at the entrance into life, at least, a young man should draw all his ideas from an uncorrupted source.

The study of languages, which, in Germany, constitutes the basis of education, is much more favorable to the evolution of the faculties, in the earlier age, than that of mathematics, or of the physical sciences. Pascal, that great geometer, whose profound thought hovered over the science which he peculiarly cultivated, as over every other, has himself acknowledged the insuperable defects of those minds which owe their first formation to the mathematics. This study, in the earlier age, exercises only the mechanism of intelligence. In boys, occupied so soon with calculations, the spring of imagination, then so fair and fruitful, is arrested; and they acquire not in itsstead, any pre-eminent accuracy of thought, for arithmetic and algebra are limited to the teaching, in a thousand forms, propositions always identical. The problems of life are more complicated; not one is positive, not one is absolute; we must conjecture, we must decide by the aid of indications and assumptions, which bear no analogy with the infallible procedure of the calculus.

Demonstrated truths do not conduct to probable truths; which alone, however, serve us for our guide in business, in the arts, and in society. There is, no doubt, a point at which the mathematics themselves require that luminous power of invention, without which it is impossible to penetrate into the secrets of nature. At the summit of thought, the imaginations f Homer and of Newton seem to unite; but how many of the young, without mathematical genius, consecrate their time to this science! There is exercised in them only a single faculty

1 Most of the continental universities have been stripped of their estates within the last fifty years.-Ed.