S. There exists, in point of education, a remarkable difference between the North and iouth of Ger many. This difference is owing to the operation of political and moral causes—such as the difference of the form of government ; the greater number of free towns in the north, and of public establishments ; and, above all, to the predominance of Protestantism. It has long been a point of fashion and competition among the petty princes in the central and northern parts of Germany, to patronize literature. Un hontme de lettres is there, as in France, a personage of consi derable importance. Attempts have indeed been made, during the last and present age, by Joseph II. and the late Sovereign of Bavaria, to improve the uni versities, and to found academies, in their respective territories. The Academy of Munich, in consequence of the patronage of the latter, now occupies a promi nent rank among literary bodies ; and in Vienna, con .
siderable progress has been made in the method of teaching Medicine, Surgery, and Botany. But in other respects, whether we look to schools or universities, the state of instruction in Austria is very imperfect. The innovations of Joseph were too abrupt to last ; they have all disappeared except his primary schools. The hereditary states alone possess the means of to lerable education, the great provinces of Galicia and Hungary being in a manner deprived of them. Still there exists throughout this empire a patient and pains-taking industry, which will eventually prove highly favourable to the dissemination of useful knowledge. A stranger, on entering a German school, is struck with the arrangement, the gravity and the silence that prevail throughout. Several towns in Austria have Gymnasia or Academies some what similar to the Lycees in France,—calculated for teaching, not so much the classics as the intro ductory part of Mathematics, Medicine, or Law.
In the Academy of Medicine and Surgery at Vienna, the buildings are spacious, the professors numerous, and well qualified. The access to great Hospitals, to collections of Natural History, and to an extensive Botanical Garden, are all important fa cilities appended to this seminary. In fact, Vienna has held a distinguished rank in medicine since the days of Van Swieten, the opportunity of practical observation afforded by a large city, and the liberality of the public establishments, rendering this capital the resort of medical students from distant provinces; exactly as Gottingen is the point of attraction for moral and natural philosophy. Chemistry, however, has hitherto been little cultivated at Vienna; natural his tory more.
Vienna has likewise an Oriental Society, a Veteri nary School, and some institutions for teaching the Fine Arts. These, however, are all, except the me dical, inferior to correspondent establishments in the north of Germany, Another subject of regret is, that a youth, after making a certain progress school or college, finds little means of farther ad vancement from instructive society at Vienna. A
thirst for information is little felt among a people oc cupied only with the tranquil enjoyment of the good things of this life ; a people unambitious, uninquisi tive, and disposed to go over the same tract as their fathers and forefathers. It is in scenes of agitation that the faculties are called forth ; they become dor mant in a state of general and continued acquies cence. The only feeling likely to stimulate minds of this heavy texture is the desire of acquiring pro perty ; and, in fact, trade of one kind or other forms the chief sphere of individual activity throughout the south of Germany. Such is the true cause of that literary apathy ascribed by some foreigners to the restraints imposed by government on the press ; restraints of no great severity, and certainly not in tended to check the progress of useful Still Austria is not wholly devoid of names of emi nence in literature. Frederick Schlegel is well known by his publications on the language and phi losophy of India, and his brother William, by his . translation of Shakespeare, and by his admirable works on dramatic criticism. To these are to be added the names of a few poets, and of a greater number of geographical and statistical writers. Ham mer, the founder of the Oriental Society at Vienna, has published a translation of a Persian poem of some extent, and, like Wieland, has laboured to transpose into the German language the ornaments of the figurative style of the East. Etymology is a study suited to the laborious habits of the Germans, and on this, as on many other subjects, they have given us, not finished works, the materials at least of valuable compositions. With the application of a better method, and with rigid compression, a variety of useful treatises might be extracted from the la bours of the German literati.
Prague has a university of high antiquity, but of little reputation at the present day. The Catholic clergy are generally educated in humbler seminaries than universities. Without much pretension to literature, they bear the character of conscientious attention to their pastoral charge, in particular the country curates. Oratory forms no part of their studies ; a German congregation meets, not for the purpose of being gratified by a pathetic address, but of fulfilling, soberly and tranquilly, a religious duty. Sermons in this country consist, accordingly, of little else than plain moral lessons, deduced from the Sacred Writings ; and the reputation of a pastor rests chiefly on his attention to the sick, and the performance of private and unostentatious duties.