17th and 18th Century Foundations

17TH AND 18TH CENTURY FOUNDATIONS Halle and Pietism.—But 1693 saw the foundation of the University of Halle, which has been described as "the first real modern university." It originated in a Ritterschule for the sons of the nobility. Leopold I. granted (Oct. 19, 1693) the requisite charter. The primary object in founding a university in Halle was to create a centre for the Lutheran party; but its character, under the influence of its two most notable teachers, Christian Thomasius and A. H. Francke, soon expanded beyond the limits of this conception. Thomasius and Francke had both been driven from Leipzig on account of their liberal and progressive tend encies. Thomasius was the first to set the example, soon after followed by all the universities of Germany, of lecturing in the vernacular instead of in the customary Latin. Francke, as the founder of that Pietistic school, exercised great influence. Chris tian Wolf, who followed Thomasius as an assertor of the new culture, was driven from Halle by the accusations of the Pietists. In 1740, however, he was recalled by Frederick II., and rein stated. Throughout the whole of the 18th century Halle was the leader of academic thought and advanced theology in Protestant Germany, although sharing that leadership, after the middle of the century, with Gottingen.

Gottingen.

The University of Gottingen (named after its founder, "Georgia Augusta"), was endowed with the amplest privileges as a university by George II. of England, elector of Hanover, Dec. 7, 1736. The university included all the faculties, and two of its first prof essors—Mosheim, the eminent theologian, from Helmstedt, and G. L. &Amer, the no less dis tinguished jurist from Halle—together with Gesner, the man of letters, at once established its reputation. Not least among its attractions was also its splendid library, located in an ancient monastery, and now containing over 200,000 vol. and 5,000 mss. The Gottingen school of history became famous. The labours of the professors at Gottingen especially Putter, Gatterer, Schlozer and Spittler, combined with those of Mascov at Leipzig, did much towards promoting both a more catholic treatment and a wider scope. The method of appointment of professors was reformed by the chief curator, Miinchhausen, on lines similar to those already instituted in the universities of the Netherlands by Douza (q.v.).

Erlangen.

The University of Erlangen, a Lutheran centre, was founded by Frederick, margrave of Bayreuth. Its charter was granted by the emperor Charles VII. in 1743. In 1791, Ansbach and Bayreuth having passed into the possession of Prus sia, Erlangen also became subject to the Prussian Government.

The University of Ingolstadt was first moved in 18o2 to Land shut, and from thence, in 1826, to Munich, where it was united to the academy of sciences which was founded in the Bavarian capital in 1759. Miinster, in Prussia, which was constituted a university by Maximilian Frederick (elector and archbishop) in 1771, was abolished in the year 1818; but two faculties, those of theology and philosophy, continued to exist, and in 1843 it received the full privileges of a Prussian university, together with the designation of a royal foundation. Of those of the

above centres which altogether ceased to exist, but few were much missed or regretted—that at Mainz, which had numbered some 600 students, being the one notable exception. The others had, for the most part, fallen into a perfunctory and lifeless mode of teaching, and, with wasted or diminished revenues and de clining numbers, had long ceased worthily to represent the func tions of a university. Whatever loss may have attended their suppression was more than compensated by the activity and influence of the three great German universities which rose in the last century.

Munich, after having been completely reorganized, soon be came a distinguished centre of study in all the faculties; and its numbers, allowing for the two great wars of 1866 and 1870, continuously increased. The eminence of its professoriate, among whom have been DoRinger, Liebig, Schelling, Zeuss and Giese brecht, attracted students from all parts of Europe.

Berlin.

The University of Berlin, known as the Royal Fried rich Wilhelm university, was founded in 1809, when Prussia had been reduced to the level of a third-rate Power. Under Wilhelm von Humboldt, supported by Frederick William III., the prin ciples adopted in connection with the new seat of learning not only raised it to a foremost place among the universities of Europe, but also largely conduced to the regeneration of Germany. It not only incorporated the famous "Academy of Sciences," but expressly repudiated all attachment to any particular creed or school of thought. It is the largest of the German universities, numbering in 1927 10,426 regular students. Berlin with its system of schools for special subjects offers great opportunities to spe cialist students.

Bonn.

The University of Bonn, founded in 1818 and also by Friedrich Wilhelm III., thus became known as the Rhenish Fried rich Wilhelm university. The king summoned to his aid the best available talent, including Niebuhr, A. W. von Schlegel, with C. F. Nasse in medicine and G. Hermes in theology. In the last-named faculty it combined the opposed schools of theological doctrine of the Evangelical (or Lutheran) and of the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1878, a comparison of the numbers of the students in the dif ferent faculties in the Prussian universities with those for the year 1867, showed a remarkable diminution in the faculty of theology, amounting in Lutheran centres to more than one-half, and in Catholic centres to nearly three-fourths. In jurisprudence there was an increase of nearly two-fifths, in medicine a decline of a third, and in philosophy an increase of one-fourth.