The state expenses for the universities have been about 30,000,000 marks for regular yearly expenses and about 6,000,000 marks every year for extraordinary expenses.
The leading personality in the governmental administration of the last two decades has been Dr. Friedrich Althoff, the eminent head of the Prussian University Department; his greatest achievement .is the development of the natural istic laboratories and of the clinical institutions.
This state character of the universities is in no way antagonistic to an extraordinary demo cratic freedom in these institutions. Their whole organization is in its essentials that of self-governed corporations, with powers in the hand of the professors which in many respects exceed those of the American faculties and which still show much of their origin in the free mediaeval institutions of Germany. Funda mental is the right of the faculties to fill their vacancies by co-operation. Whenever a profes sorship is to be filled, the faculty selects three candidates and the government is bound to ap point a professor from among this number. The faculties, also, choose each year the presi dent, the so-called rector, out of their own number. The teaching staff consists further, not only of full professors and assistant profes sors, but also of doCents (privatdocenten) who have no salaries, but fees only, and their ap pointment is absolutely in the hands of the faculty. In earliest times the universities even had their own courts. This exemption from civil law has been abolished, but some discipli nary rights have still been kept up. Above all, the state has no right to interfere with the teaching of any instructor. No political pres sure can be applied, and no professor can be removed from his place against his will. There is no sphere of public activity in the German Empire in which the state control is so little felt as in the university; everything is adjusted to the greatest possible freedom of thought.
Professional Faculties.— The universities are schools for professional training. They stand hereby in sharp contrast to the English and American systems. In America the law schools, medical schools, and some of the divin ity schools, stood in old times on a very low level of general education. Almost anyone was admitted. And independent of these, the country had its colleges as places of highest education; these were the real universities of the land, with the aim of furnishing the highest liberal education, accessible alike to the future business man and to the professional students.
In Germany the situation has beenjust the opposite of this since the days of the first uni versity in the 14th century. From the begin ning, each university has had its four faculties, and one of them, the faculty of arts, the latter so-called philosophical faculty, was distinctly the preparation for the three upper faculties of divinity, law and medicine. The faculty of arts had not the co-ordinated character because its professional aim of preparing school teach ers had not reached an independent standing, as all teaching was done by the clergy. As soon as lay teachers were demanded, the fac ulty of arts, too, became professional, and the four co-ordinated faculties represented the uni versity. Thus none but professional men have a real right to existence in the German univer sity. The strong social effect of this historical development cannot be overlooked; it charac terizes the social difference between Germany and the Anglo-Saxon countries. While in America the community of the best educated is represented by the alumni of the colleges, with out reference to the question whether the way from the college leads to the court and hospital or to the bank and office, in Germany the circle of the intellectual leaders is confined to the pro fessional men, as they alone have had reason to attend a university. Only the army ranks with them socially, while the representatives of all commercial and industrial activities take a second place, as they have no university edu cation.
In a certain way the philosophical faculty is still to-day introductory to the three others. The students of medicine here receive the bio logical foundation, the students of law and divinity find here the historical, economical and philosophical work. At certain places the phil osophical faculty has been divided into two, a naturalistic and an historical faculty. Everywhere it is at present the most developed one, with the largest number of teachers and students. The most rapid development in the last century belongs to the medical faculty, which stood far behind the law faculty a hun dred years ago, while it has now far surpassed the law faculty in the number of teachers, and, for a period of years, even in the number of students.