In every faculty the foundations of the in struction are historical and theoretical. The law faculty, for instance, develops the juristic problems from a systematic point of view and leads up to the existing law through the his tory of Roman and German. law. The practical preparation which the case system of the Ameri can law school provides is left in Germany to the so-called Referendarzeit, a period of several years which every young jurist — whether he goes into the career of the lawyer or of the judge—has to pass in the court for practical training after passing his examinations in the university. Besides the state examinations for all professions, the university offers the doctor's degree in philosophy, law and medicine, which in itself gives no right to any appointment or to any professional work, with the exception of the career of the university docent. Yet the doctor's degree is taken by most of the profes sional men too, as it gives by tradition the stamp of real scholarship. • The relations of the different faculties may be characterized by the following figures. In the year 1900 there were in the philosophical faculties 571 full professors, 52 associate pro fessors, 323 assistant professors, 419 privatdo cents, and 12,244 students. In the Protestant divinity faculties 110 full professors, 7 associ ates, 33 assistant professors, 37 docents, 2,352 students. In the Catholic divinity faculties 62 professors, 2 associate, 10 assistant professors, 10 docents, 1,546 students. In the law faculties 156 professors, 12 associates, 32 assistant pro fessors, 40 docents. 9,259 students. In the medical faculties, 224 professors, 19 associates, 219 assistant professors, 329 docents and 7,433 students. To characterize the growth of the faculties the following figures may be added: In the year 1850 the German universities had 12,246 students (1,615 Evangel. div., 1,391 Catholic div., 4,306 law, 1,932 medicine, 3,102 philosophy). In the year 1880, 22,863 students (2,786 Evangel. div., 706 Catholic div., 5,297 law, 4,779 medicine, 9,295 philosophy). In the year 1903, 37,677 students (2,197 Evangel. div., 1,580 Catholic div., 11,747 law, 6,948 medicine, 15,205 philosophy).
The The teachers of the univer sity are appointed with reference to their achievements in the advancement of knowledge. No one can understand the meaning of the German university who does not acknowledge this principle as the central energy of German academic life. In this respect Germany stands in contrast to both England and France. In England the greatest scholars, from Bacon to Darwin and Spencer, have stood outside the university life, and even the leading professors of Oxford and Cambridge have little to do with the regular teaching, which is in the hands of tutors and fellows. In France the provincial universities are professional schools whose pro fessors are expected to be first of all teachers, while scholarly production is concentrated in the academies of Paris. In Germany alone is a complete unity of academic teacher and pro ductive scholar demanded. It is a rare excep tion when an important scholar does not become a university teacher in Germany, and every uni versity teacher without exception is expected to have added to the storehouse of the world's knowledge. America comes nearer to this Ger man system than any European country; and yet in every American university productive scholars and reproductive scholars are mixed; the contributions to knowledge still appear as a kind of private undertaking, while the appoint ment refers to the teacher as teacher. This
Cannot be otherwise in a country where there is no sharp demarcation line between the small college, which demands school teachers, and the large university from which the mere school work ought to be banished. Germany's power to reserve all university teaching for the pro ductive scholar thus stands in inunediate rela tion to the sharp and uniform demarcation line, between all schools, on the one side, and the universities on the other.
This principle involves the most characteris tic features of German university teaching. The university lecture is not intended as a re production of ready-made knowledge and the imparting of mere information is its least im portant function. Its essential trait is rather that which the productive scholar alone can offer, the training in scholarly methods. The gymnasium teaches facts; the university teaches a critical attitude toward all knowledge. Its vehicles are partly lectures, partly seminary ex ercises. The lectures are meant to be strictly personal and critical outlooks over a whole field of knowledge, independent of any special text book. They are not to be substitutes for any thing printed, but have to find their value in the contact of the student with a personality, acknowledged as an original productive scholar. The German idea is decidedly that the mastery of method which such a teacher has shown in his works will be more helpful and suggestive for the student than any brilliant rendering of second-hand knowledge. The seminaries, which have taken the place of the formal disputations of earlier centuries, lead the most advanced stu dents to make individual efforts toward schol arly production.
This principle gives meaning also to the in stitution of privatdocenten. In America the young scholar has to find his academic career mostly by ascending through positions in small colleges without higher university aims, where he finds neither the means nor the time nor the advanced students for higher work. This is necessary as the large universities have merely salaried teachers whose number has, of course, to be adjusted to the demand of the instruction. The result is that the academic career is dis couraging for the most vigorous minds, which see before them years of a second-rate activity. In Germany the opposite prevails. There is no limit to the number of teachers of highest class in the university. The docents have no salaries, to be sure; but their right to lecture on any specialty to advanced students is equal to that of any full professor, and no obliga tions are involved. It is the ideal situation for the young scholar who wants to live in the academic atmosphere from the first and who wants to devote his life to productive scholar ship. A remarkable piece of scientific achieve ment is the only condition for his admission, however large the number of teachers in the same specialty may be. This docent system thus separates the university career from its be ginning, from that of the simple teacher; con fines it to productive work; and has its external advantage in the fact that out of these docents the universities choose the candidates for va cant professorships. The result is that the fin est and most vigorous minds of the country are drawn into this career, and it is this personal factor above all which gives to the German university its superiority: Germany is the only country in which absolutely the best human material of the nation enters into the academic career; and the docent system is the necessary condition for this situation.