Germany and the Germans from an American Point of ViewCollier, Price
History
Germany and the Germans from an American Point of View
Collier, Price
Germany; National characteristics, German
Few students in Germany reside
during their whole course of study at one university. The student year
is divided into two so-called semesters. The student remains, say, in
Heidelberg two years or perhaps less, and then moves on, let us say,
to Berlin, or Goettingen, or Leipsic, or Kiel, to hear lectures by
other professors, and to get and to see something of the best work in
law, theology, medicine, history, or belles-lettres, along the lines
of his chosen work.
One can hardly say too much in praise of this
system. Many a medical, or law, or theological, or philosophical
student, or one who is going in for a scientific course in engineering
or mining, would profit enormously could he go from Harvard to Yale,
or to Johns Hopkins, or to Princeton, or to Columbia, and attend the
lectures of the best men at these and other universities. Many a man
would have gone eagerly to Harvard to hear James in philosophy, Peirce
in mathematics, Abbot in exegesis, or to read Greek with Palmer; or to
Yale to have heard Whitney in philology in my day; or now, to name but
a few, Van Dyke at Princeton, Sloane at Columbia, Wheeler at the
University of California, Paul Shorey at Chicago, and many others are
men whom not to know and to hear in one's student days is a loss.
The German student is at a distinct advantage in this privilege of hearing
the best men at whatever university they may be. The number of
students, indeed, at particular German universities rises and falls in
a large measure according to the fame and ability of the professors
who may be lecturing there. One can readily imagine how such men as
Hegel, or Ranke, or Mommsen, who lectured at Berlin; or Liebig or
Doellinger, at Munich; or Ewald, at Goettingen; or Sybel, at Bonn; or
Leibnitz or Schlegel, in their day, or Kuno Fischer, in my day, at
Heidelberg, must have drawn students from all parts of Germany; just
as do Harnack, and Schmidt, and Lamprecht, and Adolph Wagner,
Schmoller, or Gierke, or Schiemann, or Wach, Haeckel, List, Deitsch,
Hering, or Verworm, in these days. Though the German professors are
somewhat hampered by the fact that they are servants of the state, and
their opinions therefore on theological, political, and economic
matters restricted to the state's views, they are free as no other
teachers in the world to exploit their intellectual prowess for the
benefit of their purses. Each student pays each professor whose
lectures he attends, and as a result there are certain professors in
Germany whose incomes are as high as $50,000 a year.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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