Popular lectures on scientific subjects : $b Second series, with an autobiography of the authorHelmholtz, Hermann von
Science
Popular lectures on scientific subjects : $b Second series, with an autobiography of the author
Helmholtz, Hermann von
Science; Universities and colleges -- Germany
In certain respects the English Universities do a great deal. They
bring up their students as cultivated men, who are expected not to
break through the restrictions of their political and ecclesiastical
party, and, in fact, do not thus break through. In two respects we
might well endeavour to imitate them. In the first place, together
with a lively feeling for the beauty and youthful freshness of
antiquity, they develop in a high degree a sense for delicacy and
precision in writing which shows itself in the way in which they
handle their mother tongue. I fear that one of the weakest sides in
the instruction of German youth is in this direction. In the second
place the English Universities, like their schools, take greater care
of the bodily health of their students. They live and work in airy,
spacious buildings, surrounded by lawns and groves of trees; they find
much of their pleasure in games which excite a passionate rivalry in
the development of bodily energy and skill, and which in this respect
are far more efficacious than our gymnastic and fencing exercises. It
must not be forgotten that the more young men are cut off from fresh
air and from the opportunity of vigorous exercise, the more induced
will they be to seek an apparent refreshment in the misuse of tobacco
and of intoxicating drinks. It must also be admitted that the English
Universities accustom their students to energetic and accurate work,
and keep them up to the habits of educated society. The _moral_ effect
of the more rigorous control is said to be rather illusory.
The Scotch Universities and some smaller English foundations of more
recent origin--University College and King’s College in London, and
Owens College in Manchester--are constituted more on the German and
Dutch model.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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