Nor is the influence of the university in Germany exerted in matters of great national interest only. It pervades the social, literary, and political organization of the people. The least part of what characterizes an individual nation ever comes into its books. Here it finds its way from mouth to mouth to the remotest corners of the land. When Luther, the Professor of Wittenberg, spoke against indulgences, it was more than priest or monk that was heard. The voice of the monk would not have echoed beyond his cell, and the influence of the priest would have been arrested and checked before it could have been exerted beyond the limits of his parish or town. But the Professor Luther addressed himself to a more influential audience. His words were carried before many years into every part of the Empire. Setting aside the Austrian universities, which are no longer what they were formerly, the teaching in these higher schools, whatever the State restrictions may be, is eminently free,--freer than in France,--freer than in England,--in many respects even, however it may sound, freer than in the United States. As a result, the land is a hot-bed of the boldest philosophical systems and the wildest theological aberrations. There is no branch of speculation that does not find its representative. In law, in medicine, in philology, in history, the old methods of study and research have been revolutionized. But the State stands before the innovators, firm and conservative in its practice. And in the end it has been found, that, whatever wild theories may spring up in theology and in philosophy, the corrective is nigh at hand, and truth will make its way when the field is open to all. It must be remembered that the German university is no preparatory school; those who enter it have gone through studies and a mental training that have made them capable of judging for themselves. They hear whom they please. Their chief study, whatever they acquire in the lecture-room, is done when alone. They attend on an average for three or four hours a day, spending as much time in the libraries, from which they have the privilege of taking out books. As a completion to their lectures, the professors generally have _Seminaren_ once or twice a week, or _Exercitationes_ in history, philology, etc., in which the Socratic method of teaching in dialogue is made use of. Museums and scientific collections are richly provided in the larger institutions. In some of these lectures are held: thus, Lepsius explains Egyptian archaeology in the Egyptian halls in Berlin. The libraries provided by the State, and to which all have access, are often considerable: thus, Göttingen has 350,000 volumes; Berlin, 600,000; Munich, 800,000.