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Jerusalem beautifully observes, that the barbarism which often springs up behind the loveliest and most richly-coloured flower of knowledge, may be a kind of strengthening mud-bath, to prevent the over-delicacy which threatens the flower; and I fancy that one who reflects how far knowledge usually climbs in a student, will allow the so-called Burschen life to the Sons of the Muses, as a kind of barbarous Middle-age, which may so far fortify them as to prevent this delicacy of refinement exceeding its due bounds.--Jean Paul Richter's Quintus Fichslein.

Student Life! Burschen Life! What a magic sound have these words for him who has learnt for himself their real meaning! What a swarm of recollections come over him who has once visited that land, however long it may be since he returned homeward to a safer haven! Youth flies on wings of impatience towards this happy time; age, though indeed it may smile over the recollection of many a folly, recalls its memory with delight.

We hear two old men, who in later life recognise each other in civil office, and loaded with honourable duties. They speak of those beautiful dreams of youth with enthusiasm, like two old veterans rejoicing themselves in the recollections of the campaigns in which they have served, and the battles which they have fought together. "To the old times!" cry they, touching their glasses together, filled with noble Rhein wine, and with their joy sorrowfully mingles itself the memory of the many companions of those times, who have already quitted this life; for it is a fine characteristic of the heart of man, that while enjoying the highest happiness of the present, or when joyfully calling to remembrance that once enjoyed, in such moments it feels most painfully the absence of distant friends.

The stranger who should hear the conversation of these old gentlemen; as he saw how they became young again in spirit, and how their forms, bent with years, they raised again erect as they conversed, would gladly linger near them, and would certainly say, "Those must indeed have been delightful times!"

Yes, they were--and they are, for those who know how to enjoy them. Stranger, thou who hast never known this beautiful life; and thou who wouldst willingly experience more of it,--to you hope we to be able to reveal many an attractive feature, and you shall behold many a scene, as we venture to predict, snatched fresh and living from the heart of this existence. Follow us into the City of the Muses--to the strife-place of this passion-driven life; there will we teach thee more nearly to observe the peculiar constitution of this student state, and the habits of its citizens, which thou hast perhaps observed many a time with amazement. Many a foreigner has even probably been for a short period a citizen of this state, without having penetrated deeply into its constitution and all its peculiarities. To him also will these pages afford information and entertainment,

Plunge boldly into actual human life,--

Every man lives it; few men know it well;

And where you seize it, there you make it tell.

Prologue to Goethe's Faust.

We have here in the very outset used the expressions "student" and "bursché," and shall find ourselves necessitated still oftener to use them; we will, therefore, at once give a few sentences in explanation of their meaning. By student, we understand one who has by matriculation acquired the rights of academical citizenship; but, by bursché, we understand one who has already spent a certain time at the university--and who, to a certain degree, has taken part in the social practices of the students. How and when he acquires a real claim to this title, we shall hereafter have occasion to show. We will here only make one observation regarding the origin of this term.

In order to render a university education available to men of little or no property, in the twelfth century colleges were founded, where poor youths received free lodging, maintenance, and money, and lived under the strict superintendence of one or more teachers. This became extensively the case in the thirteenth century, and still more general in the fourteenth. Private persons of wealth were mostly the benefactors, when such institutions were founded and endowed. In Germany such colleges were called bursen, whence comes the term bursché. This name, given at that time to such as dwelt together in such a burse, was, at a later period, restricted to those only who had for a longer time taken a more immediate part in the associate life of the students. The signification of the terms--student life, burschen life--thence derived, is plain enough of perception. Before, however, we conduct the reader into this burschen life, in order to give him a clearer understanding of it, we will say a few words on the constitution of universities; on the surveillance which the state exercises over them, and on the relation of teachers and university officers to the students.

The right to found universities--to dissolve them again--to unite them with others, and so on--belongs at the present time only to the respective sovereign princes, who have held these prerogatives from the dissolution of the German empire. Prior to this, they centred in the Emperor, and before the Reformation, in the Pope. The universities stand under the particular protection of the state, which superintends and conducts them by jurisdiction thereunto especially organized. The interests of the universities are protected by a representative in the Landtag, the second chamber of the state. Should a university have causes of complaint against the prince, it must appeal to the Bundestag, that is, the court established between the different German states, to decide all questions between those states, or between the prince and people of any one of them.

At the head of a German university stands the rector, or more commonly, the prorector, since the rectorate is generally retained by the sovereign princes in their own hands, as is the case in Baden. With the rector or prorector is associated the Academical Senate, as a permanent court of administration. The prorector is annually chosen at Easter, by the Great Senate, out of the body of professors. He is then proposed to the curator, formerly termed throughout Germany, the chancellor, and still so styled in Wirtemberg. On the motion of this officer, he is confirmed by the prince. His duty is to promote, as far as in him lies, the prosperity and object of the High School generally, and especially the moral and literary education of the students; the enforcement of the academical laws and statutes; and to watch over the official proceedings of the curatorship, and the resolutions of the Senate. He thus presides over the Great, and Select or Lesser Senate, where he also exercises the right of proposition; opens all propositions or memorials; collects the votes; and, according to the majority, decides. He is entitled to be present at the assembly of the Ephorats. At the expiration of his prorectorate, he continues in the senate a year, where, in the absence of the prorector, he occupies his place.

The Senate is divided into the Select and Great Senate. The first consists of the prorector, the ex-prorector, and four ordinary professors, each section furnishing one. At the end of every half-year three members go out. Their successors are appointed from the curatorium--the office of the curator. The period of office is for a year. The Select Senate corresponds with the curatorium, and it is the business of the prorector to lay before this body all current communications from the curatorium: in ordinary cases, at its ordinary sittings; or in emergencies, at extraordinary ones. The Select Senate lays before the Great Senate all such concerns as have been brought under its own consideration, or such as at least two-thirds of its members shall deem of sufficient importance to require reference to this larger body. The Select Senate assembles regularly every fortnight. Extraordinary meetings are called by the prorector. In cases of an equality of votes, the prorector gives the casting voice.

The Great Senate consists of all the ordinary professors. To this senate belongs the election of prorector, and other officers of the university, so for as the university right extends, and the management of the affairs consigned to their care by the Select Senate. The Great Senate has, therefore, no fixed days of assembly. The four faculties of theology, law, medicine, and philosophy, which last includes in itself all that is not comprehended under the other three, as mathematics, political and states' economy, history, language, etc. etc., constitute the main learned and scientific fabric of the university.

The teachers are divided into ordinary professors; such teachers as occupy the established professorships, with the emoluments and duties thereunto belonging; and the extraordinary professors, such teachers as possess only such salary as the prince bestows. These do not always hold an actual professorship--and in this respect, resemble a third class, the so-called Privat Docenten; that is to say, gentlemen who devote themselves to an academical career, who have taken the degree of doctor, and through a public disputation have acquired the right to deliver lectures on subjects connected with their particular department of science. The last receive no salary, but depend upon the remuneration derived from their classes.

This institution of private teachers forms a nursery, out of which the High School can advantageously recruit itself with able professors; and we shall have occasion presently to show the great benefit derived from this regulation, especially when compared with the arrangements of the French universities.

All the ordinary professors are members of the faculty by virtue of their office. Their rank in the faculty determines itself by the number of years during which they have occupied regular professorships, whether in that in which they reside, or in some other university of Germany. The oldest member of each faculty becomes, according to established rule, its head, with the title of Dean. To him it belongs to bring forward all affairs of the faculty; to superintend the examination of the students, as well as to issue the diplomas conferred on them.

The same honorarium which the docenten or tutors receive, receive also all the teachers of a university, from those students who attend their classes. There are regular receivers, quæstors, appointed for the reception of the honorarium, or charge for the attendance of lectures, to whom especially belongs the reception of all money belonging to the administration of the university, and attention to every thing connected with the financial department.

The universities possess funds of their own, which are derived from ancient grants from the princes, and from private legacies. To this fund the government adds an annual determinate contribution; and from this united income are defrayed the total expenses of the High School; as the salaries of teachers and officers, and the management of its subordinate institutions. Besides this financial administration of the university, it has also a building and economy commission. The building-commission has the superintendence of the new building and necessary repairs in the university, and under its direction is placed the building inspector with a yearly salary. In the economy department of the university, the commission, in all that falls under its management, has to maintain a correspondence with, and receive the approval of the curatorial office. It assembles once a month under a director, who is selected from the members in routine. The cashier of the university has a seat in the commissions, and he is at the same time secretary, and draws up and signs the decrees of the senate.

As the university has its own Board of Finance, so has it also its Court of Justice. The peculiar life of the universities--their peculiar relation to the state--the members of such societies--flowing together, as they did and do, from such different countries, to combine themselves, so to say, into an imperium in imperio; into a small state, in fact, which must enjoy a certain, and, indeed, ample degree of freedom, and yet must be made subordinate to the great state,--all this made the princes in the times immediately succeeding the founding of the universities, feel it necessary to grant to them their own courts of justice. So received these institutions peculiar privileges. Individual laws were given, till their number became so great that it was requisite to collect them into a code. These laws, as they at present exist, have been revised by the government, in conjunction with the senates of the universities, and confirmed. They bear especially upon the following points. First, upon the acquisition and forfeiture of the rights of academical citizenship. Candidates for matriculation must, upon an appointed day, and at an appointed hour, appear before the board of matriculation, and lay before it their certificates of learning and morals. If these are found satisfactory, the board delivers to the candidate the printed academical regulations. Hereupon must he sign what is called the reverse; that is, an attached form of declaration, binding himself to take no part in any prohibited verbindung, or union, or in any designs of a demagogue burschenschaft, but to conform himself to the academical laws. The new candidate thereupon gives to the prorector what is called the hand-gelübde, or literally, hand-oath; that is, he gives him his hand, pronounces what is above stated, and then receives the matriculation certificate, or diploma, which confers upon him the enjoyment of all the rights of academical burgership. Through this he acquires a claim on the academical court of justice, on the protection of the academical laws, as well as the right to enjoy the benefit of the library and the learned institutions.

No one who has not matriculated can attend the public lectures, except the tutors, companions or attendants, appointed by parents or guardians to students--these, of course, also paying the regular fees--and such persons not studying in the universities as are so far advanced in life as to put matriculation out of the question. This right of academical citizenship continues five years, provided it be not voluntarily relinquished or penally forfeited. The laws extend themselves to the relations between the students and the heads, professors, and subordinate officers of the university, as well as towards other officers of the state or city. For instance, the penalties are stated, for offences against these various officers, as also the duties of the students in regard to their studies. A long series of laws defines the penalties for the peculiar offences of students, as for games of hazard, real and verbal injuries to one another, especially for the duel, under its various forms; for breaking the peace, drunkenness, tumults and uproars, interdicted assembling of themselves together, secret combinations of students, etc. It is further declared, that public processions are only permitted under certain conditions, and that the wearing of colours is forbidden. Further declarations regard the debts of the students; and lastly, the regulations under which the advantages of the university library are to be enjoyed are made known.

The oversight and penal jurisdiction over the students are exercised by the academical senate, the prorector, and the amtmann, or magistrate of the university. The ephorat is a peculiar board, consisting of select professors, which only in the sphere of fatherly and friendly admonition exercises its superintendence chiefly over the moral conduct of the students when occasion requires; exhorting them to diligence and good behaviour, and putting itself, if necessary, in correspondence with their parents. The magistrate exercises the jurisdiction in the first instance. In criminal cases, he draws the process, and sends it, not to the court of justice of the university, but to the ordinary tribunal of the state; in affairs of discipline he conducts the inquiry, and pronounces all academical penalties, with the exception of the consilium abeundi. The proceeding in the inquiry is summary, and, in cases where the ordinary oath is administered to people in general, is the ehrenwort, or word of honour of the student demanded. To the condemned it is neither allowed to look into the proceedings against him, nor is the name of his accuser revealed. He must even submit himself to the judgment of the senate, without the power to insist that the ground of its judgment shall be made known. The appeal from the sentence of the amtmann, lies to the senate, which also pronounces the consilium abeundi and the relegation, on the motion of the amtmann. The appeal from the sentence of the senate lies to the minister of the interior.

For the administration of the academical laws and acts of justice, especial police officers, and beadles, upper and inferior, are maintained. The chief beadle in pressing cases, has the right to cite before him, and to arrest without warrant, but must immediately make announcement thereof to the amtmann.

The chief beadle, who lives near the college, has at the same time, the care of the prison, which is in the upper part of his house. Two beadles do duty in the university library. In the scale of academical punishments, first stands reproof, then pecuniary fine, then incarceration. The signing of the consilium abeundi, includes a solemn promise not to suffer himself to become guilty in future of any offence, even of smaller moment. He who, notwithstanding, breaks this promise, and becomes guilty of an offence which would draw upon another at least eight days' imprisonment, can meet with no lighter punishment than the consilium abeundi. This consilium abeundi consists in expulsion out of the district of the court of justice within which the university is situated. This punishment lasts a year; after the expiration of which the banished student can renew his matriculation. The relegation is the punishment next in severity. It has two degrees. First, the simple relegation. This consists in expulsion out of the aforesaid districts, for a period of from two to three years; after which the offender may indeed return, but can no more be received as an academical burger. Secondly, the sharper relegation, which adds to the simple relegation an announcement of the fact to the magistracy of the place of abode of the offender; and according to the discretion of the court, a confinement in an ordinary prison, previous to the banishment is added; and also the sharper relegation can be extended to more than four years, the ordinary term, yes, even to perpetual expulsion. Loss of honour is one of a class of severe penalties which can only be pronounced by a civil court of justice. Previous to any consilium abeundi and relegation, the university amtmann must send intelligence to all the German universities, and to the city magistrates, of the cause of the prosecution, together with the signature of the culprit, and also must affix a copy of the sentence on the black board, that is, a black tablet, or board, in the university, to which all the announcements to its members are attached; and at the same time must advertise the parents, or those standing in their relation, of the same. Causes of complaint, which a student considers himself to have against an academical officer, must be laid before the academical amtmann, if such officer belong to the inferior class of the servants of the High School. When it affects a head or teacher, then before the academical senate; if it affects the prorector, or academical senate, then it must be carried to the curator of the university, who must receive it, and lay it before the minister of the interior.

Through these brief sketches we hope to have given to the reader a clear notion of the constitution of a German university, in reference to its financial and judicial administration. We have so far had Heidelberg in our eye, and may be allowed to do this, since however different the universities of Germany may otherwise be, in spirit and manners, in these respects they resemble each other. Upon the conformity of their present constitution to their purpose, we may leave the reader to make his own reflections. This is a subject upon which recently so much discussion has taken place, and so many proposals have been made; not indeed so jocose as that of Lichtenberg, where he says, "every university should have an ambassador at the other universities for the purpose of keeping up the friendships as well as the enmities;" we shall moot this point as opportunity occurs, we will at present make only a few observations on the constitution of the universities, as regards the course of studies.

The annual courses of instruction are divided into summer and winter half-years; betwixt come Easter and Michaelmas as vacations. The lectures, which in these annual courses are delivered, comprehend in themselves the whole doctrines which belong to the circle of the four faculties. The professors are bound by the state, by which they are paid, to deliver the necessary lectures, but they are allowed a certain freedom in the distribution of these lectures amongst the members of the faculty. Every teacher is bound during three times each week, to deliver a public lecture, gratis, on which occasion he either makes an examination of the students on the subject of his regular course, or lectures on an interesting but generally minor topic of his branch of science or literature, which possibly the students would hesitate to attend were they obliged to pay for it, and which yet may be important to the creditable discharge of their future profession. Every lecturer is in duty bound to devote twelve hours per week to his regular course, that is, to the lectures for which he receives a proportionate honorarium from the students; these twelve hours being divided into two or three lectures, according as the extent of their matter may require. Besides this, it is the duty of each lecturer, so far as his other obligations permit, to be ready to deliver any lecture which lies within the sphere of his department of teaching, when, out of the ordinary course, such is desired of him by a number of the students, so soon as those who seek it assure him of a proportionate remuneration for his trouble. To these Privatissimi, as they are called, or especially private lectures, being once agreed upon, no other auditors can be admitted. Lectures are delivered every day, Sundays and holidays excepted; each delivery continuing only one hour, so that one may not prevent another. The majority of the lectures are delivered in German, partly extempore and partly from the written notes; the latter practice, however, becoming daily more rare. A certain time before the new course begins, a list is sent round, on which each lecturer puts down the lectures be intends to give. The hours of delivery are next added, in order to avoid collision. After its receiving the approval of the curator, it is published under the direction of a commissioner appointed by him. The list is in German. The commencement of each course, as well as other particulars connected with it, is made known on the black board. It is at the option of each student which course or courses of lectures he will attend during the current half-year, and he gives notice accordingly to the professor who has announced that course. Yet is the student in the German states obliged, within the period of his whole university study, to attend a certain number of lectures, if he wishes to be admitted to a state's examination. Those lectures which bear upon the peculiar profession at which he aims, are prescribed to him by the state to which he belongs. He must obtain from the respective lecturers, testimonies that he has diligently studied every lecture of that kind. A copy of these testimonies is contained in the so-called departure-certificate, without which no one can be admitted to the state's examination; and this certificate is sent directly by the prorector to the board of examination. This departure-certificate is, in fact, on the student's quitting the High School, drawn up, and signed by the prorector and amtmann of the university, and contains the date of matriculation, the continuance of his abode at the college--a certain term of abode being prescribed by the government for the student of each particular profession,--the attendance of lectures, a statement of his behaviour, what punishments he has become amenable to. The certificate expressly announces whether the student has taken part in any interdicted combination or not; whether he even were suspected of such participation, and on what grounds.

The university buildings themselves contain the lecture-rooms; and the greater part of those lectures which are likely to draw the largest audiences are there delivered. The warming of the rooms, and their lighting up for the evening lectures, are the care of the nearest dwelling chief-beadle. These buildings contain also a larger hall, in which the public celebrations of university affairs and events are held. In this hall, for example, are annually delivered, publicly and solemnly, the gold medals to those who have best answered the prize-questions propounded by each faculty. The professors also frequently lecture in their own houses. The medical and natural history lectures are mostly in these buildings, where those collections of specimens and subjects belonging to the university, which are necessary to demonstration, are deposited. Amongst these are the apparatus for the physical sciences, the chemical laboratory, the zoological and mineralogical cabinets, the cabinet of models, the buildings in the botanical gardens, and school of anatomy. The lectures also on pathology, surgery, and obstetrics, are delivered in the respective hospitals of these departments. Besides the professors in the university, also other teachers of physical exercises, as the riding-master, fencing-master, dancing and swimming masters, receive small salaries, that students may not lose the opportunity of perfecting themselves in these arts.

In order to make support at the university easy to those without property, many regulations are established. To those who can bring certificates of inability to pay, the lecture-fees are remitted. Besides this, in the different universities exist endowments, derived in part from an ancient period, for such as cannot support the cost of a university life. Many universities are rich in such endowments, or stipends. It is a popular joke, that any student who arrives at Greifswald, well known as the smallest Prussian university, is asked at the gate whether he will accept a stipend; and if he declines, they hesitate to admit him; since, unless students enow will come and take them, the university does not know what to do with its endowments. The candidates to obtain stipends must submit to an examination, and then receive half-yearly a fixed sum, which however, in case of ill conduct, can at the end of any half-year be withdrawn. These endowments are in the management of several professors of the academy. The various seminaries possess the like; in particular, the preacher seminary, where the young theologians are prepared for their future calling. They live in a large building at free cost, and under stricter oversight than the rest of the students. Every student who is in circumstances to pay the college fees, must make half-yearly, a small contribution to the sick union, out of which sum such of the poor students as become ill are furnished with all necessary attendance in particular apartments in the hospital. For this union a commission is named, consisting of several of the professors, and some students.

These slight notices may be sufficient to give us a conception of the internal arrangements of one of the German universities, which proudly may the German say, though they may indeed have their defects, yet stand far above all foreign ones. What country can show an institution so well organized and ordered as our High Schools? Truly does it excite admiration and delight to see so small a state, even as Baden, whose peculiar aim is the diffusion of knowledge. On the one hand, teachers paid by the state, that they may, freed from all the pressure of affairs, be able to dedicate their lives entirely to the office of teaching; and on the other, scholars flocking from every country, to avail themselves of their instructions.

How many great men have already gone forth out of this school! What beneficent influence such an association exerts on the whole life with which it is surrounded, we see strikingly when we turn our eyes elsewhere, when we compare the fresh and living spirit which a university inspires, with the unintellectual existence of a mere mercantile city. Most true are the words of Goethe:--"That academical life, even if we cannot ourselves boast of participation of its peculiar diligence, yet in every species of accomplishment yields incalculable advantages, since we are perpetually surrounded by men who either possess knowledge, or seek it, so that, from such an atmosphere, even while unconscious of it, we draw actual nourishment."--Goethe's Leben Wahrheit und Dichtung.

And this fountain of all high knowledge, we may assert it with joy, flows not only for the wealthy and the lords of broad lands. No! it stands open to the poorest amongst the people, that it may call forth talent and spiritual endowments to their highest accomplishment! Through this becomes it possible to the humblest individual, in the lowest condition of society, on the wings of merit to soar up, and that no heaven-gifted head shall be lost to the service of mankind. However high in Germany the advantages of a university education are rated, and as some may possibly imagine overrated, yet this fact has sprung from it,--that the richest and most independent must pass some years at one of the High Schools. God be praised! the number of those is few who look upon knowledge as a milch-cow, from which they may draw their daily living, and on the university as a stall, in which that useful beast is reared and cherished. Men have learned to perceive that the possession of knowledge is desirable to every one, even if he draw no direct worldly advantage therefrom. A noble rivalry to push discovery farther and higher, through the power of the human mind, and to dig after the truth, has diffused itself far and wide. The times are gone by, against which Rabener directed the fire of his Satires. I recollect where Sancho Panza in the discussion on proverbs says gravely--"Beside the watchman I know no one in our city who has attained his office in a creditable manner, and in passing must I also remember, that he is the only one in our place that had understanding before he had his office."

It is only by merit that a German can now acquire an honourable position in society; nay, the rich and the noble feel a pride in showing the world that in them these merits are not wanting. Here is an example of this honourable sentiment.

"Shall you soon depart to your estate?" inquired a foreigner of the Graf von Sch----, one of the richest nobles of Germany, who studied jurisprudence in Heidelberg.

"No," replied the Graf, "I shall first submit myself to a state's examination."

"Indeed!" replied the foreigner, "will you then really become a legal practitioner?"^[2]

"No; but I will show to the world, that without my possessions I could have made my way by my acquirements."

And to this diffusion and recognition of the claims of knowledge, to the scattering abroad of science amongst the people, what has more contributed than the foundation of our universities? Out of them go forth the distinguished men who guide the helm of the state with circumspection; out of them the teachers of the pulpit and the folks-schools,--to diffuse light and improvement throughout society.