g
material. Endowments and buildings are only the means; unless the
end to which these means are subservient be clearly perceived and
persistently followed, the means themselves may prove a hindrance
rather than a help. Of this Oxford is a notable proof.

Have, then, the end and aim, the method and agencies, of college
instruction changed essentially within the past fifteen years, or are
they likely to change essentially within the coming twenty-five? In
the year 1770 the greatest genius of Germany entered the walls of the
old university-town of Strasburg, there to complete his education. He
has bequeathed to us a faithful record of his studies, his amusements,
his daily life. Connecting this Strasburg experience with the previous
experience at Leipsic, we know what it meant in the eighteenth century
to be a German student. We know that the professors in those days were
pedagogues in the Anglo-American sense, and that university-life stood
little if at all higher than our own present college-life. But when
Goethe died, in 1832, the universities of Germany had reached their
prime. Since then they have made no gain. It may be doubted if the
professors, on the whole, rank quite so high to-day for originality
and vigor of research as did their predecessors forty years ago.
Wherein lies the secret, then, of this wonderful change wrought in
the brief span of two generations, between 1770 and 1830, and amid
the dire confusion of the great Revolution and the Napoleonic era? The
change was twofold. It consisted, first, in allowing to the professor
the free play of his individuality; second, in providing him with a
properly trained body of students. From the practical recognition
of these two principles, which have nothing to do with wealth and
buildings, proceed the power and glory of the German universities.
Viewed from the English, or even the American point, some of these
universities might be pronounced poor, not to say starvelings. The
buildings are old and out of repair, the professors are scantily paid,
the students are needy, there is a general atmosphere of want and
discomfort. But the work they do is noble, and its nobility consists
in its freedom, its heartiness, its strict devotion to truth.

We are not concerned in this place with the study of the growth of the
German school system that prepares the German student. We have to do
with the professor. Although the gymnasium and the university are
not to be dissevered