he German universities suggests a lesson. Is it a mere accident that
the oldest and the youngest German universities are in large cities?
In the Middle Ages, before the political organization of the country
had fairly entered upon its morbid process of disintegration, we find
Vienna, Prague[2] and Leipsic heading the list. Subsequently, each
petty duke and count, moved by the sense of his autonomy, sought
to establish a university of his own. The Reformation increased the
spirit of rivalry. Most of these second- and third-rate universities
have passed away or have been merged in others. The three youngest,
Berlin, Munich and Strasburg, are all in large cities, and are
all three the direct offspring of political and educational
reorganization. As Germany is now constituted, it would be impossible
to found a new university in a small town. Such places as Jena,
Erlangen, Greifswald, Rostock, Marburg and Giessen barely hold their
own against the strong movement in favor of concentration.

[Footnote 2: Heidelberg comes between Vienna and Leipsic, but
Heidelberg was then a much more important town than at present.]

The wholesome influence of large surroundings upon students is
perhaps even more marked than upon professors. History teaches us with
singular clearness that small towns are precisely the ones in which
student character is distorted out of all proportion. No better
example can be found than the University of Jena. From the time of its
foundation down to the present century the name of Jena stood for all
that was wild, absurd, and outrageous. In a village whose permanent
population did not exceed four thousand, students were crowded by
hundreds and thousands. To speak without exaggeration, they ruled
Philistia with a rod of iron, in defiance of law and order, and not
infrequently of decency itself. On this point we have an eye-witness
of unquestionable veracity. In 1798, Steffens, a young Dane brimful of
enthusiastic admiration for German learning, arrived in the course
of his travels at Jena. He gives the following account of his first
impressions of German student manners:[3] "I looked out into the
neighborhood so strange to me, and a restless suspicion of what was
to come ran through my mind. Then we heard in I the distance a loud
shouting like the voices of a number of men, and nearer and nearer
they seemed to come. Lights had been brought shortly before, and,
as the uproar was close upon us, a servant burst i