THE GERMAN UNIVERSITIES FOR THE LAST FIFTY YEARS,
IF the prospects of learning in a country could he determined by the statistics of the attendance of students at the Universities, Dr. Conrad's book ought to set at rest the minds of all who entertain misgivings about the future of learning in Germany. Misgivings have been felt during recent years by those who have given attention to the subject, and pot without apparent reason. As long as Germany was a country of first-rate scholars, and of very second-rate statesmen and soldiers, there was little danger that learning would be.neglected, for the title of Germany to a leading place in Europe rested mainly upon its great scholars and . its seats of learning. During the last twenty years, however, the country of Kant and Hegel has emphatically declined to he satisfied with the Empire of the Air assigned to it in the epigram, and has taken possession of at least its own share of the earth. It was no unreasonable fear that their great material successes would divert the Germans from the pursuit of learning. If Dr. Conrad's .statistics can be accepted as sufficient evidence to the contrary, the fear was altogether groundless. There has been an almost unprecedented increase of students during the last decade, and'at the present moment Germany, with a population of 45,250,000, has '25,000 students attending her Universities, while England, with a population of 26 000,000, has only 5,500 students at Oxford and -Cambridge. There has also been a large increase of the teachingstaff during the same period ; and suclian increase represents not only greater efficiency in tuition, but an addition to the number of men devoting their lives to learned research, as German professors are, for the most part, original investigators. English-men cannot fail to be struck by Dr. Conrad's account of the zeal displayed by the Governments of Germany in the cause of -education generally, and especially of University education. They watch over the Universities with sleepless vigilance, pay seventy-two per cent. of their expenses, and literally drive students within their walls by making them the only -doors of admission to the learned professions and to the higher departments of the Civil Service. The smaller Courts of Germany were always disposed to patronise learning and to promote education ; but since the wars with Napoleon, the prosaic and parsimonious Government of Prussia, formerly rudely neglectful of both, has taken the lead in -educational reforms. Prussia had avowedly ulterior ends in view in thus seeking to improve education. Frederick William III. gave expression to the governing idea of Prussian statesmen when he said that Prussia must compensate for its material losses by intellectual superiority. It was to be educated that it might be powerful. The shrewdness of the policy has.been proved by subsequent events ; for it was the superior intelligence of its soldiers, and the profound science of its student-generals, that enabled Germany to compensate, on recent battlefields, for the defeats suffered at the beginning of the century. In trade and -commerce, the superior education of the Germans has made them winners of the race in many departments ; and Dr. Conrad, who has given special attention to the subject, Maims a certain superiority for the German workman even over the Englishman, whose great natural capacity he admits. The Englishman, he says, by his enormous perseverance, and his wonted diligence and sense of order, sets through considerably more work in the sphere of action to which he has been long accustomed; but he is far behind the German in adapting himself to new circumstances, and in executing on his own reflection a complicated task. If this is correct—and Dr. Conrad says that English employers of labour confirm his view—the predictions of Mr. Matthew Arnold, uttered many years ago in his fine report upon the Universities and Schools of Germany, have been exactly fulfilled. The Universities have played an important part in the educa
tion of the German people by furnishing the Government with skilled counsellors, and by sending forth annually a large number of highly-educated men to all parts of the country, whose presence and work have done much to raise the general intellectual level. They have also been centres of political education and of political influence. As their members were drawn from all parts of the country, a German national spirit, as opposed to the provincial spirit, prevailed in them ; and the zeal with which the old history and poetry of Germany were studied, by reviving the memories of the old Empire, prepared the way for the new. German statesmen may, indeed, be con gratulated on having performed the feat of putting Pegasus in harness with successful results ;" for they have so guided and organised intellectual curiosity, poetical and historical enthusiasms, as to make them important factors in the international struggle for supremacy.
Dr. Conrad does not conceal that the picture has another and less favourable side, that there are some signs that the great national successes may sap the generous energies by which they were achieved. Although there is at present a food tide in the Universities, there are many complaints of a want of the old disinterested love for learning among the students. This cannot be attributed to the " examination frenzy " which Mr. Freeman justly stigmatises as the bane of University life in England ; for although the German student is over-worked and over-examined in the Gymnasium, he has great freedom during the years at the University, and has thus an opportunity of developing a taste for learning. The change is due, we suspect, to a change which has come-over the national ideals which renders the students less enamoured than formerly of the vocation of the scholar, and more disposed to follow the example of the Government, and to regard learning as an instrument of material success. The same change may be observed in the popular complaint which Dr. Conrad mentions and justifies, that the Government does too much for the Universities, and neglects the commercial schools. The privileges granted by Government to those who possess certificates of maturity from the Gymnasium induce many parents to send their sons there, although they do not design them for professional life. Tbis, again, leads the Gymnasia to attempt to give a complete education, instead of confining themselves to their proper function of preparing foi. the University. Dr. Conrad is of opinion that pupils intended for business ought to be educated at the Real-schools ; and be maintains that the present system produces more educated men than the country requires. Many of these men have to leave the country—which Dr. Conrad, with a somewhat narrow German patriotism, regards as an unmixed
evil—or they are obliged to accept an uncongenial lot at home ; and they often become promoters of socialistic discontent. It likewise induces young men to enter the University who do not possess the social culture requisite for the learned professions. On this point he writes :— " In these days a large number of youths miss their destiny. With no special aptitude for a University course, but with abilities that would have made them excellent tradesmen, they go through a laborious preparatory course, with a view to the office of preacher, higher-school teacher, or advocate. The necessity of working for their daily bread, meanwhile, has deprived them of the opportunity of taking on any broader, and especially any social, culture; and it is little wonder if the outside observer comes to the conclusion that it would have been better if they had indulged their aptitude for a practical career. A complete education on all sides the gymnasium cannot give. What is there given has to be completed by that of the home, of the family, or else of life. In too many cases this part of the education is sadly defective, and hence the large number of abiturients—excellent Latin scholars, perhaps—of good students, even of higher-schoolteachers and officials, who have no harmonious training, not only as regards externals, but us regards their conception of life and their moral feeling. No educated man will doubt that a good tradesman stands higher than an indifferent pastor or teacher."
The want of social culture in many professional men, who have risen from the ranks, through the Universities, is a frequent subject of complaint in Scotland and in America, and we
may expect to hear it in England now that the Universities have become more accessible. But it is difficult to see how the evil can be remedied, unless we place obstacles in the way of the able poor receiving a University education, which would be a much greater evil to society. Education is, at all events, a worthier title than wealth to elevation in the social scale, and gives better promise of the acquirement of social culture. We
agree with Dr. Conrad in thinking that the Gymnasia overload their curriculum with subjects, and that it would be better if they did not aspire to become professional schools, but confined themselves to their proper function as schools of liberal education. We cannot, however, follow him in his proposals that all pupils intended for business should be educated at the Realschools, from which he would exclude Latin, though it is at present taught. Such a change would tend to widen the distance between the commercial and the professional classes ; nor is it by any means clear that the commercial classes would be gainers, even as regards preparation for their special work. It is admitted that those men of business who have studied at the Gymnasium usually come to the front in after life, rather than the pupils of the Real-schools ; which shows that a liberal education, even when prematurely cut short, does more for the character than professional education. As to the discontent which education is said to excite in those who do not succeed in life, it is not liberal education, nearly so much as professional education which creates the hungry appetite for success which breeds discontent. Germany can of all countries least afford to lose liberalising influences from the earlier stages of education. The air of pedantry which often spoils German erudition, and even infects its literature, is due largely to the fact that the Universities are so largely professional schools.
Dr. Conrad's chapter on "The Theological Faculty" will be read with interest in this country. 'In all faculties the attendance of students has fluctuated, but in none so largely as in the theological ; and its fluctuations cannot be explained as the others can, on the principle of supply and demand, but can be traced to changes in the national mood. During certain periods there has been a distinct disinclination to enter the Church. Dr. Conrad ascribes this disinclination to the rapid development of science, to the depreciatory attacks made upon the Church by the leaders of science, and to. the acrimonious controversies which have taken place inside the Church, and between the Church and the Government. "The lofty duties," he writes, "of the clergy were misunderstood and depreciated, and altogether there was much to lessen any one's inclination to enter the profession." A reaction, however, has set in, and daring the last few years there has been "a sudden crowding to theology," especially to Protestant theology, for there is still a dearth of Catholic priests. Dr. Conrad attributes the change to the wave of Conservatism which is passing over the country. He adds, with unconscious irony, that the growing acrimony in recent years of the Protestant opposition to Catholicism and Semitism, has had " an inspiring influence upon the Protestant consciousness." It is right to say that Dr. Conrad deplores the acrimony, although, as a friend of the Church, he accepts the results with thankfulness.
In conclusion, we would cordially -commend Dr. Conrad's book to those interested in education. He is a reliable authority in his own chosen province of statistics ; and on the rare occasions when he indulges in digressions into the general subject, his remarks are so instructive that matiy readers will regret that his book was not projected on a more comprehensive plan, as the bare statistics of education leave much untold which the reader desires to know. The translator, who has done his special work well, has added a number of excellent notes on education in Germany, which make the author's statistics more intelligible. A preface is contribnted by Mr. Bryce, in which he succinctly enumerates the present problems of English University reform, and points out in what respect the experience of Germany—the country which has given most attention to University education—is fitted to help towards their solution. He adds the needed caution that we must not imitate Germany in a slavish fashion. The indifference to foreign examples formerly universal among English educationalists has given place in recent years to an 'almost excessive desire to imitate them. It is needful, however, to keep in view the unlikeness of the conditions under which the German Universities exist from those of England, and especially the great difference caused by their dependence on the State, and their intimate relations to a Civil Service more numerous and more highly organised than our own.
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