Having now spent some time in four of the leading German universities,
and contemplating a longer stay for the purpose of visiting others, the
writer has thought that some general remarks might call attention to
points often disregarded, and serve to give some insight into the nature
of the institutions of learning of the country,--rather aiming to
characterize the system of higher education as it now exists than to
give detailed historical notices, including something of student-life,
and the professors,--in fine, such observations as would not be likely
to be made by a general tourist, and such as native writers deem it
unnecessary to make, presupposing a knowledge of the facts in their own
readers.

The German universities are the culminating point of German culture.
They concentrate within themselves the intellectual pith of the country.
Dating their foundation as far back as the fourteenth century, as
Prague, Vienna, and Heidelberg,--or established but of late years in
the nineteenth, as Berlin, Bonn, and Munich,--they attract to themselves
the mental strength of the land, forming a focus from which radiates,
whether in Theology, Science, Literature, or Art, the new world of
thought, which finds its way to remotest regions, often filtered
and unacknowledged. They number among their professors the most
distinguished men of the century, whether poets, philosophers, or
divines. All who lay claim to authorship find in the lecture-room a
firm stand and rank in society, as Government is ever ready to insure a
life-position to distinguished scholars. To mention only a few
examples of men who would scarcely be thought of in a professorial
career,--Schiller was Professor of History in Jena, Rückert Professor in
Berlin, Uhland in Tübingen.