on Unter den Linden, opposite the palace of the king. Large as it was,
its halls were crowded at the end of every hour by the thousand or two
of young men, who presently disappeared within the lecture-rooms.
Here in past years had been Hegel and Fichte, the brothers Grimm, the
brothers Humboldt, Niebuhr, and Carl Ritter. Here in my time, were
Lepsius and Curtius, Virchow and Hoffman, Ranke and Mommsen,--the
world's first scholars in the past and present. The student selected
his lecturers, then went day by day through the semester to the plain
lecture-rooms, taking notes diligently at benches which had been
whittled well by his predecessors, and where he too most likely
carved his own autograph and perhaps the name of the dear girl he
adored,--for Yankee boys have no monopoly of the jack-knife.

Where could one find the spiked helmet in the midst of the scholastic
quiet and diligence of a German university? It was visible enough in
more ways than one. Here was one manifestation. Run down the long list
of professors and teachers in the _Anzeiger_, and you would find
somewhere in the list the _Fechtmeister_, instructor in fighting,
master of the sword exercise, and he was pretty sure to be one of
the busiest men in the company. To most German students, a sword, or
_Schläger_, was as necessary as pipe or beer-mug; not a slender
fencing-foil, with a button on the point, and slight enough to snap
with a vigorous thrust, but a stout blade of tempered steel, ground
sharp. With these weapons the students perpetrated savageries,
almost unrebuked, which struck an American with horror. Duels were
of frequent occurrence, taking place sometimes at places and on days
regularly set apart for the really bloody work. The fighters were
partially protected by a sort of armour, and the wounds inflicted were
generally more ghastly than dangerous; though a son of Bismarck was
said to have been nearly killed at Bonn a few years before, and there