cry they, touching their glasses together, filled with noble Rhein wine, and with their joy sorrowfully mingles itself the memory of the many companions of those times, who have already quitted this life; for it is a fine characteristic of the heart of man, that while enjoying the highest happiness of the present, or when joyfully calling to remembrance that once enjoyed, in such moments it feels most painfully the absence of distant friends.
The stranger who should hear the conversation of these old gentlemen; as he saw how they became young again in spirit, and how their forms, bent with years, they raised again erect as they conversed, would gladly linger near them, and would certainly say, "Those must indeed have been delightful times!"
Yes, they were--and they are, for those who know how to enjoy them. Stranger, thou who hast never known this beautiful life; and thou who wouldst willingly experience more of it,--to you hope we to be able to reveal many an attractive feature, and you shall behold many a scene, as we venture to predict, snatched fresh and living from the heart of this existence. Follow us into the City of the Muses--to the strife-place of this passion-driven life; there will we teach thee more nearly to observe the peculiar constitution of this student state, and the habits of its citizens, which thou hast perhaps observed many a time with amazement. Many a foreigner has even probably been for a short period a citizen of this state, without having penetrated deeply into its constitution and all its peculiarities. To him also will these pages afford information and entertainment,
Plunge boldly into actual human life,--
Every man lives it; few men know it well;
And where you seize it, there you make it tell.
Prologue to Goethe's Faust.
We have here in the very outset used the expressions "student" and "bursché," and shall find ourselves necessitated still oftener to use them; we will, therefore, at once give a few sentences in explanation of their meaning. By student, we understand one who has by matriculation acquired the rights of academical citizenship; but, by bursché, we understand one who has already spent a certain time at the university--and who, to a certain degree, has taken part in the social practices of the students. How and when he acquires a real claim to this title, we shall hereafter have occasion to show. We will here only make one observation regarding the origin of this term.
In order to render a university education available to men of little or no property, in the twelfth century colleges were founded, where poor youths received free lodging, maintenance, and money, and lived under the strict superintendence of one or more teachers. This became extensively the case in the thirteenth century, and still more general in the fourteenth. Private persons of wealth were mostly the benefactors, when such institutions were founded and endowed. In Germany such colleges were called bursen, whence comes the term bursché. This name, given at that time to such as dwelt together in such a burse, was, at a later period, restricted to those only who had for a longer time taken a more immediate part in the associate life of the students. The signification of the terms--student life, burschen life--thence derived, is plain enough of perception. Before, however, we conduct the reader into this burschen life, in order to give him a clearer understanding of it, we will say a few words on the constitution of universities; on the surveillance which the state exercises over them, and on the relation of teachers and university officers to the students.
The right to found universities--to dissolve them again--to unite them with others, and so on--belongs at the present time only to the respective sovereign princes, who have held these prerogatives from the dissolution of the German empire. Prior to this, they centred in the Emperor, and before the Reformation, in the Pope. The universities stand under the particular protection of the state, which superintends and conducts them by jurisdiction thereunto especially organized. The interests of the universities are protected by a representative in the Landtag, the second chamber of the state. Should a university have causes of complaint against the prince, it must appeal to the Bundestag, that is, the court established between the different German states, to decide all questions between those states, or between the prince and people of any one of them.
At the head of a German university stands the rector, or more commonly, the prorector, since the rectorate is generally retained by the sovereign princes in their own hands, as is the case in Baden. With the rector or prorector is associated the Academical Senate, as a permanent court of administration. The prorector is annually chosen at Easter, by the Great Senate, out of the body of professors. He is then proposed to the curator, formerly termed throughout Germany, the chancellor, and still so styled in Wirtemberg. On the motion of this officer, he is confirmed by the prince. His duty is to promote, as far as in him lies, the prosperity and object of the High School generally, and especially the moral and literary education of the students; the enforcement of the academical laws and statutes; and to watch over the official proceedings of the curatorship, and the resolutions of the Senate. He thus presides over the Great, and Select or Lesser Senate, where he also exercises the right of proposition; opens all propositions or memorials; collects the votes; and, according to the majority, decides. He is entitled to be present at the assembly of the Ephorats. At the expiration of his prorectorate, he continues in the senate a year, where, in the absence of the prorector, he occupies his place.
The Senate is divided into the Select and Great Senate. The first consists of the prorector, the ex-prorector, and four ordinary professors, each section furnishing one. At the end of every half-year three members go out. Their successors are appointed from the curatorium--the office of the curator. The period of office is for a year. The Select Senate corresponds with the curatorium, and it is the business of the prorector to lay before this body all current communications from the curatorium: in ordinary cases, at its ordinary sittings; or in emergencies, at extraordinary ones. The Select Senate lays before the Great Senate all such concerns as have been brought under its own consideration, or such as at least two-thirds of its members shall deem of sufficient importance to require reference to this larger body. The Select Senate assembles regularly every fortnight. Extraordinary meetings are called by the prorector. In cases of an equality of votes, the prorector gives the casting voice.
The Great Senate consists of all the ordinary professors. To this senate belongs the election of prorector, and other officers of the university, so for as the university right extends, and the management of the affairs consigned to their care by the Select Senate. The Great Senate has, therefore, no fixed days of assembly. The four faculties of theology, law, medicine, and philosophy, which last includes in itself all that is not comprehended under the other three, as mathematics, political and states' economy, history, language, etc. etc., constitute the main learned and scientific fabric of the university.
The teachers are divided into ordinary professors; such teachers as occupy the established professorships, with the emoluments and duties thereunto belonging; and the extraordinary professors, such teachers as possess only such salary as the prince bestows. These do not always hold an actual professorship--and in this respect, resemble a third class, the so-called Privat Docenten; that is to say, gentlemen who devote themselves to an academical career, who have taken the degree of doctor, and through a public disputation have acquired the right to deliver lectures on subjects connected with their particular department of science. The last receive no salary, but depend upon the remuneration derived from their classes.
This institution of private teachers forms a nursery, out of which the High School can advantageously recruit itself with able professors; and we shall have occasion presently to show the great benefit derived from this regulation, especially when compared with the arrangements of the French universities.
All the ordinary professors are members of the faculty by virtue of their office. Their rank in the faculty determines itself by the number of years during which they have occupied regular professorships, whether in that in which they reside, or in some other university of Germany. The oldest member of each faculty becomes, according to established rule, its head, with the title of Dean. To him it belongs to bring forward all affairs of the faculty; to superintend the examination of the students, as well as to issue the diplomas conferred on them.
The same honorarium which the docenten or tutors receive, receive also all the teachers of a university, from those students who attend their classes. There are regular