its numbers, allowing for two great wars, have been continuously on the increase, the eminence of its professoriate, among whom have been Döllinger, Liebig, Schelling, Zeuss and Giesebrecht, having attracted students from all parts of Europe.
The university of Berlin, known as the Royal Friedrich Wilhelm University, was founded in 1809, immediately after the Berlin. peace of Tilsit, when Prussia had been reduced to the level of a third-rate Power. Under the guiding influence of Wilhelm von Humboldt, however, supported by the strong purpose of Frederick William III., the principles adopted in connexion with the new seat of learning not only raised it to a foremost place among the universities of Europe, but also largely conduced to the regeneration of Germany. It had not only incorporated at the time of its foundation the famous “Academy of Sciences” of the city, but expressly repudiated all attachment to any particular creed or school of thought, and professed subservience only to the interests of science and learning. “Each of the eminent teachers with whom the university began its life—F. A. Wolfe, Fichte, Savigny, Reil—represented only himself, the path of inquiry or the completed theory which he had himself propounded. Its subsequent growth was astonishing, and before the 19th century closed the number of its matriculated students exceeded that of every other university except Vienna.”
The university of Bonn, founded in 1818 and also by Friedrich Wilhelm III., thus became known as the Rhenish Friedrich Bonn Wilhelm University—it being the design of the founder to introduce into the Rhine provinces the classic literature and the newly developed scientific knowledge of Germany proper. With this aim he summoned to his aid the best available talent, among the earlier instructors being Niebuhr, A. W. von Schlegel, with C. F. Nasse in the faculty of medicine and G. Hermes in that of theology. In the last-named faculty it further became noted for the manner in which it combined the opposed schools of theological doctrine—that of the Evangelical (or Lutheran) Church and that of the Roman Catholic Church here standing side by side, and both adorned by eminent names. After the war with Austria in 1859 the German universities underwent a considerable change owing to the enforced military service required by the law of 1867; and the events of 1870 were certainly not disconnected with the martial spirit which had been evoked in the student world, while in the universities themselves there had risen up a new and more lively interest in political affairs.
In 1878 a comparison of the numbers of the students in the different faculties in the Prussian universities with those for Fluctuations of numbers in the faculty of theology. the year 1867 showed a remarkable diminution in the faculty of theology, amounting in Lutheran centres to numbers more than one-half, and in Catholic centres to nearly three-fourths. In jurisprudence there was an increase of nearly two-fifths, in medicine a decline of a third, and in philosophy an increase of one-fourth.
The universities of the United Provinces, like those of Protestant Germany, were founded by the state as schools for the Universities of the United Provinces. maintenance of the principles of the Reformation and the education of the clergy, and afforded in the 16th and 17th centuries a grateful refuge to not a few of those Huguenot or Port-Royalist scholars whom persecution compelled to flee beyond the boundaries of France, as well as to the Puritan divines who were driven from England. The earliest, that of Leiden (in what was then the county Leiden. of Holland), founded in 1575, commemorated the gallant and successful resistance of the citizens to the Spanish forces under Requesens. Throughout the 17th century Leiden was distinguished by its learning, the ability of its professors, and the shelter it afforded to the more liberal thought associated at that period with Arminianism. Much of its early success was owing to the wise provisions and the influence of the celebrated Janus Douza:—“Douza's principles,” says Hamilton, “were those which ought to regulate the practice of all academical patrons; and they were those of his successors. He knew that at the rate learning was seen prized by the state in the academy, would it be valued by the nation at large. . . . . He knew that professors wrought more even by example and influence than by teaching, that it was theirs to pitch high or low the standard of learning in a country, and that, as it proved easy or arduous to come up with them, they awoke either a restless endeavour after an even loftier attainment, or lulled into a self-satisfied conceit.” Douza was, for Leiden and the Dutch, what Münchhausen afterwards was for Göttingen and the German universities. “But with this difference: Leiden was the model on which the younger universities of the republic were constructed; Göttingen the model on which the older universities of the empire were reformed. Both Münchhausen and Douza proposed a high ideal for the schools founded under their auspices; and both, as first curators, laboured with paramount influence in realizing this ideal for the same long period of thirty-two years. Under their patronage Leiden and Göttingen took the highest place among the universities of Europe; and both have only lost their relative supremacy by the application in other seminaries of the same measures which had at first determined their superiority.” The appointment of the professors at Leiden was vested in three (afterwards five) curators, one of whom was selected from the body of the nobles, while the other two were appointed by the states of the province—the office being held for nine years, and eventually for life. With these was associated the mayor of Leiden for Franeker. the time being. The university of Franeker was founded in 1585 on a somewhat less liberal basis than Leiden, the professors being required to declare their assent to the rule of faith embodied in the Heidelberg Catechism and the confession of the “Belgian Church.” Its four faculties were those of theology, jurisprudence, medicine, and “the three languages and the liberal arts.”[1] For a period of twelve years (c. 1610-22) the reputation of the university was enhanced by the able teaching of William Ames (“Amesius”), a Puritan divine and moralist who had been driven by Archbishop Bancroft from Cambridge and from England. His fame and ability are said to have attracted to Franeker students from Hungary, Poland and Russia.
With similar organization were founded the universities
of Harderwijk (1600), Groningen (1614) and Utrecht (1634),
Harderwijk.
Groningen.
Utrecht.
the last-named being much frequented in the 18th
century by both English and Scottish students who
repaired thither to obtain instruction of a kind that
Oxford and Cambridge at that time failed altogether
to impart—more than a fourth of the students of
Utrecht about the year 1736 being of those nationalities. In
the 19th century, however, political considerations began seriously
to diminish such intercourse between different centres,
and during the first Napoleon's tenure of the imperial dignity
the universities in both the “kingdom of Holland” and the
Austrian Netherlands (as they were then termed) were in
great peril. But on the settlement of Europe in 1814-15 the
restoration of the house of Orange and consequent formation
of the “kingdom of the Netherlands” brought both realms
under a single rule. The universities of Franeker and Harderwijk
Ghent.
Liége.
were suppressed, and those of Ghent and Liége created,
while a uniform constitution was given both to the
Dutch and Belgian universities. It was also provided
that there should be attached to each a board of
curators, consisting of five persons, “distinguished by their love
of literature and science and by their rank in society,” to be
nominated by the king, and at least three of them to be chosen
from the province in which the university was situated, the
other two from adjacent provinces. After the lapse of another
fifteen years, however, the kingdom of the Netherlands having
been reduced to its present limits and the kingdom of Belgium
(identical for the most part with the Austrian Netherlands)
newly created, an endeavour was made in dealing with the
whole question of secondary education to give a fuller recognition
to both traditional creeds and ethnic affinities. At
Louvain, the chief Catholic centre, the faculties of law, medicine
- ↑ Statuta et Leges (Franeker, 1647), p. 3.
