the system he followed have not, so far as I know, been set
before English readers in any detail. ^
In its earlier use the name Seminary was applied to courses designed for the training of teachers rather than to a method of giving instruction to advanced students. Down to the latter part of the last century in Germany the teachers at the Gymnasia, like American college professors for nearly a century later, were either clergymen or men who had re- ceived a theological education. As the need for trained teachers began to be more keenly felt, philological semina- ries were established at the universities to train young men to be teachers of the classics. Of these early philological seminaries the most famous was that founded at Halle in 1787 by the great Homeric critic, Wolf.^
Three years earlier than this, however, we find at Leipzig an organization which is the prototype of the modern semi- nary, although it did not assume the name. This primitive seminary was founded by C. D. Beck for the purpose of training its members to do independent work. It was known as the Societas Philologica, and met twice weekly during the remainder of Beck's life at Leipzig. The method of proced- ure was as follows: A member selected a passage from a classical author for discussion and announced it to the others a few days beforehand. At the meeting he commented on its critical, grammatical, and historical aspects, and then lis- tened to the criticisms of his associates.^
In 1799 Gottfried Hermann, who had taken his degree at Leipzig in 1790 and thus after Beck's Club was started, formed his famous Societas Graeca, which existed till 1840
1 In the excellent sketch of Ranke, written by the late Prof. J. L. Lincoln, of Brown University, and first published in In Memoriam John Larkin Lincoln, 1894, will be found Von Sybel's account of Ranke's method of work with his Seminary, 578,
2 See Mark Pattison's Essay on Wolf for a description of Wolf's Seminary. North British Revieiu, XLII, 266-268, or his collected Essays, I, 362-3, 367-9.
^ On pp. 5-13 of Commentarii Soc. Philolog. Lipsiensis edi curavit Christian Daniel Beckius, I, Lipsiae, 1801, will be found the " Historia, consilia, et instituta philologicse societatis eiusque exercitatiouum." Volumes of the Proceedings were published at different times.
