Of Ranke's method in conducting the seminary, Von Sybel has given a brief sketch in his memorial address: "For training those who wished to make a profession of writing history, he instituted special historical practice courses, in which, under his sure guidance, the pupil, without much theorizing, learned critical method through his own efforts. Ranke allowed him free choice of his subject, but was always ready from his inexhaustible store of knowledge to propose instructive problems. Errors arising from neglect of critical principles were judged unmercifully, yet in a friendly manner. For the rest, he suffered each mind to follow its own bent, mindful of that supreme rule of teaching that the work of the school is not the formation, but the development of the native powers."[1]
A more complete description of this nursery of historians is given by the greatest teacher and scholar among all of Ranke's pupils, Georg Waitz, and with this our sketch of the history of Ranke's seminary may fitly close.
"It was never your wish that the young friends who attached themselves to you should all follow in your footsteps, or that a definite series of works should be divested of individual characteristics; least of all did you desire to form a school in the sense of requiring conformity to definite views and ways of looking at things, either as regards the form of presentation or the general conception of the subject. On the contrary, the greatest freedom in the selection of problems and in the methods of treatment was taken for granted. You were not sorry to see the different personalities around you each developing his particular inclinations and capabilities. You allowed yourself to be drawn by us to subjects hitherto strange to you, but which your comprehensive mind soon mastered. What a variety of subjects from ancient, mediæval, and modern history was discussed during the years while I was a member of the seminary! You were not quite satisfied once that the majority of the members preferred other fields to modern history—I suppose because
- ↑ "Gedächtnissrede auf Leopold v. Ranke," Hist. Zeitschrift, 56, 474.
