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gained control of its faculties of philosophy and theology, and for two centuries thereafter the university had been counted upon as the chief fortress of clericalism in Bavaria.^[1] By the middle of the eighteenth century the deadening effect of the rigorous censorship exerted by the Jesuits had produced its full fruitage at Ingolstadt. The university had fallen into a state of profound decadence.^[2]

With the accession of Maximilian Joseph^[3] as elector, in 1745, the breath of a new life soon stirred within its walls. For the position of curator of the university the elector named a well-known and resolute radical of the day, Baron Johann Adam Ickstatt, and charged him with the responsibility of reorganizing the institution upon a more liberal basis.^[4] Measures were adopted promptly by the latter looking to the restoration of the prestige of the university through the modernization of its life. The ban was lifted from books whose admission to the library had long been prohibited, chairs of public law and political economy were established, and recruits to the faculty were sought in other universities.^[5]

1. Forestier, op. cit., p. 19.
2. Ibid., p. 18. Cf. Engel, op. cit., pp. 19, 28, 29.
3. In the person of Maximilian Joseph, Bavaria found an elector whose earlier devotion to liberal policies gave promise of fundamental reforms. Agriculture and manufactures were encouraged; judicial reforms were undertaken; the despotism of the clergy was resisted. The founding of the Academy of Science at Munich, in 1759, represented a definite response to the spirit of the Aufklärung. However, the elector was not at all minded to break with the Catholic faith. All efforts to introduce Protestant ideas into the country were vigorously opposed by the government. In the end the elector’s program of reform miscarried. At the time of his death, in 1777 (the date given by Forestier, p. 106, is incorrect; cf. Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, vol. xxi, p. 30; also Brockhaus, Konversations-Lexikon, vol. xi, p. 683.), the absolute power of the clergy remained unshattered.
4. Forestier, op. cit., p. 107.
5. As a result of this effort, George Weishaupt, father of Adam, came to the University of Ingolstadt as professor of imperial institutions and criminal law.