mixes itself in every thing, prescribes every thing, will know every thing, and prohibits every thing, which does not strictly coincide with its own interests and will.

In this system of things, the universities act a conspicuous and necessary part. They have been established, and are supported by the governments, as seminaries to train up and qualify young men for the offices of church and state,-those offices which the governments alone can give, and which, as a universal rule, they give only to such as have received a university education. No one is permitted even to ask for an office in the state, or a station in the church, or for employment in the courts, or for practice as a physician, unless he has been at a university. This is a sine qua non, a previous question, which, if answered in the negative, precludes all other questions. The only exceptions are in the case of village schoolmasters and the department of mines; for both of which, there are special seminaries, which take the place of a university course. The universities then are interwoven with the very system of government; they form an essential feature in its policy; and from the very nature of their relation to it, they must forever remain under its immediate control. They are not independent literary institutions, at which only those who please may drink of the waters of knowledge at the fountain; but they are the creatures of the government, to which all those who will get their bread in a professional calling must resort.

It is easy to see, however, that this state of things must have a prodigious influence on the character of society; that while the governments thus act directly in augmenting the number of those who frequent the universities, they afford in this way an opportunity for the universities to react upon the governments. and upon the people, by exerting and cherishing a love of literature and science, and a spirit of liberal inquiry and deep investigation, in those who are to be the future servants of the church and nation,-who are to be the guardians of the health, the protectors and interpreters of the rights, and the shepherds and bishops of the souls, of millions of their fellow men. Such was once Wittemberg; and it produced the Reformation. Impressed with the magnitude of these considerations, how should Christians be constrained to pray without ceasing, that these fountains may again be cleansed; that pure and undefiled religion and morality may again prevail and abound there; and thus these institutions become once more, what they once have been, a rich blessing to the church and to the world.

In this connexion, we may also discover the ground of another feature in the German universities, which has often struck the literary men of other countries with surprise, and for which no satisfactory reason has usually been assigned. This is, the general character for diligence and unremitted study, which belongs to the students of Germany as a body. In all the universities, it is true, there are those who seem to regard it as the chief object of a residence there, to set at defiance all authority and all law, to escape as much as possible from the thraldom of all discipline, and to make it the great end of all their exertions to counteract, so far as they may be able, the purpose for which they were sent thither by their friends, and lay a broad foundation, not of future usefulness, but of future depravity. Such characters however are not confined to the universities of Germany; nor do they even there, as has been already remarked, constitute the greatest, nor even a great proportion of the whole number of students. To the great body must certainly be assigned the praise of diligent and patient study. Many of these, no doubt, are actuated by the love of study in itself; their thirst for knowledge spurs them on, and they make acquisitions, which render them objects of admiration to their companions, and to the learned world. But men like these are comparatively few; and they are chiefly those who afterwards devote their lives to the pursuits of literature and science, as professors in the universities or in other similar stations. And even among these, among the thousand teachers of Germany, how few, comparatively, can be regarded as eminently distinguished. In proportion to the number of students, it may be safely averred, that fewer rise to distinguished eminence in Germany than in our own country. But on the other hand, the great body of students are there carried forward far beyond our ordinary standard, and study with a perseverance that is with us rare.

What then is the cause of all this diligence? is a question often asked. Is it because the German youth have more solidity, more seriousness of character, than our own? This assuredly is not the case; for Americans, and the American youth, possess a character of serious earnest, which is unknown in Europe. Is it then the effect of example, a sort of hereditary or traditional diligence, which has been handed down for ages, and become so habitual at the universities that none can escape its influence? Something of this, indeed, there may be; but its effects are comparatively small; for the annals of former days tell of scenes

of idleness and dissipation, which would not be tolerated at the present time. But the chief secret lies here, as before, in the direct power of the governments over all places of honour and profit; in the general requisition of a university education as a sine qua non preparation for every public station; and lastly and principally in the fact, that no one is even then admitted into any profession, nor to hold any office whatever, without being first subjected to two, and sometimes three, severe examinations. Here is the strong hold of the governments upon the students, and the main secret of the good behaviour and diligence of the latter.

Of all who enter the universities, there are probably not so many as one in ten, who are not looking forward to an employment under government; that is to say, there are not so many who are expecting to subsist merely upon their own resources. They all know moreover full well, that the government not only keeps a watchful eye over their conduct while they are students, but that when they have passed through the regular time, they must undergo examinations, not in name alone, but in rigorous earnest, and before men of tried ability. If they fail here, they are indeed permitted to make one more trial; but if they fail again, the fruits of their years of toil, and their hopes of future subsistence, are gone forever. They can never again be admitted to an examination, either under their own government, nor under any other in Germany. It is here that the governments press with their whole weight upon the students, and compel a diligence which can know neither remission nor rest, until its great object be accomplished.*-It is in these circumstances

* The number of hours which German students spend each day in study, is of course different in different individuals. Generally speaking, their literary men do not push their studies far into the night, but pass their evenings with their families or in society. The same is also the case with the learned men of Paris; they do little or nothing after 5 or 6 o'clock, the usual dinner hour. When we hear of a professor's studying 16 or 17 hours a day, we may usually set it down as an exaggeration. The most that can be made of the assertion is, that his whole day is taken up with literary pursuits, without any intervals devoted to exercise or society. But this time is not spent in laborious study, properly so called; unless lecturing, the reading of newspapers and journals, the writing of letters, and any conversation which passes at his room, comes under that denomination. A general feature of

too, that a check is found upon that entire liberty of study, which is represented as the characteristic of the German sys

the German scholars is, that they live a very sedentary, and in some respects secluded life; and this serves perhaps to account for the fact, that their literature has more learning, but less of elasticity and nerve, than that of English scholars. The modern fine writers of Germany, on the other hand, who have established and cultivated a national literature, have mostly been men of social habits, and have mingled much with the world.

Connected with this subject is that of the health of the continental students. It is often asked, how they are able to pass long lives in a regular course of hard study; while American literary men so often break down with dyspeptic and other complaints. The former do not escape the 'ills that flesh is heir to;' but it is true, that the fashionable disease of the day with us, is unknown, or at least is not fashionable, on the continent. This however cannot be set down to the score of diet; for the continental scholars eat and drink and sleep like other men. They love their glass of wine too; and German scholars moreover love a warm supper before going to bed. They also drink coffee twice a day, in the morning and after dinner; and take comparatively little exercise. Yet with all this, they generally enjoy good health; or at least suffer only from those complaints, which arise out of a sedentary habit. The cause of this difference in the two hemispheres, it is not the province of the writer to inquire into, nor is this the place for such an investigation. Suffice it to say, that there scholars are trained to study from childhood; and do not, as is often the case here, after a youth of labour and habits of great activity, change at once and adopt a sedentary life.

In respect to the article of food, there are three things which strike an American, and may probably have some influence in regard to complaints of the stomach, viz. that the inhabitants of the continent eat, as a general rule, less meat than we do; that in both the German and French style of cookery, the food of all kinds is much more thoroughly done than with us; and that the continental custom of serving the dishes in succession at meals, instead of placing all on the table at once, obliges them to eat much more slowly than we are accustomed to do. A dinner or supper table is there a place of animated conversation; which of course occasions many interruptions, and affords opportunity for the appetite to become satisfied, before the stomach is overloaded.

There is also a moral cause, which seems to have no little influence on the general health and spirits of their scholars; and

tem. A student who has made choice of his profession, is indeed left to select his instructors and arrange the course of his studies at will; he may also hear as many lectures in other departments as he pleases; but still the certainty of future examinations does not permit him to neglect the studies of his proper course; he must first and at all events make himself acquainted with those branches, on which he is to be examined.* Nor can he do this by mere memory, or by studying the answers to a set of questions. The day has gone by, when a young man could be ground into a state of preparation for an examination made under the authority of government; whatever may still be the case at some of the universities, in regard to an examination merely for a degree.

If we look now for a moment at the actual state and character of the German universities, we shall find, along with all their vast and acknowledged advantages, several great and prominent evils, some of which have crept in gradually in practice and are susceptible of correction; while others are inherent in the system itself. Of the former kind, is the want of personal intercourse between the professors and students. As a general fact, most of the professors have no intercourse whatever with their

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this is, that in their hours of relaxation they unbend the mind much more than is usual here. While they are in their studies and lecture rooms, their minds work with intense effort; but when they come out, and especially in society, they are like children let loose from school; their labours and studies are for the time forgotten, and they meet each other not as professors or learned men, but as familiar friends and everyday acquaintances. This is connected, no doubt, with the great feature of European character, which at once strikes Americans, that all ranks and classes there have a far greater enjoyment of the present, than ourselves. Our national character, so far as we have one, consists in a spirit of enterprise, excited by the desire of improving our condition. It may be shortly styled a love of gain,-gain not only of wealth, but also of reputation, of comfort, of happiness,-gain of all that we suppose to be desirable. Our enjoyment consists more in the striving after this gain,-in anticipation, and in the very act of acquiring; theirs, in possession and quiet fruition.

* It is not uncommon for a student to spend the first year of his course in idleness, and afterwards give up all amusement and devote himself to severe study. In this case he is said, in their peculiar jargon, to ochsen, i. e. work like an ox.