These slight notices may be sufficient to give us a conception of the internal arrangements of one of the German universities, which proudly may the German say, though they may indeed have their defects, yet stand far above all foreign ones. What country can show an institution so well organized and ordered as our High Schools? Truly does it excite admiration and delight to see so small a state, even as Baden, whose peculiar aim is the diffusion of knowledge. On the one hand, teachers paid by the state, that they may, freed from all the pressure of affairs, be able to dedicate their lives entirely to the office of teaching; and on the other, scholars flocking from every country, to avail themselves of their instructions.
How many great men have already gone forth out of this school! What beneficent influence such an association exerts on the whole life with which it is surrounded, we see strikingly when we turn our eyes elsewhere, when we compare the fresh and living spirit which a university inspires, with the unintellectual existence of a mere mercantile city. Most true are the words of Goethe:--"That academical life, even if we cannot ourselves boast of participation of its peculiar diligence, yet in every species of accomplishment yields incalculable advantages, since we are perpetually surrounded by men who either possess knowledge, or seek it, so that, from such an atmosphere, even while unconscious of it, we draw actual nourishment."--_Goethe's Leben Wahrheit und Dichtung_.
And this fountain of all high knowledge, we may assert it with joy, flows not only for the wealthy and the lords of broad lands. No! it stands open to the poorest amongst the people, that it may call forth talent and spiritual endowments to their highest accomplishment! Through this becomes it possible to the humblest individual, in the lowest condition of society, on the wings of merit to soar up, and that no heaven-gifted head shall be lost to the service of mankind. However high in Germany the advantages of a university education are rated, and as some may possibly imagine overrated, yet this fact has sprung from it,--that the richest and most independent must pass some years at one of the High Schools. God be praised! the number of those is few who look upon knowledge as a milch-cow, from which they may draw their daily living, and on the university as a stall, in which that useful beast is reared and cherished. Men have learned to perceive that the possession of knowledge is desirable to every one, even if he draw no direct worldly advantage therefrom. A noble rivalry to push discovery farther and higher, through the power of the human mind, and to dig after the truth, has diffused itself far and wide. The times are gone by, against which Rabener directed the fire of his Satires. I recollect where Sancho Panza in the discussion on proverbs says gravely--"Beside the watchman I know no one in our city who has attained his office in a creditable manner, and in passing must I also remember, that he is the only one in our place that had understanding before he had his office."