Göttingen

“ About five leagues from Gottingen, on the road towards Nordheim, there is a little village called Meissner, a favourite resort of the students, in all their festivals; while, at something less than a mile distant, stands a water-mill, on a little rivulet among the hills—a wild, sequestered spot, overgrown with stunted oak and brushwood. ”

“ I was already within three days’ march of the Hartz, and besides, I should like to see Göttingen once more, and have a peep at my old friends there.
It was only as I reached Münden to breakfast, that I remembered it was Sunday, and so when I had finished my meal, I joined my host and his household to church. What a simplicity is there in the whole Protestantism of Germany—how striking is the contrast between the unpretending features of the Reformed, and the gorgeous splendour of the Roman Catholic Church. ”

“ The obstinacy of my father, who, without knowing it, opposed himself to my plans, strengthened me in my impiety; so that I made no scruple to listen to him by the hour, while he described and repeated to me the course of study and of life which I should pursue at the universities and in the world.
All hopes of Göttingen being cut off, I now turned my eyes towards Leipzig. There Ernesti appeared to me as a brilliant light: Morus, too, already awakened much confidence. I planned for myself in secret an opposition-course, or rather I built a castle in the air, on a tolerably solid foundation ”

“ Half of the better known and most influential of German universities are of later origin than ours. The University of Göttingen, once the most flourishing in Germany, is younger than Harvard by a hundred years. Halle is younger, and Erlangen, and Munich with its vast library, and Bonn, and Berlin, by nearly two hundred years.
When this College was founded, two of the main forces of the intellectual world of our time had scarcely come into play,—modern literature and modern science. Science knew nothing as yet of chemistry, nothing of electricity, of geology, scarce anything of botany. ”

“ We went on the same night to Gottingen, an exceedingly neat and well-built town, situated in a beautiful country. The university founded here by [62] George the Second has a considerable reputation. We made but a short stay at Gottingen, and arrived about a month since at Brunswick. ”

“ And now to come back to the students, whom mayhap you deem to have been forgotten by me all this time, but for whose peculiar illustration my digression was intended—it being neither more nor less than to show that if Frederica von Ettenheim turned half the heads in Göttingen, Messrs. Eisendecker and Mühry were of the number. What a feature it was of the little town, her coming to reside in it! What a sweet atmosphere of womanly gracefulness spread itself like a perfume through those old salons, whose dusty curtains and moth-eaten chairs looked like the fossils of some antediluvian furniture! ”

“ The newcomers were fellow-students from my own part of Germany, and had left Göttingen four days later than I. Great was their astonishment at finding me again, alone on the Blocksberg. Then came a flood tide of narrative, of astonishment, and of appointment-making, of laughing, and of recollecting, and in the spirit we found ourselves again in our learned Siberia, where refinement is carried to such an extent that the bears are tied up in the taverns, and the sables wish the hunter good evening. ”

“ So midnight passed, and all was silence at the outposts, whilst new troops poured into Göttingen, reserves and recruits streaming in from every part of the country; for all the young men desired to be enrolled in the army.
The new general staff worked all night long; much was debated and written in the great aula of Georgia Augusta, and at last it was decided that the army must remain four days longer in Göttingen, in order to prepare for the march.
Four days is a long time when events may be counted by hours. ”

“ In 1829 he entered the university of Leipzig, and one year later that of Göttingen, where, under the influence of Otfried Müller, he finally decided to devote himself to the archaeological side of philology. From Göttingen he proceeded to Berlin, where he graduated in 1833 as doctor with the thesis De tabulis Eugubinis. In the same year he proceeded to study in Paris, and was commissioned by the duc de Luynes to collect material from the Greek and Latin writers for his work on the weapons of the ancients. ”

“ GÖTTINGEN, the chief town of a circle of the same name in the land-drostei of Hildesheim and province of Hanover, Prussia, is pleasantly situated at the foot of the Hainberg in the fertile valley of the Leine, about 67 miles to the south of Hanover, on the Hanover and Cassel railway. ”

“ The summer of 1872 was again spent in Göttingen, mainly in working at Arabic with Lagarde. Lagarde assured his pupil at the close of the session that he had nothing more to teach him. At Göttingen he now became personally acquainted with Wellhausen, and saw something of Benfey and Clebsch. In the course of the summer he also had some intercourse with Riehm, Diestel, and Fleischer. ”

“ But, you will ask, is Göttingen the only place for the acquisition of such learning? No, not the only, but I believe far the best for such learning as it is necessary for Mr. E. to fit him to make Cambridge in some degree a Göttingen, and render it no longer requisite to depend upon the latter for the formation of their scholars: it is true that very few of what the Germans call scholars are needed in America ”

“ It was Lisa who told me that another young Briton was coming to live in Göttingen—not, however, as a student at the University. He turned out to be a Scotsman—one Andrew Smallie, the dissolute offspring of a prim Edinburgh family. He had been shipped off to Göttingen, in the hope that he might there drink himself quietly to death. The Scotch do not keep their skeletons at home in a cupboard. They ship them abroad and give them facilities. ”

“ Having studied at the universities of Heidelberg and Leipzig, he went for a tour in Italy, on his return from which he lectured as Privatdozent in Heidelberg. In 1832 he was called to Marburg as professor ordinarius of classical literature; and in 1842 he was transferred to Göttingen to the chair of philology and archaeology, vacant by the death of Otfried Müller. He died at Göttingen on the 31st of December 1855. His knowledge of all branches of classical learning was profound, but he was chiefly distinguished for his works on Greek antiquities and ancient philosophy. ”

“ At Halle Michaelis felt himself out of place, and in 1745 he gladly accepted an invitation to Göttingen as privatdozent. In 1746 he became professor extraordinarius, in 1750 ordinarius, and in Göttingen he remained till his death in 1791.
His intellect was active in many directions; universal learning indeed was perhaps one of his foibles. Literature—modern as well as ancient—occupied his attention ”

“ As he continued his wild career, however, his grandfather withdrew his support and he was left to his own devices. Meanwhile he had made fair progress with his legal studies, and had the good fortune to form a close friendship with a number of young men of literary tastes. In the Göttingen Musenalmanach, edited by H. Boie and F. W. Gotter, Bürger’s first poems were published, and by 1771 he had already become widely known as a poet. In 1772, through Boie’s influence, Bürger obtained the post of “Amtmann” or district magistrate at Altengleichen near Göttingen. ”

“ From Göttingen he visited the Rhine, for the purpose of studying geology, and in particular the basaltic formations of the Seven Mountains. At Mayence he became acquainted with George Forster, who proposed to accompany him on a journey to England. ”

“ All that he writes to his father concerning the more illustrious of his teachers, is interesting enough. It shows us how here in Göttingen, and especially through listening to and associating with Otfried Müller, Dissen, and the Grimms, science was revealed to him in a new and clearer light. ”

“ From Bonn, where he had J. C. W. Augusti (1772–1841) , J. K. L. Gieseler, and Karl Immanuel Nitzsch for colleagues, he was called in 1827 to Göttingen to succeed K. F. Stäudlin (1761–1826) . In that year he helped to found the Theologische Studien und Kritiken, the chief organ of the “mediation” theology (Vermittelungstheologie) . At Göttingen he remained, declining all further calls elsewhere, as to Erlangen, Kiel, Halle, Tübingen, Jena and Leipzig, until his death, which occurred on the 4th of February 1855. ”

“ In 1754 he removed to Göttingen, where in 1757 he was appointed professor of philosophy; but in 1761 he accepted an invitation to the German congregation at St Petersburg. There he organized a school which, under him, soon became one of the most flourishing in the north of Europe, but a disagreement with Marshal Münich led him, in spite of the empress’s offers of high advancement, to return to central Europe in 1765. He first went to live at Altona ”

“ Whatever fondness for the gay life of a Göttingen student he may have had in his young days, his life in America was almost ascetic in its freedom from anything like dissipation. When he first made his home in St. Charles, Missouri, he was about thirty years of age, and it was only a few years later that he became interested in the subject of religion. So it could not have been said of him: "Junge sündet und Alte Betschwestern". He was still a young man when he turned his attention to religion. ”

“ The next extract is from a letter of Cogswell’s, and gives a glimpse at the actual work done by these young men:—
Göttingen, March 8, 1817.
I must tell you something about our colony at Göttingen before I discuss other subjects, for you probably care little about the University and its host of professors, except as they operate upon us. First as to the Professor (Everett) and Dr. Ticknor, as they are called here; everybody knows them in this part of Germany, and also knows how to value them. ”

“ From the gymnasium at Carlsruhe he passed in 1782 to the university of Göttingen, where he studied law for three years. Having received the appointment of tutor to the prince of Anhalt-Dessau, he took his doctor’s degree at the university of Halle in 1788. Recalled in this year to Göttingen as extraordinary professor of law, he became ordinary professor in 1792. In the preface to his Beiträge zur zivilistischen Bücherkenntnis der letzten vierzig Jahre (1828–1829) he gives a sketch of the condition of the civil law teaching at Göttingen at that time. ”

“ On our way we overtook the other party, who had all passed the preceding night at Meissner,—and guess my surprise and horror to find that my friend’s antagonist was one of my own intimate acquaintances, and the very student who had been the first to show me any attention on my arriving at Gottingen! He was a young Prussian named Hanstell, whose mild manners and gentlemanlike deportment had acquired for him the sobriquet of “der Zahm” (the Gentle) . ”

“ The Academy of Göttingen refused to print his communications, and it was not until 1815 that they appeared in the first volume of the History of his friend Heeren, who, being untrammelled by the prejudices of Oriental learning, had been one of the earliest to accept his conclusions. ”

“ Zimmermann, who had in the mean time been "for a few months" in France, in Italy and England, now returned and joined him there; but the great man, feeling very poorly and very old, decided that he would like to stay in Bern, and not move any more;—Zimmermann, accordingly, was sent to Gottingen to bring Mrs. Haller, with her Daughters, bandboxes and effects, home to Bern. Which he did;—and not only them, but a soft, ingenious, ingenuous and rather pretty young Gottingen Lady along with them, as his own Wife withal. With her he settled as STADTPHYSICUS (Town-Doctor) in native Brugg ”

“ That form of creed shall be his which takes into account the complexity of human nature. The emotions (so he holds) alone received satisfaction at Rome; intellectual development being checked. At Göttingen the intellect was cultivated at the expense of the spiritual faculties. Now in the poverty and ignorance of Zion Chapel he believes himself to discern provision, however poor in quality, for all man’s requirements and aspirations. Immeasurably inferior to Rome in beauty of architectural form, in the impressiveness of its ritual ”

“ In 1777 he left Göttingen and proceeded to Wetzlar, the legal centre of the Holy Roman Empire, in order to see the working of its institutions and thereby prepare himself for the career of the law. Next, after a stay at each of the chief South German capitals, he settled at Regensburg (Ratisbon) in order to observe the methods of the Imperial diet. In 1779 he went to Vienna, gave himself up to the gay life of that capital, and then proceeded to Berlin early in 1780. ”

“ Heinrich Heine, the celebrated lyric poet, rarely showed any humor in his poetry. But some of his prose works are broadly ludicrous, and his observations witty and cynical.
[611]
THE TOWN OF GÖTTINGEN The town of Göttingen, famous by reason of its university and its sausages, belongs to the kingdom of Hanover, and contains 999 fire-stations, divers churches, a lying-in hospital, an observatory, an academic prison, a library, and an underground tavern—where the beer is excellent. The brook that flows past the town is called the Leine, and serves for bathing in summer ”

“ Men living in a small way, with a dim political background, were not often practical, but were generally disinterested. Göttingen, Tübingen, and Heidelberg had some advantages for historical teaching over Berlin, where "William Tell" was a forbidden play. ”

“ The system of patronage adopted at Göttingen was, in fact, identical with that which had already been instituted in the universities of the Netherlands by Douza. The Erlangen. university of Erlangen, a Lutheran centre, was founded by Frederick, margrave of Baireuth. ”