Leiden University

“ Entering the university of Leiden he took his degree in philosophy in 1689, with a dissertation De distinctione mentis a corpore, in which he attacked the doctrines of Epicurus, Hobbes and Spinoza. He then turned to the study of medicine, in which he graduated in 1693 at Harderwyck in Guelderland. In 1701 he was appointed lecturer on the institutes of medicine at Leiden ”

“ Though entirely averse from politics, he took a keen interest in the municipal affairs of Leiden and made a special study of elementary education. He took the leading part in the International Congress of Orientalists at Algiers in 1905. He was a member of the Institut de France, was awarded the German Order of Merit, and received an honorary doctorate of Cambridge University. At his death he was president of the newly formed International Association of Academies of Science. ”

“ In 1723 he was promoted to the chair of natural philosophy and mathematics at Utrecht. In 1731 he declined an invitation to Copenhagen, and was promoted in consequence to the chair of astronomy at Utrecht in 1732. The attempt of George II. of England in 1737 to attract him to the newly-established university of Göttingen was also unsuccessful. At length, however, the claims of his native city overcame his resolution to remain at Utrecht, and he accepted the mathematical chair at Leiden in 1739, where, declining all offers from abroad, he remained till his death on the oth of September 1761. ”

“ The university of Franeker was founded in 1585 on a somewhat less liberal basis than Leiden, the professors being required to declare their assent to the rule of faith embodied in the Heidelberg Catechism and the confession of the “Belgian Church.” ”

“ Here the son received his education, until in 1595 he entered the university of Leiden, where he became the lifelong friend of Hugo Grotius, and studied classics, Hebrew, church history and theology. In 1600 he was made rector of the high school at Dort, and devoted himself to philology and historical theology. From 1614 to 1619 he was director of the theological college at Leiden. Meantime he was gaining a great reputation as a scholar, not only in the Netherlands, but also in France and England. ”

“ In Holland, on the other hand, where no such marked racial differences exist, the universities of Groningen, Leiden and Utrecht have been assimilated (1876) in constitution, each being administered by a consistory of five rectors with a senate composed of the professors in the respective faculties. The foundation of the Amsterdam. university of Amsterdam (1877) more than repaired dam the loss of Franeker and Harderwijk, and the progress of this new centre during the first ten years of its existence was remarkably rapid. ”

“ He received his early education at the grammar school of Aberdeen and at King’s College in that city, and in 1741 he attended the medical classes at Edinburgh university. In 1745 he went to Leiden to complete his medical studies, and during his stay there he received without solicitation the degree of doctor of medicine from King’s College, Aberdeen. On his return from Holland he was elected professor of philosophy at King’s College, but in 1749 he resigned his professorship on account of its duties interfering too much with his private practice. ”

“ The long fight against Spain and the Inquisition had stimulated the energies of the Church and the people of the Netherlands, and their Universities and theological schools soon rivalled older seats of learning. The University of Leyden, a thank-offering for the wonderful deliverance of the town, was founded in 1575; Franecker, ten years later, in 1585; and there followed in rapid succession the Universities of Gronningen (1612) , Utrecht (1636) , and Harderwyk (1648) . Dutch theologians and lawyers became famous during the seventeenth century for their learning and acumen. ”

“ He knew that professors wrought more even by example and influence than by teaching, that it was theirs to pitch high or low the standard of learning in a country, and that, as it proved easy or arduous to come up with them, they awoke either a restless endeavour after an even loftier attainment, or lulled into a self-satisfied conceit.” Douza was, for Leiden and the Dutch, what Münchhausen afterwards was for Göttingen and the German universities. “But with this difference: Leiden was the model on which the younger universities of the republic were constructed ”

“ To reward Leyden for her heroic defense, he left her her choice between exemption from certain imposts or the foundation of a university. Leyden chose the university.
How this university answered to the hopes of Leyden, it is superfluous to say. Everybody knows how the States of Holland with their liberal offers drew learned men from every country; how philosophy, driven out of France, took refuge there; how Leyden was for a long time the securest citadel for all men who were struggling for the triumph of human reason; how it became at length the most famous school in Europe. ”

“ Noteworthy also are the collection of the Society of Dutch Literature (1766) ; the collections of casts and of engravings; the seamen’s training school; the Remonstrant seminary, transferred hither from Amsterdam in 1873; the two hospitals (one of which is private) ; the house of correction; and the court-house.
Leiden is an ancient town, although it is not the Lugdunum Batavorum of the Romans. Its early name was Leithen, and it was governed until 1420 by burgraves, the representatives of the courts of Holland. The most celebrated event in its history is its siege by the Spaniards in 1574. ”

“ The principal reason for this decadence is to be found in the number of Dutch universities. Besides that at Leyden, there is one at Utrecht, one at Groeningen, and an Athenæum at Amsterdam; whence it follows that the libraries, museums, and eminent professors which gathered in one city would form an excellent university, are now scattered about, and are unequal to their task. Yet Holland is none the less convinced that one single excellent university would serve her better than four inferior ones. And why is it not done? 0 reader, all the world is one country. ”

“ HOLLAND AND LEARNING, ART, LITERATURE, AND SCIENCE
There is only one great university in Holland, that of Leyden, founded in commemoration of the great siege by William the Silent. Learned men from all over Europe flocked there at one time, and its students numbered two thousand. To-day there are only a few hundred, as in the other two smaller universities. But Leyden is still famous for its museums, among the richest in Europe. ”

“ After being a city of disabled and decrepit churches, Utrecht is a university town, and the seven or eight hundred students in attendance do their best to emulate the early ecclesiastics by trying to keep the place in a state of perennial siege, for it is to be remembered that the drudgery and frugality of university life in Holland is not what it is cracked up to be. In a way, a Dutch college education is a good bit of a farce. The student is under very few obligations except to himself. ”

“ He does not have to appear in chapel; he does not even have to attend classes, and there are a large number of students in each of Holland’s three universities—young men of private fortune who take up a course in law or what not, with no intention of ever practicing, in order to avail themselves of the gaiety and freedom of university life—who never enter a lecture room from one term’s end to the other. ”

“ A large proportion of the boys at the 'Gymnasia,' perhaps the majority of them, pass on to the Universities, some to qualify for the learned professions, others because it is the fashion in Holland as in other countries for young men who have no intention of following any profession to spend a few years at a University in search of pleasure and experience ”

“ In this he was curiously aided by the school of ripe and enthusiastic scholars who began to flourish at Leiden, such as Drusius, Vossius and Hugo Grotius, who themselves wrote little in Dutch, but who chastened the style of the rising generation by insisting on a pure and liberal Latinity. Out of that generation arose the greatest names in the literature of Holland—Vondel, Hooft, Cats, Huygens—in whose hands the language, so long left barbarous and neglected, took at once its highest finish and melody. ”

“ This regulation, however beneficially intended, only produced the effect of raising extremely the expence of the different diplomas, without being attended with any advantage, except to the funds of the university. In the present unsettled state of the Netherlands, it cannot be expected that the seats of learning should be as much frequented, as they probably will be when their new sovereign shall have had leisure to turn his attention to the important subject of public education ”

“ Little time could be spared to them by men who were struggling against Philip II for political independence and for the reformed religion. But when humanism had once been planted in the Low Countries, its growth was remarkably vigorous and rapid. The University of Leyden became the principal centre of the New Learning. Among scholars of Dutch birth at the period of the Renaissance, Erasmus is the first in time as in rank; but neither his higher training nor his life-work was specially connected with his native land. ”

“ The next morning I visited the university of Leyden, which stands by the Rapenburg canal: it is the most venerable seminary in Holland; and, by the great number of learned and famous men which it has produced, does honour to the luster of its origin. There is scarcely a science which has not been improved and extended in this hallowed seat of learning ”

“ The document by which the institution was founded was certainly a masterpiece of ponderous irony, for as the fiction of the King's sovereignty was still maintained, Philip was gravely made to establish the university, as a reward to Leyden for rebellion to himself. "Considering," said this wonderful charter, "that during these present wearisome wars within our provinces of Holland and Zealand, all good instruction of youth in the sciences and liberal arts is likely to come into entire oblivion. ”

“ A good many students live with their families, which is cheaper than living in lodgings; and as nearly all classes are represented, there is a considerable difference in their standards of life. Some are certainly extravagant, as in all Universities, which tends to raise prices, but, on the other hand, many of them are men whose parents can ill afford the expense, but are tempted by the value which attaches to a University career in Holland, and these bring the average down. ”

“ Of a very different character were the relations, in the Netherlands, between the Renaissance and University studies. The complete separation of academical from municipal government at Louvain, and the special attention devoted there to legal studies intended to prepare for the service of the central government, went some way towards estranging that University from popular and provincial interests; but the part which she was long to play in the history of the intellectual culture of the country was determined by the identification of her interests with those of Church and Clergy. ”

“ But none of these being Companions for me, I only pass’d quite thro’ the Town; for I had seen the Churches before; and I was not a Stranger to the turbulent Spirit of the Inhabitants, who are the most unpolish’d of all the Netherlands. One of the grand Privileges of the University of Louvain, is a Nomination to a great Number of Benefices; about which they are actually at Law with several Bishops of the Netherlands, who pretend to dispute their said Right; on Pretence, that the University prefers Men to Livings, of whose Persons or Sentiments they have no Knowledge. ”

“ And the scientific lustre of the university well sustained the nobility of its origin. The proudest nation on earth might be more proud of a seat of learning, founded thus amidst carnage and tears, whence so much of profound learning and brilliant literature had already been diffused. ”

“ It is not owing to simple precaution, to habits of laying up and calculations of utility, but they appreciate the dignity of science. Leyden, to which the States-General propose a recompense, after its heroic defense, demands a University; no pains are spared to attract to it the greatest savans of Europe. ”

“ Educated at Leiden, Utrecht and Franeker, he became a professor of law at Leiden. As a writer on jurisprudence he acquired a wide reputation. His Latin style was modelled after the best writers, and his numerous works soon rose to the rank of standard authorities. ”

“ Dutch civil engineers are educated at Delft, at the Polytechnic School, after having passed their final examination at a 'Higher Burgher School.' Boys of sixteen or seventeen are not fit to digest sciences by the dozen, and, however pleasant and convenient it may be to become a walking cyclopedia, a cyclopedia is not a living book, but a dead accumulation of dead knowledge, which may inform though it does not educate. Happily, the majority of Dutch engineers are saved by the Polytechnic School, where they have about the same liberty as undergraduates at the Universities to go their own way. ”

“ Max was fond of study and studied long and hard, for the sake of study. At Leiden, he became acquainted with Van Vreeswijck, Van der Welcke and other young sprigs of the aristocracy, who would [77] gladly have admitted him to their club, putting up with him because he had plenty of money to spend and because he was clever and it amused him to help them in their examinations. ”