Leipzig University

“ At the age of fifteen he was appointed to a subordinate post in the municipal library of Leipzig. He studied theology for a short time at Leipzig, and afterwards philology at Wittenberg, where he graduated doctor in philosophy in 1812. While still a student he had already published, in 1811, a work on public libraries, and in 1812 another work entitled Hierarchiae in religionem ac literas commoda. In 1813 he was attached to the Leipzig University library, and in 1814 was appointed secretary to the Royal library of Dresden. ”

“ Leipzig was founded, in its rudiments at least, in 1409 by the Elector Frederick I. of Saxony, but it started into the full vigor of academic life under the impulse imparted to it by the immigration of two thousand students, Catholic Germans, who, to escape Hussite persecution, had departed in a body from the university of Prague.
Spain, which we should expect to see forward in promoting institutions of learning, did not much avail herself of those fruits of science which had ripened to unequalled splendor under the Arabs in the eleventh century. ”

“ Leipzig is not only the seat of a famous university and the great book market of Germany, but has one of the largest annual fairs in the world, to which merchants come from all parts of the earth, even from America and China. ”

“ In Leipzig the need of a school for music, in which{206} Art may be pursued with conscientious study and an earnest mind, is deeply felt; and for various reasons Leipzig seems peculiarly suited for it. The university, already a central locality for intellectual aspiring young men, and the school of knowledge, would, in many relations, connect itself with that of music. In most of the other large towns of Germany public amusements dissipate the mind, and exercise an injurious influence over the young ”

“ At both Tübingen and Heidelberg Reuchlin (p. 254) taught for a time, and both institutions early became centers for the study of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. At Leipzig the reigning duke brought various humanistic scholars to the university to lecture, after 1507, and in 1519 entirely reformed the university by subordinating the mediaeval disciplines to the new studies. Four new universities— Wittenberg (1502) , Marburg (1527) , Königsberg (1544) , and Jena (1558) — were established on the new humanistic basis, and from their beginning were centers for the new learning. ”

“ In Leipzig irritation seems to prevail again. Nobody there writes me a line about it, not even Ritschl.
My dear friend, some time or other we absolutely must live together; it is a sacred necessity. For some while I have been living in a tremendous current; nearly every day something astounding happens, while my aspirations and intentions continue to rise. Let me tell you as a great secret, and begging you to keep it to yourself, that among other things I am preparing a Promemoria about the University of Strasburg in the form of an interpellation for the Reichstag, to be delivered to Bismarck. ”

“ Leipzig is one of the most enterprising and prosperous of German towns, and in point of trade and industries ranks among German cities immediately after Berlin and Hamburg. It possesses the third largest German university, is the seat of the supreme tribunal of the German empire and the headquarters of the XIX. (Saxon) army corps, and forms one of the most prominent literary and musical centres in Europe. Its general aspect is imposing, owing to the number of new public buildings erected during the last 20 years of the 19th century. ”

“ Upon this 5,000 students and the German professors withdrew and founded the University of Leipzig. The university was now simply a national one, and Hus without interference taught the following doctrines: the church consists only of the elect; no man is temporal ruler, no man is a bishop, if he be in mortal sin; the papal dignity is an outcome of the imperial power; obedience to the church is the invention of men. ”

“ Learning and Art.—Berlin is becoming the centre of the intellectual life of the nation. The Friedrich Wilhelm University, although young in point of foundation, has long outstripped its great rival Leipzig in numbers, and can point with pride to the fact that its teaching staff has yielded to none in the number of illustrious names. It was founded in 1810, when Prussia had lost her celebrated university of Halle, which Napoleon had included in his newly created kingdom of Westphalia. ”

“ But in Germany the soil is so rich as to support three great universities—Leipzig, Halle, and Jena—planted within a circle of twenty miles radius, and nevertheless all thriving. Even the overweening development of Berlin University since that city has become the imperial capital has not yet overshadowed the smaller institutions. For, curious as it seems to us Americans, students in Europe are not influenced in the choice of a university chiefly by its size, the splendor of its buildings, or even its athletic record. ”

“ Among those a separate club had arisen of daring and desperate young reprobates who had found a last refuge, as I said, at Leipzig in the glorious period I have recorded. I had already made the personal acquaintance of these swashbucklers, who pleased my fancy greatly, when they were guarding the Brockhaus grounds. Although the regular duration of a university course did not exceed three years, most of these men had never left their universities for six or seven years. ”

“ Having studied (1839–1843) classical philology, and modern, but especially English, literature at the university of Leipzig, he was a master for a time in the Gymnasium (classical school) at Dessau, and in 1875 was appointed extraordinary, and in 1876 ordinary, professor of English philology at the university of Halle, in which city he died on the 21st of January 1889. ”

“ More than any other, Lessing reformed German literature. His father, pastor at Kamenz, gave him his early instruction, and sent him to a famous school at Meissen, where he learned so rapidly that by royal decree he was admitted at seventeen to the University of Leipzig. Here his sturdy nature almost immediately asserted itself against the smug platitudes of the Leipzig critics. “I realized,” he wrote at this time, “that books might make me learned, but would never make me a man. I sought society to learn life.” ”

“ Herr Leopold Koppel, a Berlin banker, has given $175,000 for the erection of a research institute for physical chemistry in Berlin and will make a further gift of $87,500 extended over the next ten years for maintenance.—It is announced that Professor Hans Meyer has presented 150,000 Marks to the University of Leipzig for the laboratory of experimental psychology established by Professor Wilhelm Wund. ”

“ A “Ritterschule” for the sons of the nobility was opened, and in the course of a few years it was decided to found a university. Saxony endeavoured to thwart the scheme, urging the proximity of Leipzig; but her opposition was overruled by the emperor Leopold I., who granted (19th October 1693) the requisite charter, and in the following year the Work of the university commenced. Frankfort-on-the-Oder had by this time become a centre of the Reformed party, and the primary object in founding a university in Halle was to create a centre for the Lutheran party ”

“ Including servants and menials, they fare stated to have numbered about 2000 men. They arrived at Leipzig about the end of May, and there founded a new university, of which, according to some records, the former rector of the University of Prague, Henning of Baltenhagen, according to others, John of Münsterberg, became the first rector. The former German students of Prague never forgave the injury which they had, according to their views, suffered. ”

“ CHAPTER XVIII MARCH-APRIL 1819 Journey from Dresden to Leipzig—The University of Leipzig—Liberal spirit—The English disliked in Saxony—The English Government hostile to liberty—Journey to Frankfort—From Frankfort to Metz and Paris—A.F. Lemaître—Bon voyage to the Allies—Return to England.
I left Dresden on the 2nd March, 1819. A Landkutsche conveyed me as far as Leipzig in a day and half, stopping the first night at Oschaly, where there is a good inn. At Leipzig I put up at the Hôtel de Bavière and remained five days. Leipzig is a fine old Gothic city. ”

“ By the exercise of his musical talents he earned money enough for the start, at Helmstadt, of an university career, which the aid of a wealthy patron enabled him to continue at Leipzig. He became director of the music-school at Pforten in 1572, was transferred to Leipzig in the same capacity in 1594, and retained this post until his death on the 24th of November 1615, despite the offers successively made to him of mathematical professorships at Frankfort and Wittenberg. ”

“ On the removal of his parents to Leipzig, he received his early education at the Thomas school, and entered the university in 1847. Here he studied under Moritz Haupt and Otto Jahn until 1851, spent six months in Berlin (chiefly to attend Böckh’s lectures) , and completed his university studies at Leipzig (1852) . The next three years were devoted to travelling in Belgium, France, Italy and Greece. In 1856 he became a Privat-docent, and in 1858 extraordinary professor at Leipzig ”

“ Every one who perceives in this the influence which men and women of education, the learned, and other persons who take pleasure in refined society, so decidedly exercised over a young student, would be immediately convinced that we were in Leipzig, even if it had not been mentioned. Each one of the German universities has a particular character; for, as no universal cultivation can pervade our fatherland, every place adheres to its own fashion, and carries out, even to the last, its own characteristic peculiarities: exactly the same thing holds good of the universities. ”

“ In 1562 he went on to the University of Leipzig, accompanied, according to the custom of the time, by a tutor, who appears to have made persevering but unsuccessful attempts to induce his pupil to devote himself to law. ”

“ In the majority of the last-named places, foreigners, especially his own countrymen, are rare; none of his friends have studied there; they have followed the current, since the last century, and spent their time in Göttingen or Heidelberg, perhaps a winter in Berlin. They have found these institutions good, and affording every facility for study; but would not Munich, or Leipzig, or Jena, or any other one of the twenty-six universities of Germany, better answer the purpose of many a student? ”

“ The relations of the students to the inhabitants of those cities, various as they might be, nevertheless agreed in this, that the wild stranger had no regard for the citizen, and looked upon himself as a peculiar being, privileged to all sorts of freedom and insolence. In Leipzig, on the contrary, a student could scarcely be any thing else than polite, as soon as he wished to stand on any footing at all with the rich, well- bred, and punctilious inhabitants. ”

“ Intellectual interests of a high order have always characterized Leipzig, and what Karl von Holtei once said of it is true to-day: “There is only one city in Germany that represents Germany; only a single city where one can forget that he is a Hessian, a Bavarian, a Swabian, a Prussian or a Saxon; only one city where, amid the opulence of the commercial world with which science is so gloriously allied, even the man who possesses nothing but his personality is honoured and esteemed ”

“ The museum was erected with part of the munificent bequest made to the city by Dominic Grassi in 1881. As a musical centre Leipzig is known all over the world for its excellent conservatorium, founded in 1843 by Mendelssohn. The series of concerts given annually in the Gewandhaus is also of world-wide reputation, and the operatic stage of Leipzig is deservedly ranked among the finest in Germany. There are numerous vocal and orchestral societies, some of which have brought their art to a very high pitch of perfection. ”

“ Not that there is less work done at Oxford than at Leipzig, but that the work is done in a different spirit. It is free in Germany; it has now become almost compulsory in England. Though an old professor myself, I like to attend, when I can, some of the professorial lectures in Germany; for it is a real pleasure to see hundreds of young faces listening to a teacher on the history of art, on modern history, on the science of language, or on philosophy, without any view to examinations, simply from love of the subject or of the teacher. ”

“ A few forward-looking men, men who had been expelled from Leipzig because of their critical attitude and modern ways of thinking, were made professors here. Its creation was due to the sympathy for these men felt by the Elector Friedrich III of Brandenburg, later the first King of Prussia. The King clearly intended that the new institution should be representative of modern tendencies in education. To this end he installed as professors men who could and would reform the instruction in theology, law, medicine, and philosophy. ”

“ Permit me to make a few observations on the importance of such an institution, and to state why I consider that Leipzig is peculiarly entitled to aspire to such a one, and also what I consider to be the fitting basis for its organization.{204}
For a long period music has been indigenous in this country, and the sense of what is true and genuine, the very phase which must be nearest the heart of every ardent and thoughtful friend to art, has at all times struck its roots deep into this soil. ”

“ On the north side of the inner town and on the promenade are the handsome exchange with library, and the reformed church, a pleasing edifice in late Gothic.
Leipzig has some interesting monuments; the Siegesdenkmal, commemorative of the wars of 1866 and 1870, on the market square, statues of Goethe, Leibnitz, Gellert, J. Sebastian Bach, Robert Schumann, Hahnemann, the homeopathist, and Bismarck. There are also many memorials of the battle of Leipzig, including an obelisk on the Randstädter-Steinweg, on the site of the bridge which was prematurely blown up, when Prince Poniatowski was drowned ”