University of Bonn

“ English society and English education would never have produced two such women. Their conversation prepared me to form correct ideas of what I was to see and hear, and guarded me against the mistakes and hasty conclusions of vivacious travellers. At [61] Bonn I also saw, for the first time, a specimen of the fresco painting, lately revived in Germany with such brilliant success. By command of the Prussian Board of Education the hall of the university of Bonn is to be painted in fresco, and the work has been entrusted to C. Hermann, Götzenberger, and Förster—all, I believe, pupils of Cornelius. ”

“ In truth, Bonn owes a great deal to the Prince Consort—more than most people are aware. If the University has grown great and popular, a favourite with reigning houses, a High School in which every King of Prussia is expected to have pursued his studies, something like a "Christ Church" among German Universities; if the town has grown rich and flourishing, a favourite residence with wealth and position en retraite, the merit is in no small measure due to the Prince who, practically speaking, first set the fashion among illustrious folk. ”

“ His liberalism in politics having brought him into conflict with the university authorities of Giessen, he exchanged that university for Göttingen in 1816, and three years later received a chair at the new university of Bonn, where he established the art museum and the library, of which he became the first librarian. ”

“ The scenery of the Rhine begins to lose its distinctive features as we near Bonn: plains replace rocks, and the waters flow more sluggishly. Bonn is alive enough: its antiquities of Roman date are forgotten in its essentially modern bustle, for the heart of its prosperity is of very recent date, the university having been founded only in 1777, and after the troubles of the Revolution reorganized in 1818. ”

“ The vast palace built for them in 1730, which is nearly a quarter of a mile long, is now used by the University of Bonn, where Prince Albert, Queen Consort, of England, was a student. The city has about twenty thousand inhabitants, and is a very beautiful place. ”

“ Meanwhile, pamphlet after pamphlet, full of bitter hatred of the French oppressor, came from his pen, and his stirring patriotic songs, such as Was ist das deutsche Vaterland? Der Gott, der Eisen wachsen liess, and Was blasen die Trompeten? were on all lips. When, after the peace, the university of Bonn was founded in 1818, Arndt was appointed to the chair of modern history. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then the parents come themselves, bringing their families with them, to settle there. German rank and fashion follow in their wake, quintupling the population in less than sixty years—and the reputation and position of the town are made.
Bonn was a very different place from the fashionable town that it is now, when, on May 3, 1837, Professor Wutzer, as Rector Magnificus, pledged "Prinz Albrecht Franz, Herzog von Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha", "by pressure of hand in place of oath," to be a faithful "citizen" of the University. ”

“ On the morrow we started again through Aix-la-Chapelle to Bonn, the town which lies on the borders of the exquisite scenery of which the Siebengebirge and Rolandseck serve as the magic portal. Our experiences in Bonn were not wholly satisfactory. Dear Auntie was a maiden lady, looking on all young men as wolves to be kept far from her growing lambs. Bonn was a university town, and there was a mania just then prevailing there for all things English. Emma was a plump, rosy, fair-haired typical English maiden, full of frolic and harmless fun ”

“ By hard work this was finally accomplished, and Carl entered the university at Bonn.
German universities have always been known for their student societies. Too many of these groups of students have had a reputation only for drinking and senseless dueling; but there are others that have been [Pg 61] marked by a distinct scientific, literary, or musical tone. Of the latter class was the Buschenschaft Franconia at Bonn; its members were not men of wealth or noble birth, but in later years they found high places in the world’s history. And of this society Carl Schurz was elected a member. ”

“ The number of matriculated students is usually greater in winter than in summer; the reason of the disproportion being that in the summer university towns having pleasant surroundings, such as Bonn, Heidelberg, Kiel and Jena, are more frequented. Berlin is essentially a Prussian university—of students from non-German states, Russia sends most, then the United States of America, while Great Britain is credited with comparatively few. ”

“ Only a few of the universities date their existence from the 19th century; the majority of them are very much older. Each of the larger provinces, except Posen, has at least one university, the entire number being 21. All have four faculties except Münster, which has no faculty of medicine. As regards theology, Bonn, Breslau and Tübingen have both a Protestant and a Catholic faculty; Freiburg, Munich, Münster and Würzburg are exclusively Catholic; and all the rest are Protestant. ”

“ Having studied theology at Bonn and afterwards in Berlin, he established himself at Bonn in 1836 as privat docent of theology, later became master at the gymnasium there, and was for a short time assistant preacher in Cologne. Changing his religious opinions, he abandoned theology and delivered lectures on the history of art, in which he had become interested on a journey to Italy in 1837. In 1846 he was appointed extraordinary professor of the history of art at Bonn University. ”

“ WE emerged from the majestic circle of the Seven Mountains, the most beautiful part of the Rhine scenery, and broad plains again met our view. The river ran smoothly, the Middle Rhine was passed, Bonn was in view, and there we dismissed our boatman.
“We stopped in Bonn only a short time. We went to the Market-place and walked past the University, which was once a palace.
“We took the train at Bonn for Cologne, in order to pass rapidly over a part of the Rhine scenery said to be comparatively uninteresting. ”

“ Alice and Nellie had been reading up the legends of the Rhine, and could hardly wait to see its beauties and wonders.
The Rhine was not reached until after leaving Bonn. The scenery was so pretty they did not miss the river views.
In full view of the train was the famous avenue of horse-chestnuts, three-quarters of a mile in length. There is a large university at Bonn, and many other schools. As many of the students in their different costumes came to the station and walked up and down the platform to show themselves, the girls were very much amused. ”

“ The mixed universities, like those of Bonn, Freyburg, and others, are in a great degree supported by Catholic talent; and the great Catholic University of Munich, which the present excellent King of Bavaria founded in 1826, already by the celebrity of its professors, the number of its scholars, and the admirable direction of the studies, bids fair to rival the most celebrated Universities in Germany. ”

“ Bonn contained but a handful of Protestants. The "concurrently endowed" University, planted in the midst of a Catholic country, was a standing abomination and a perpetual taunt to the native population. The Prince's letters of that time show how fully he appreciated the grave significance of the struggle even at his early age. It was while he was at Bonn that the refractory Archbishop was carried off by force, to be "interned" at Minden.
Under such circumstances it required some resolution for a young Protestant Prince to settle amid an excited Romanist population. ”

“ After spending some time in a pharmacy in his native town, he entered Bonn University in 1840, and a year later migrated to Giessen, where he acted as assistant in Liebig’s laboratory, and in 1843 became assistant professor. ”

“ The Prince's death, indeed, set loose in the University town a whole flood of anecdotes and reminiscences, some very trivial and commonplace, but all of them evidencing a lively interest and abiding regard. It is strange what power some persons possess of impressing men's minds. There have been scores of princes students at Bonn since, some of them spending more money and making much more of a show ”

“ He says it has a pleasant appearance, and contains 1,300 houses and 15,000 inhabitants, and that the Star, kept by one Schmidt, is reasonable, and that he speaks English, and takes in the "Galignani,"—two evidences of civilization not to be despised.
I think I see you smile; but that's the fact,—we come abroad to hunt after somebody we can talk to, or find a newspaper we can read, making actual luxuries of what we had every day at home for nothing.
Besides these, Bonn has a university, and that will be a great thing for James, and masters of various kinds for the girls ”

“ The German universities are the culminating point of German culture. They concentrate within themselves the intellectual pith of the country. Dating their foundation as far back as the fourteenth century, as Prague, Vienna, and Heidelberg,—or established but of late years in the nineteenth, as Berlin, Bonn, and Munich,—they attract to themselves the mental strength of the land, forming a focus from which radiates, whether in Theology, Science, Literature, or Art, the new world of thought, which finds its way to remotest regions, often filtered and unacknowledged. ”

“ It was the joy of living, joy in people old and young, and, above all things, joy in the development of the young German Empire!
It is therefore my wish at this moment, when I place my dear son among you, that he, too, may have as happy a time as a student as was once vouchsafed to me. And, indeed, how could it be otherwise? For Bonn, the lovely city, is so accustomed to the presence of young men full of life and seems by nature to have been designed [176] to no other end. ”

“ But the breezes of a higher intellectual culture which, at this time, swept through Bonn and influenced him likewise through his intimate intercourse with the most highly cultivated people of the city, soon lifted him to heights unattained by other artists and musicians of his century—heights from which he continually discerned new fields of action. ”

“ The harvesting and hay-making just begun, but not a blade yet taken off the piled lap of mother earth. At our feet were the peasants' dwellings, little brown cottages, almost hidden in fruit-trees; beyond, the gay villas of the noblesse; and still farther, the lively-looking town of Bonn, with its five-towered Cathedral. Still farther, on one side Cologne, on the other the seven mountains, with the ruins of Drachenfels; fine wide roads—those unquestionable marks of an old civilisation—traversing the country in every direction, and, as far as your eye could reach, that king of roads, the Rhine. ”

“ Whilst a cruel and savage state of hostility between man and man thus embarrassed the progress of a traveller, whose only object was to contemplate the beautiful face of nature, never did the divine object of his pursuit appear more arrayed in the smiles of peace and loveliness. The government of Bonn, as well as Cologne, and all the other cities on the left bank of the Rhine is vested in a governor appointed by Napoleon, and is purely military. Under a clear and cloudless sky I bade adieu to Bonn with great reluctance, and embarked on board of the passage-boat bound to Cassel. ”

“ Bonn is a well built city, containing about 14,000 inhabitants, and was formerly the general residence of the electors of Cologne. About a league above the city are the seven mountains, and near them is a beautiful island of considerable extent, in which is a large convent.
Here ends the picturesque scenery of the Rhine, which pursues the rest of its course through a flat country, until its waters are dispersed amongst the canals of Holland. The river is here of great width, but not so deep as it is higher up. ”

“ In aristocratic Bonn, where style is considered, and in Heidelberg, where visitors from other nations are more common, the affair is perhaps more formal. I am told that there the contests take place in handsome rooms; that grey-haired doctors wait upon the wounded, and liveried servants upon the hungry, and that the affair is conducted throughout with a certain amount of picturesque ceremony. In the more essentially German Universities, where strangers are rare and not much encouraged, the simple essentials are the only things kept in view, and these are not of an inviting nature. ”

“ The love of knowledge carries them to college, the fame of its professors decides in which college they shall enrol themselves. To the sedulous choice of the best men from the various schools of Germany, and to great care in rearing and fostering the best of its own alumni, the university of Berlin owes its rapid growth in numbers and in reputation, and the city of Berlin the agreeable circle of distinguished philosophers, among whom the intellectual stranger finds at once a ready welcome and a great enjoyment. ”

“ In the year 1250 the mind of man was as restless and impatient of restraint as now, and some people in Bonn, under a quiet exterior, nursed in their bosoms latent volcanoes of passion, and indulged the waywardness of rebellious fancy to a degree that would have proved calamitous to the placid flow of life and thought could instrumentality for action have been found. ”