Uppsala University

“ I confess to surprise on coming to Upsala and finding the ancient university here in high prosperity, with all the appliances of education that first-class institutions require. Linnæus, the great botanist, was professor here, and his statue is one of the ornaments of the university. The Hospital,—a new and extensive building,—a royal palace on a hill, the Agricultural College, the Library, &c., with a Botanical Garden and ample parks, suggest to the traveller that in Sweden one might find a home to his mind, if his lot had been cast in this part of the earth. ”

“ There are large Universities in Sweden both at Upsala and Lund. The former is the larger and older of the two, but they are both well known. The student has the same long and hard course as at school. Very few students finish their course till they are between twenty-five and thirty years of age, and up to this time, if they wish to be successful, must be faithful to their study. There are no very young doctors in Sweden. They generally do not [Pg 51] begin to practise till they are about twenty-eight years of age. Still, they find some time for social life at the University towns. ”

“ The University, founded in 1477 and richly endowed by Gustavus Adolphus, is the just pride of the country,—having to-day some fifteen hundred students and forty-eight competent professors. No one can enter the profession [Pg 188] of law, medicine, or divinity in Sweden who has not graduated either at this University or at that of Lund. Its library contains nearly or quite two hundred thousand bound volumes and over seven thousand important manuscripts. ”

“ No Swedish king has done so much for education as Gustavus Adolphus. To the University of Upsala he donated 300 of his hereditary estates, founding its library, improving its courses, banishing misrule, and appointing his old teacher, John Skytte, its chancellor. ”

“ Besides the national universities of Upsala and Lund and the state medical college of Stockholm, city universities at Stockholm and Gothenburg have been recently founded which are quickly developing. All [Pg 423] study at the universities consists of post-graduate work, there being about thirty colleges in various parts of the country which lead their pupils as far as the demands requisite for entering the universities. The Swedish university courses are of unexcelled thoroughness and completeness. The so-called Peasant High Schools are peculiar to Scandinavia, having originated in Denmark. ”

“ He was appointed teacher of oriental languages at Upsala in 1777, and in 1785 demonstrator of botany. From 1792 he spent some years on the west coast of Africa, and in 1797–1798 acted as secretary of the Swedish embassy in London. Returning to Sweden, he founded the Linnaean institute at Upsala in 1802, and in 1812 became professor of materia medica at the university. He died at Upsala in 1837. ”

“ They have each four faculties,—theology, jurisprudence, medicine, and philosophy,—and grant three different degrees in each, besides special degrees in theology and jurisprudence for entering the church and the government services. Even these last, which are easiest to obtain, require a course of from four to five years. To take a medical degree a young man must stay nine years at the university, and two additional years in the hospitals, making eleven years in all. Unlike English and American universities, the Swedish universities are non-residential. ”

“ The university was only founded in 1477 by the national leader, Sten Sture the Elder, who had been chosen administrator of Sweden at the Diet of Arboga six years before. It possesses no buildings that in themselves would claim attention for half an hour, though many are attractive from the well-treed lawns on which they stand. The oldest is called from the hero king who raised it, the Gustavianum; it is [190] a plain white structure over which rises a tower capped by a swelling dome that displays the influence of the East. ”

“ Some of his songs, hymns, and marches are still performed in Sweden. He gave particular attention to politics and the military art, and in 1818 entered the university of Upsal, on which occasion he was elected its chancellor. ”

“ The star of Linnæus was now in the ascendant. He was soon delegated to various pleasant duties, among which was the delivery of lectures on botany and mineralogy in the "auditorium illustre" at Stockholm. He at this time founded the "Swedish Scientific Academy," and was its first president. In 1741 he was elected professor of medicine in Upsala University, which chair he exchanged for that of botany and the position of director of the botanical garden. This opened up a new era for science in Sweden. ”

“ The student body consists of about a thousand men and women. As in the other Scandinavian universities, the women as well as the men wear a black and white cap, with a button of the national colors in front. The common emblem worn by the students may be taken as symbolizing the equality of opportunity enjoyed at the universities by the women and men alike. The women of Lund University, unlike the women in many co-educational institutions in other parts of Europe, are not merely tolerated ”

“ In Sweden the contempt for literature has not passed so far as in Denmark or Norway; but in one university at least (Lund) we find a serious diminution in the number of students. The sentimental teaching given at the popular Höfolkeskoler, consisting chiefly of ballads and the elements of rhetoric, may foster patriotism, but is no adequate substitute for a university education. ”

“ The 16th century added but little to Swedish literature, and that little is mostly connected with the newly founded university of Upsala. The Renaissance scarcely made itself felt in Scandinavia, and even the Reformation failed to waken the genius of the country. Psalms and didactic spiritual poems were the main products of Swedish letters in the 16th century. Two writers, the brothers Petri, take an easy prominence in so barren a period. ”

“ But especially are we interested in a plain slab, underneath which sleeps the man who, more than any other, has immortalized Upsala University, and helped to make Sweden an intellectual and studious country. ”

“ From Stockholm I went to Uppsala, which is a short distance to the north—only an hour and a half by train; and Swedish trains are slow affairs. At Uppsala is a fine Gothic cathedral of red brick. It is the largest church in Sweden, and its high buttressed walls as well as its twin spires tower grandly above all of the other buildings of the town. Red brick, I know, does not sound beautiful, but it is—at Uppsala—especially when it comes after a whole gallery of mental pictures of gray stone churches. Like many other things in Sweden, the church was founded in the thirteenth century. ”

“ The library now contains about 320,000 printed books and over 11,000 MSS. The Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, contains a library of medical books numbering over 40,000.
The University Library at Upsala was founded by Gustavus Adolphus in 1620, from the remains of several convent libraries; he also provided an endowment. The MSS. chiefly relate to the history of the country, but include the Codex Argenteus, containing the Gothic gospels of Ulfilas. ”

“ A major goal of the university is the education of engineers to about the equivalent of the US master's level. About half of its effort is devoted to scientific research, both basic and applied. All universities are operated and financed by the government. Copenhagen University in 1967 had about 60 professors and 3,000 students in the Faculty of Sciences. ”

“ EDUCATION IN SWEDEN No children are more fortunate than the Swedish in education. They have everything done to make their schooldays bright and happy, as well as useful. Their teachers are highly educated, and are very much respected, if they do not get large salaries. The school-house in every town is a very important and conspicuous building.
Unless a child is very well educated at home, he must go to the public school. He does not pay any fees. All education is free, even at the University, but not everyone can go there. Only those who can pass a very stiff examination are allowed to enter. ”

“ When they eventually appeared, they took their places in the front of a platform which already contained all the leading scientific men, not only of this country, but of France and of Germany. Sweden was also represented, in the person of Professor Sergius, the famous Zoologist of the University of Upsala. The entrance of the four heroes of the occasion was the signal for a remarkable demonstration of welcome, the whole audience rising and cheering for some minutes. ”

“ The men’s course is held in winter; and a women’s course, in some instances, in summer. The workmen’s institutes in the towns have a similar object. A system of university extension has been developed on the English pattern, summer courses being held at Upsala and Lund. In connexion with the army reform of 1901 a system of army high schools was proposed for conscripts while serving. Technical education is provided in higher schools at Stockholm, Gothenburg and certain other large industrial centres ”

“ About three miles north of Upsala, the seat of the great university, is Old Upsala, more sacred than any other spot in Sweden: for here are the lofty mounds which tradition has consecrated as graves of the gods,—the gods who aforetime were held in reverent awe and honor by the Scandinavian race, and who, to this day, hold some sort of sway over the rude masses of the North. ”

“ The university has a teaching staff of 141 with (1906) 1921 students, of whom 328 were women. The university is well provided with museums and laboratories and has a library of over 250,000 volumes. Other public institutions are the Athenaeum, with picture gallery, a Swedish theatre and opera house, a Finnish theatre, the Archives, the Senate House, the Nobles’ House (Riddarhuset) and the House of the Estates, the German (Lutheran) church and the Russian church. ”

“ One Polish statesman entertains a novel and useful idea which will probably be tested in the University of Posen. Noticing that the greater the progress of technical knowledge the less is the advance made in the knowledge of men, which is perhaps the most pressing need of the new age, this statesman proposes to create a new type of university, where there would be two principal sections, one for the study of natural sciences and mathematics, and the other for the study of men, which would include biology, psychology, ethnography, sociology, philology, history, etc. ”

“ Scarcely a law has been passed for the purpose of catering to the preferences, or of catching the vote, of the sons of the Northlands.
An exception to this general statement is the Minnesota law of 1883 providing for the establishment of a “professorship of Scandinavian language and literature in the State University, with the same salary as is paid in said University to other professors of the same grade.” The man to be chosen must be “some person learned in the Scandinavian language and literature, and at the same time skilled and capable of teaching the dead languages so called.” ”

“ It was as if fraternities were not by invitation but as if the students from Iowa all belonged to an Iowa club with their own house, those from Virginia to theirs, and so on. Students from the different provinces of Sweden belonged to their "nation." It was organized with officers and laws, strict control was kept of the members, and probably it was a good thing for the students, far from home in those ox-cart days. In any case, the university, which had long fought their establishment, finally had to give up. There were twenty-two "nations" at Upsala in Emanuel's time. ”

“ The palace is the center of the social system in Sweden, and only certain persons are eligible to invitations to the king's balls and dinners. All officers of the militia are included in the list, and all peasants in the riksdag, although their wives are never invited. [h]
CHAPTER IX PUBLIC EDUCATION There are few countries in which education is as free as in Sweden. From the grammar school to the university in all its stages, the cost is defrayed entirely by the state or the parish. Education is thus not a privilege of the wealthy, but a benefit common to all. ”

“ Still, publishing Daedalus was not an occupation. The question came up again of whether he couldn't secure a professorship at Upsala. Writing to Benzelius, Emanuel urged that a Scientific Society would "heal the country . . . both in the establishment of manufactures and in connection with mines, navigation, etc.," and that therefore a seventh of the university income could well be given for this purpose. He said he thought it would be wonderful if the existing professors would donate one seventh of their salary to it; then he could become the first professor of mechanics. ”

“ Though a particular university might be strongest in a particular faculty, as Bologna was in law and Paris in theology, yet it is a traditional attribute of such a body that several different branches of higher study shall be represented in it. It is among the distinctive advantages of a university that it brings together in one place students—by whom I mean teachers as well as learners—of various subjects. By doing this the university tends to produce a general breadth of intellectual interests and sympathies ”