Part 32 (2/2)
The storm which now burst out in the train of the Reformation reduced the universities to great straits; religion became matter of politics, and the personal connexions and opinions of the princes, determined often in a very powerful manner the course of knowledge. The unfortunate embarra.s.sments of the Elector Frederick V., led to the storming of the castle of Heidelberg by the Bavarians; to the expulsion of the professors and students; to the sending away of the valuable library; and finally, to the total suppression of the university. Carl Frederick had it entirely to reinstate anew. He did it with a n.o.ble zeal, in the spirit and according to the needs of the time. The most distinguished teachers, as Cocijus, Spina, Frank, Freinsheime, and Textor, were called to it; a professors.h.i.+p for State and Popular law, the first founded in Germany, was established; and entrusted to the celebrated originator of this new doctrine, Samuel Puffendorf. A freer spirit arose in both speech and writing; and Carl Ludwig laid it under no restraint.
New agitations of the time, again disturbed this happy condition of the university; the political rule changed with the personal affairs of the princes; and literature felt the influence of this, in the strongest and most immediate manner. The teaching of philosophy was at a later period made over to the Lazarists; a dark reaction commenced against the liberal spirit; and at the same time that the peculiar speculative element of Heidelberg university fell into the shade, the empirical sciences rose up again into new existence on all sides.
A society had already, in 1734, established itself under the auspices of Professor Heuresius, for the cultivation of the history of the Fatherland, which however fell again. In 1769, a philosophical and economical society was founded in Lautern; and in 1774, a school of state economy. Both of these were removed to Heidelberg in 1784, and richly furnished with books and collections. From Heidelberg went forth the first impulse towards a scientific treatment of the doctrines of State economy.
The House of Zahringen now stepping into possession of the Pfalz, thus presided over the university. The second of the newly acquired territories, the Breisgau, erected in the university of Freiburg a rival to Heidelberg; a circ.u.mstance which was not without its effect on the latter. By the removal of the Catholic seminary to Freiburg, the scope and operation of the theological Faculty in Heidelberg were strikingly constringed; but only the stronger, and in this respect in opposition to the Freiburg university, and in more conspicuous superiority, advanced the other Faculties of Heidelberg, especially the judicial and medicinal, and of the philosophical, the section of state economy; which last, through the new organization of the university, const.i.tuted an especial department, and was placed in rank, at the head of the philosophical. This scientific tendency has raised itself on the preponderating necessity of the nation and the times; upon it grounded itself the fame and consideration of Heidelberg in foreign countries; and the new government was sagacious enough not to disturb this natural and historical position of the university by ill-timed interference.
The demands of modern education were so far conceded to, that, by calling into it men of the highest celebrity in all departments, a combination of the various ruling tendencies of the spirit of the times, a universality of studies, was attempted. The two Vosses were won in order to give new splendour to the university, and demonstrate the taste for cla.s.sicality; and a new impetus was given to the novel speculative tendencies in philosophy and theology.
But it soon became sufficiently convincing that these elements of education did not naturally a.s.similate themselves to the scientific life of Heidelberg, but were only artificially engrafted; that Heidelberg has not its mission to represent in itself the spirit of modern science and art; but the simple vocation of working out education and accomplishment suited to the necessities and interests of the practical life of the state and of civil offices, in both their wider and their more circ.u.mscribed spheres. It was then suffered to retain the character which it had established for itself, and those endeavours to force it into directions which did not naturally originate in its own bosom and nature, were discontinued. Thus it came to pa.s.s that the philosophy and the speculative theology altogether dragged; that the cla.s.sical and antiquarian studies became one-sided; that even in the practical sciences certain methods became prevalent; that the electrical shocks of the stream of the new literary topics and of scientific revolutions in vain thundered and lightened and raged round the professors of the old--professors who, from their isolated stools, smiled over that rus.h.i.+ng and confused scene of excitement; and that the men of modern culture, the genial spirits, the speculative heads, with one voice called down anathemas on that Heidelberg Philisterium. But this anathematized Heidelberg Philisterium yet possesses an internal strength and freshness, with which the hollow inflation of the _soi-disant_ intellectual world found it difficult to measure itself; these old gentlemen, who seem so far removed from the spirit of the age, yet rest themselves in the real soil of the time, in the spirit of the period, in the progression of political and social life, far deeper than those genialists who in high-sounding theories and systems imagine that they have seized on the world-spirit. This scientific life which seems to stagnate, flows on without intermission noiselessly, steadily, but not by fits and starts.
Hoffmann.--The old gentlemen shall live, and to their health we will rub a salamander. Every one prepare a half-gla.s.s, and then I will command.
All seize their gla.s.ses, which are half-filled. They rub with them on the table in circles before them, all the time saying--”Salamander, salamander, salam--,” Hoffmann commands, One, two, three! and at the three the gla.s.ses are emptied; One, two, three! they are again set down on the table altogether with a clap, where they continue rattling with them, till the command again One, two, three! when they are all lifted aloft, and at the final command once more set down altogether on the table with a thump.
CHAPTER XX.
NEW YEAR'S EVE CONTINUED.--UNIVERSITY STORIES.--VON PLAUEN.
Hoffmann.--I will now, for a change, give some pa.s.sages from the life and deeds of a hero, whom, were I a Zacharia, I would celebrate in a no less magnificent epic than he has done the exploits of his Renommist.
The Herr von Plauen, to whom I allude, studied for more than ten years here, and enacted more mad pranks than the whole united university besides would have been able to do. He was a little, broad-set fellow, of prepossessing exterior and expressive countenance, who stood particularly well with the ladies. His uncommon strength; his accomplishment in all bodily exercises; his overflowing humour continually gus.h.i.+ng forth in witty conceits, procured him a constant good reception in the student world, and in the social circles of the city; and he long played in his Ch.o.r.e, as well as in the ball-room, a distinguished part, till his total sacrifice of character, and his really reprehensible actions, which were all alike to him so long as they carried him to his object, completed his ruin. By his strength he frequently put to shame the travelling Hercules who exhibit their powers for money; since, poising himself on a perpendicular pole, he would stretch himself out horizontally, so as to form a right angle with the pole, and at his pleasure, could double up strong silver coins. In the gymnastic ground, which yet existed, no one could stand against him; and in the fencing-school he beat down every one's guard.
As he once travelled in the Upper-Rhine country without a pa.s.sport, and a _gendarme_ on horseback, would have detained him, he threw both the man and his horse into the ditch by the roadside, and so left them. He was especially expert in the then so-much-liked shooting of geese, and thus made many a Philistine the poorer. Understand me right, Mr.
Traveller; to shoot, in studenten phrase, means to abstract without yet doing any thing unjust or contrary to honour; since, especially in the olden times, this was a student custom. Small things, as penknives, sticks, etc., if they were not dedicated, were shootable. One might take them from another, and with the words--”This is shot,” he took possession of them. It may easily be conceived that it was only the elder students who indulged themselves in this practice against the Foxes, and no one could secure himself from this Spartan plundering but by instantly declaring a thing, which another seemed to have a design upon,--unshootable.
Von Kronen.--This expression dates itself from the practices of the schools of the fifteenth century. As then the teacher, with his helpers, was only engaged by the inhabitants of a place there for a year or so; so if the parties disagreed, the master, with his a.s.sistants, to whom generally a number of boys added themselves, proceeded from land to land, and supported themselves with alms, with singing before the houses, and with all manner of petty plunderings.
The scholars, who stood expressly under the protection of the a.s.sistants, must deliver to them geese, ducks, hens, and the like, which they became very expert in carrying off from the villages, and which, in their language, they termed shooting.
Hoffmann.--I have never before heard of this custom of antiquity. It is a pity that so beautiful a practice is become obsolete, or I could, as a musician, make most profitable use of it.
Freisleben:--
Friends beloved! there were finer times once Than are these times--that must be conceded,-- And a n.o.bler people lived ere we did.
Hoffmann.--But to come back to our story. Herr von Plauen possessed a more admirable dexterity in shooting than any of the schoolboys just referred to could possibly have; and no wonder,--as they were only schoolboys, and he was a student. Plenty of stories are related of him; how he twisted the neck of many a living goose, and popped them under his cloak; how with ladder and hook, he brought many a plucked goose down from the lofty store-room; yes, and how he came most easily at one ready stuffed and roasted.
On Holy St. Nicholas's-day, a worthy citizen of the place, whose little son also was called Nicholas, prepared a feast for some guests, the chief ornament of which was a goose, as fine as ever gabbled and screamed in the Pfalz. The goose was carried up; the guests had not, however, yet made their appearance, but the little son was impatient, and howling and crying desired a slice from the goose. The father strove in vain to quiet him; he howled and cried on. ”Then,” said the old man, ”I will give the goose to the Pelznickel.” (In our country there goes from house to house, on St. Nicholas's-day, fellows in disguise, who inquire into the past behaviour of the children, and give to the good ones apples, nuts, and little cakes, but warn the bad and threaten them with the rod. These disguised personages are styled Pelznickel.) With the word the old man set the dish with the goose in it on the outside of the window! This frightened the little one; he promised to be quiet if the father would take the goose in again; whereupon the father reached the dish in again, but to his astounding, the goose was gone! It was already rapidly on its way to the city of Dusseldorf, (a Wirthshaus in Heidelberg), where the Herr von Plauen and his companions found it smack right delectably with their red wine.
A similar pa.s.sage once befell our hero in the village Schlangenbach, where he was for a long time the guest of the Amtmann. They both, he and the Amtmann, who had himself been a l.u.s.ty student, made a call on the Frau Pfarrerin, the parson's lady. They talked of this and that; of husbandry, and of poultry and geese. ”Ay,” said the parson's lady, ”I have a goose hanging above; you may match it if you can. But with what care and labour have I fed it myself; and stuffed it myself with the best Indian corn that was to be got. But, gentlemen, you shall judge for yourselves. I invite you next Sunday to discuss this famous goose.”
”And yet,” said Plauen, ”I will wager that the Amtmann has one that is quite as good.”
”Impossible!” exclaimed the Frau Pfarrerin.
”Amtmann,” rejoined Plauen, ”you won't admit that! I challenge you to invite the Frau Pfarrerin and her husband to-morrow, Sat.u.r.day, also to eat a goose, and we will afterwards see which goose is the best.”
”Done!” said the Amtmann.
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