Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/883

Rh Polish kingdom. When Prussia was raised to the rank of a kingdom (1701) the university was made a royal foundation, and the "collegium Fridericianum," which was then erected, received corresponding privileges. In 1862 the university buildings were rebuilt, and the number of the students is now nearly one thousand.

The Lutheran university of Jena had its origin in a gymnasium founded by John Frederick the Magnanimous, elector of Saxony, during his imprisonment, for the express purpose of promoting Evangelical doctrines and repairing the loss of Wittenberg, where the Philippists had gained the ascendency. Its charter, which the emperor Charles V. refused to grant, and which was obtained with some difficulty from his brother, Ferdinand I., eventually enabled the authorities to open the university, 2d February 1558. Distinguished for its vehement assertion of Lutheran doctrine, its hostility to the teaching of Wittenberg was hardly less pronounced than that with which both centres regard Roman Catholicism. For a long time it was chiefly noted as a school of medicine, and in the 17th and 18th centuries it was in bad repute for the lawlessness of its students, among whom duelling prevailed to a scandalous extent. The beauty of its situation and the eminence of its professoriate have, however, generally attracted a considerable proportion of students from other countries. Its numbers in 1885 were 566.

The Lutheran university of Helmstädt, founded by Duke Julius (of the house of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel), and designated after him in its official records as "Academia Julia," received its charter, 8th May 1575, from the emperor Maximilian II. No university in the 16th century commenced under more favourable auspices. It was munificently endowed by the founder and by his son; and its "Convictorium," or college for poor students, expended in the course of thirty years no less than 100,000 thalers, an extraordinary expenditure for an institution of such a character in those days. Beautifully and conveniently situated in what had now become the well-peopled region between the Weser and the lower Elbe, and distinguished by its comparatively temperate maintenance of the Lutheran tenets, it attracted a considerable concourse of students, especially from the upper classes, not a few being of princely rank. Throughout its history, until suppressed in 1809, Helmstädt enjoyed the special and powerful patronage of the dukes of Saxony.

The "Gymnasium Ægidianum" of Nuremberg, founded in 1526, and removed in 1575 to Altdorf, represents the origin of the university of Altdorf. A charter was granted in 1578 by the emperor Rudolph II., and the university was formally opened in 1580. It was at first, however, empowered only to grant degrees in arts; but in 1623 the emperor Ferdinand II. added the permission to create doctors of law and medicine, and also to confer crowns on poets; and in 1697 its faculties were completed by the permission given by the emperor Leopold I. to create doctors of theology. Like Louvain, Altdorf was nominally ruled by the municipality, but in the latter university this power of control remained practically inoperative, and the consequent freedom enjoyed by the community from evils like those which brought about the decline of Louvain is thus described by Hamilton: "The decline of that great and wealthy seminary (Louvain) was mainly determined by its vicious patronage, both as vested in the university and in the town. Altdorf, on the other hand, was about the poorest university in Germany, and long one of the most eminent. Its whole endowment never rose above £800 a year; and, till the period of its declension, the professors of Altdorf make at least as distinguished a figure in the history of philosophy as those of all the eight universities of the British empire together. On looking closely into its constitution the anomaly is at once solved. The patrician senate of Nuremberg were too intelligent and patriotic to attempt the exercise of such a function. The nomination of professors, though formally ratified by the senate, was virtually made by a board of four curators; and what is worthy of remark, as long as curatorial patronage was a singularity in Germany, Altdorf maintained its relative pre-eminence, losing it only when a similar mean was adopted in the more favoured universities of the empire."

The conversion of Marburg into a school of Calvinistic doctrine gave occasion to the foundation of the universities of Giessen and of Rinteln. Of these the former, founded by the margrave of Darmstadt, Louis V., as a kind of refuge for the Lutheran professors from Marburg, received its charter from the emperor Rudolph II., 19th May 1607. When, however, the margraves of Darmstadt acquired possession of Marburg in 1625, the university was transferred thither; in 1650 it was moved back again to Giessen. The number of matriculated students at the commencement of the century was about 250; in 1887 it was 484. In common with the other universities of Germany, but with a facility which obtained for it a specially unenviable reputation, Giessen was for a long time wont to confer the degree of doctor in absentia in the different faculties without requiring adequate credentials. This practice, however, which drew forth an emphatic protest from the eminent historian Mommsen, has within the last few years been entirely abandoned. The university of Rinteln was founded 17th July 1621 by the emperor Ferdinand II. Almost immediately after its foundation it became the prey of contending parties in the Thirty Years War, and its early development was thus materially hindered. It never, however, attained to much distinction, and in 1819 it was suppressed. The university of Strasburg was founded in 1621 on the basis of an already existing academy, to which the celebrated John Sturm stood, during the latter part of his life, in the relation of "rector perpetuus," and of which we are told that in 1578 it included more than a thousand scholars, among whom were 200 of the nobility, 24 counts and barons, and three princes. It also attracted students from all parts of Europe, and especially from Portugal, Poland, Denmark, France, and England. The method of Sturm's teaching became the basis of that of the Jesuits, and through them of the public school instruction in England. In 1621 Ferdinand II. conferred on this academy full privileges as a university; in the language of the charter, "in omnibus facultatibus, doctores, licentiates, magistros, et baccalaureos, atque insuper poetas laureates creandi et promovendi." In 1681 Strasburg became French, and remained so until 1870.

The university of Dorpat (now Russian) was founded by Gustavus Adolphus in 1632, and reconstituted by the emperor Alexander I. in 1802. A special interest attaches to this university from the fact that it has for a long time been the scene of the contending influences of Teutonism and Slavonianism. Situated in Livonia, which at the time of its foundation represented a kind of debateable land between Russia and Poland, its gradual monopoly by the former country has not been without resistance and protests on the part of that Teutonic element which was at one time the more potent in its midst. The study of the Slavonic languages has here received considerable stimulus, and by a decree in May 1887 the use of the Russian language having been made obligatory in all places of instruction through the Baltic provinces, Russian has now taken the place of German as the language of the lecture-room. Dorpat possesses a fine library of over 80,000 volumes, and is also noted for its admirable botanical collection. The