Germany and the Revolution (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1820 edition. Excerpt: ... with most tenacity to the old system. This may partly be accounted for from what M. Goerres has said with respect to that university, and from the decided opposition of the Duke of Cambridge to the ge neral associations. In former times, Germany was con sidered an aggregate of four lands or leading provinces, namely, Saxony, Bavaria, Swabia, and Franconia, and the students at the universities were divided into associations (landsmannsc/zqfien), taking their names from these lands. The university of Glasgow would seem to have borrowed the division of its students into nations, as well as several other peculiarities, from Germany.-It would, indeed, be difficult to account for the division of Scotland into the four nations, of the Clyde, Rothsay, Lothian, and Beyond the Forth, on any other principle than that of imitation., _ E' In the north of Germany, plans of intellectual and moral improvement have been connected with public exercises. The universal diffusion of these exercises, to which has been given the name of turnen, (the German, or Latin origin of which has been much disputed, though in all probability it is derived, as well as tournament, from the Latin t0rna1-e, ) and the enthusiasm with which they were prosecuted, were attributed to the well-mownb wholly to deprive the goveriimentsof every thing like prudence or self-possession. The conflict of the times soon found its way to them, and they had therefore to choose their side. To the minds of youth, history appears in a subordinate light; and with their own life their particular history may be said to begin. That internal sense which perceives the future in the past, is slightly developed in them, and their whole I being may be said to be limited to a pre sent existence, ...