208 The university of Berlin. 
Hermann Ludwig Hwlmholtz. 
in accomplishing this work they have ren- 
dered invaluable services, they have, as a 
rule, assumed a hostile attitude toward the 
champions of independent thought. 
When, therefore, the rumor spread in the 
first years of the present century that King 
Friedrich Wilhelm the Third intended to 
found a new university at Berlin, a num- 
ber of prominent scholars, connected with 
already existing universities, seized the op- 
portunity to present their views concerning 
the disadvantages of the old system, and 
the reforms which they believed necessary 
to insure their permanent abolishment. All 
were convinced that the German universi- 
ties had in the past failed to fulfill the high- 
est purpose of which they were capable, and 
that the only way to infuse vitality into the 
new institution was to found it, without regard 
for tradition, upon entirely new principles 
which should embody the latest results of 
modern experience. 
The first effort of the king, when the reso- 
tution to found 
not therefore allow himself to be frightened 
by the expulsion from Jena or the accusation 
of atheism. Among theologians, Schleier- 
macher had gained a great reputation as 
an eloquent author of liberal opinions, 
and more especially by his efforts to recon- 
cile Christianity with the latest results of 
science. When Napoleon suspended the 
University of Halle, which had displeased 
him, Schleiermacher lost his position as pro- 
fessor of theology. He had thus a double 
claim to consideration on the part of the 
government toward which he had in such 
dangerous times testified his loyalty. Among 
jurists, Savigny was the greatest name, and 
he was accordingly invited to accept a seat 
in the faculty of law. It was on the same 
principle that Hufeland, the physician-in- 
ordinary to the king, and a man equally 
prominent in practical philanthropy and in 
theoretic science, was offered a professor- 
ship in the medical faculty. An effort was 
also made to secure the permanent services 
of Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose philologi- 
cal and aesthetic writings had proved him a 
scholar of extraordinary versatility and 
thoroughness. No one had taken a livelier 
interest in the affairs of the university than 
he, and there is no doubt that it was he who, 
in his diplomatic capacity as minister of in- 
struction, finally made an end of the king´s 
Theodor Mommsen.