The German Emperor as Shown in His Public Utterances

The Hundredth Anniversary of the Founding of the University of Berlin

Berlin, October 11, 1910

The active interest which the Emperor has always taken in higher education in Germany is evident in the following address. If he has given it a powerful organization he has taken from it by unconscious processes a large measure of its earlier freedom. The professorial caste has always been highly influential. During the Emperor’s reign it has been pressed into his service. Its present system of organization and its connection with the government puts the Emperor, or at least the minister appointed by him, in a position to distribute rewards. It is said that there are practically no Social Democrats teaching in higher institutions of learning.

In the early years of its foundation the university of Berlin rendered immense services to the patriotic cause, especially through the work of Fichte and Schleiermacher.

To my loyal Frederick-William University, I offer greeting and congratulations on this its hundredth anniversary!

From the day of its founding its fortunes have been intimately bound up with those of the Prussian-German Fatherland. When my ancestor King Frederick William III called it into existence a hundred years ago, he did so in order to compensate the state with spiritual powers for what she had lost in physical power. Thus the University of Berlin was born out of the same creative genius from which sprung the regeneration of Prussia. And this spirit, which raised up Prussian Germany and which lived in Fichte, Schleiermacher, Savigny, and their friends, made the university even in a few years the centre of the spiritual and intellectual life of the Fatherland.

Truly, the University of Berlin was still far from being a universitas litterarum in the sense of William von Humboldt, but it has come ever nearer and nearer to this ideal. A stronghold of wisdom, she has won, far beyond the boundaries of Prussia and Germany, an international significance. Through the exchange of teachers and students these relations are visible externally. Through the activity which it shares in common with the rest of the universities of the country it now forms the “general institute of learning” which was intended at its founding.

In the meantime Humboldt’s plan, which comprised besides the university the totality of intellectual institutions, has not yet come to complete realization, and these hours of consecration seem to me especially fitted for preparing the way for the completion of what appeared to him as the goal.

His great educational plan demanded, besides the academies of learning and the university, independent institutes for research as an integral part of the general educational organization. The founding of such institutions has not kept pace in Prussia with the development of the universities, and this defect, especially in our natural-science equipment, is becoming more and more noticeable as a result of the powerful forging ahead of the sciences. We need institutions which reach out beyond the limits of the universities, institutions untrammelled by aims of instruction, yet in close touch with the academy and the university, which shall serve entirely for research.

To call such research institutes into being as soon as possible seems to me a sacred duty of the present, and I hold it as my task, as father of my country, to bespeak the general interest for this undertaking. This high aim requires great expense and can be accomplished only if all circles interested in the progress of the sciences and in the welfare of the Fatherland are ready to co-operate in this significant task and to make sacrifices for it. I should like, therefore, to-day to lay upon the conscience and place before the eyes of every one the new aim with the impressive warning: “Tua res agitur.” I hope and firmly trust that this work will succeed; indeed, although the plans have been disclosed only to a limited circle, from various parts of the country I have already received enthusiastic expressions of support and very considerable means; between nine and ten million have been placed at my disposal. I feel the need of expressing here in this place my warmest thanks to these unselfish donors.

But to secure lasting support for this undertaking, it is my wish, under my protection and my name, to found a society which shall set for itself the task of erecting and maintaining institutions for research. To this society I will gladly turn over the money given me for that purpose. To see to it that the institutions so founded shall not lack help from the state will be the care of my reign.45

So may to-day be not only an occasion of jubilation for the University of Berlin, but may it also signify a further step in the development of German spiritual life!

And still one wish more I give to the university on its way into a new century. May she, in loyal remembrance of the time of her founding, preserve her Prussian-German character! Learning is, indeed, the common property of the whole cultural world, and her acquisitions to-day halt at no boundaries. And yet—as every nation must preserve its own manner of life if it would emphasize its independent existence and its value for the whole—may the alma mater Berolinensis remain forever conscious that she is a German university. As formerly, so may she be for all time the seat of German manners and of German art! And may every one who has the honor to investigate, to teach, and to study within her walls devote himself to his task, filled with the sense for truth and for thoroughness with the earnestness and the love for all work which Goethe prized as the ornament of our people.

May the university further exercise her splendid privilege of fostering true knowledge, which, as Humboldt has so well said, comes from man’s inner being to be planted again in his inner being, which creates and reshapes character. Let her do this with that noble freedom which sets laws unto itself and with that sense of exaltation which comes from being the administrator of a treasure which belongs to the whole of humanity. “Communis hominum thesaurus situs est in magnis veritatibus.”46 But all truth is God’s, and His spirit rests upon every work which is grounded in and strives toward the truth. May this spirit of truth live also in you students; may it be found in all the workings of my dear institution of learning! Then will her age be like her youth; she shall remain a city upon the hill, to which the peoples make pilgrimage, and an ornament and treasure of the Fatherland.

Notes

45 On the Emperor’s initiative, the Emperor William Society for the furthering of the sciences was founded. It has already called into being two scientific institutes, the Emperor William Institute for Chemistry and the Emperor William Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrical Chemistry. They were dedicated by the Emperor, October 23, 1912.

46 This phrase is taken from Leibnitz’s dedication of the Miscellanea Berolinensia to King Frederick I.