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the small university-towns, such as Heidelberg or Göttingen, they are of but little moment in shaping the character of the students. Those who come provided with good letters of introduction and are prone to society, will naturally improve their opportunities for social intercourse. In the main, however, the students keep to themselves, and rather shun than seek personal contact with their professors. They are in Germany, as everywhere, clannish beyond measure, shy, self-satisfying. They are not there to go into society. All the more do they associate with one another. It would be difficult to find a student who is not a member of some Corps, or Verbindung, or Burschenschaft, or Gesellschaft. They are continually lounging about in one another's rooms or drinking beer together in some Kneipe. The Corps might not inaptly be compared to the secret societies of American colleges, in all but the secrecy. No secret societies—that is, such whose object and meeting-place and proceedings are unknown--would be tolerated in Germany, for more than one political reason. But as regards social standing, collegiate influence, and unity of action, the Corps-students are certainly the counterpart of the secret-society men of America. Inferior in point of numbers to the outsiders, the savages (Wilden), as they are called, the Corps-students take the lead in every thing, by force of organization and pluck. The difference between a Verbindung and a Corps varies with the several universities them selves. At some, indeed, the terms are almost equivalent. It may, perhaps, give the clearest idea of the difference, to say that a Corps is an old-established student organization, which has regular officers, a fixed place of meeting, and a badge of colors, and which stands closely connected with the general Corpssystem throughout Germany. These Corps have a tolerably well-developed, practical Corpus Juris of their own, hold a general S. C., or Senior-Convent for Germany, once a-year, to which each university sends one or more delegates, and enforce their discipline rigor

ously. Each university has some seven or eight of these Corps, while the number of members in any one Corps may vary from ten to fifty. Each Corps stands in what is called cartel with some corresponding Corps in another university. This means that when, for instance, a member of the Heidelberg Vandals leaves that university and comes to Göttingen, he is entitled to all the privileges of the Göttingen Bremenser. He is treated as though originally a member of the latter Corps. This cartel union resembles somewhat the chapter-system of our secret societies.

I have gone somewhat into the details of this phase of student-life in Germany, mainly for the purpose of better explaining another of its prominent features. I allude to the practice of duelling. One who has never been in Germany, or who is at least unacquainted with this ramified system of societies, will find it impossible to understand how and why so many duels can be fought. I am guilty of no exaggeration in saying that during my first semester in G, in the winter of 1861-1862, a Mensur or duelling reunion came off nearly every day. A new Verbindung had been started, called tho Normans, with an ex-Heidelberg student named Mendelssohn as its captain. The Normans were determined to fight their way through, as the saying goes, and Mendelssohn, who enjoyed the reputation of being the coollest Schläger in Germany, was determined to lead them in style. Report subsequently asserted that he himself had fought some thirtyodd duels in the course of that winter, without receiving a hurt. The old established Corps were evidently putting the new-comers upon their mettle. Now it must be borne in mind that the chief object of the Corps is to keep up a somewhat vague ideal standard of student excellence, physical and social. One of the items of this excellence consists in the unwillingness to abide an insult and the ability to punish it. The modern German student is only a descendant of the medieval knight-errant. It is considered ungentlemanly to resent an insult from one's equal on the spot, especially

with such plebeian weapons as fists and canes. Nothing but swords or pistols are fit instruments of satisfaction for a gentleman and a student. With such principles and such organization, what wonder, then, that the university life appears at times to be made up of quarrels? Certain words or phrases are laid down in the code of honor as unavoidably calling for a challenge. Prominent among them is the fearful insult, "dummer Junge," which means simply "stupid fellow." It is strange but perfectly true, that it is a far less heinous offence to call a man a liar than to say to him "dummer Junge." It is an entertainment sui generis to witness a midnight rencontre between two befuddled students of rival Corps. The one touches the other slightly with his elbow in passing, or pretends to take off his cap to make a profound salutation, or does something to call for an explanation. Then the chaffing begins. Herr Westphale congratulates Herr Teuton upon his fine complexion, to which the latter responds with an affectionate inquiry touching the condition of Herr Westphale's organs of locomotion. This is met by the request to count the number of stars in the Milky Way. Thereupon Herr Teuton wishes to know who last called Herr Westphale a beer boy. And thus the remarks grow more and more pointed, until Herr Westphale calls Herr Teuton a "dummen Jungen;" whereupon Herr Teuton immediately demands his card, and the duel comes off in a few days or a few weeks. One half, yes, two thirds of the duels originate in mere trifles. It is not an uncommon incident, that a Corpscaptain, seeing his men become rusty in their sword-practice, sends a batch of five or six challenges to some other Corps, picks out his own men, and thus gets up a fighting-match in cold blood. Pistolduels occur very seldom; so also sabreduels. They are brought about only by the gravest bona fide insults. The usual weapon is the Schläger, a straight-bladed weapon about as long as a rapier and three quarters of an inch in width. It has no point, and has only one edge sharpened for a distance of some twenty

inches from the end. The guard is a hanging one, the hand being held above and in front of the head and the sword suffered to hang down almost perpendicularly. The chest and neck are protected by padding; the right arm is covered with a long fencing-glove, while the left is held behind the body. The eyes are protected by heavy iron spectacles. Thus accoutred, the two combatants stand opposite to each other; the floor between is chalked. Back of each stands his second, to one side is the umpire, holding a watch. The signal being given, the duellants take two steps forward, and come within sword-reach, and the work begins. As soon as the umpire sees that the Schläger have become caught, or that one of the combatants has been touched, he cries Halt, and the two seconds separate the principals, and draw them back. The time lost in these intervals between the passes is not counted in. The rule is that the combatants must fight fifteen minutes by the watch, or until one receives a bad wound, of which the surgeon in attendance is the judge. While the duel is taking its course, the spectators are amusing themselves in various ways, either in applauding some dexterous parry, or laughing at the flat strokes of a greenhand, or quietly conversing upon other matters. Smoking and beer-drinking are of course in full activity.

The general impression which one receives from these passages at arms is both disgusting and painful. There is a coarseness, a brutality about them which cannot but shock the stranger, whatever the Germans themselves may think. The motives are so puerile, the disfigurement of the human face so excessive, that we only wonder how such a system can now-a-days be tolerated. There are symptoms, however, of a reform. Many of the worst features are being abolished, one by one, by the students themselves, while the faculties are much less tolerant than they were thirty or fifty years ago, when the Jena students used to fight in broad daylight, upon a platform in front of the town-hall. Now, the meetings are at least kept secret, and nine out of

ten are harmless affairs. We must remember that the German student is not a creation of yesterday; that his manners, habits, and ideas have been handed down with true class-tenacity from a time when every body wore shortswords and fought duels. Dueling at a German university is a relic of barbarism which will not stand many years longer. Many of the outside students the Wilden-do not duel, and even the Corps-students themselves are wearying of it.

It is not an easy undertaking to characterize fairly and fully the merits or demerits of seven hundred young men, gathered from all quarters of a vast empire. Many of their customs and ideas are so novel to the American mind as to produce an impression of grotesqueness, even of absurdity. I have already briefly indicated what might be said of their intellectual capacity. It only remains to say a few words about their social qualities. German students, as a class of course, are somewhat free-andeasy in their manners, yet punctilious in the forms of student-etiquette, given to loud talking and deep potations, goodnatured, especially towards strangers, and deficient in real gentlemanly polish. Those who come from the upper classes, the nobility, are selfish and overbearing; those from the lower are rather unkempt, while there is almost no middle class to hold the balance. There are few men in the universities who correspond, in the matter of personal independence and refinement, to the sons of our wellto-do doctors, lawyers, merchants, and clergymen-men who have good social instincts and tastes, enough money to gratify them in moderation, and no classdignity, as such, to sustain. I have no hesitancy in saying that the great defect in the German university system, more especially outside of Prussia, is precisely this want of a middle class, which may elevate the poorer students and hold the nobility in check.

No one, particularly no American, should visit a German university for the purpose of study, without having a clear, definite plan of work, an aim of study

mapped out before him. In the first place, the encouragements to idleness are unusually great, and are not at all diminished by the difficulty of learning things in a foreign language. But what is still more decisive, the course of instruction is so radically different from our own, that the stranger experiences much difficulty in adapting himself to it. Accustomed to working all his life in a tread-mill curriculum of recitations, he is bewildered by the number of lectures and the variety of topics. There seems to him to be a hopeless want of system in the whole. A little experience will soon convince him that there is a plan, a very profound and thorough one too, underlying this apparent confusion of lectures. One who has decided upon his vocation, for instance medicine or theology, will in a short time discover the best order in which to hear lectures, and what lectures he may omit without detriment. But one who comes to the university with the notion of merely picking up a general education, will find himself at sea. There are, to be sure, courses upon every conceivable subject, but they cannot all be heard at once, and there is no scheme of study by which to obtain a general survey. In a word, a German university is a place for fitting one's self for a profession or for pursuing some special line of investigation, and not a place for gaining mere so-called mental discipline. Those Americans who derive substantial benefit from their student-life in Germany, are simply those who settle upon their profession and give to it their undivided energies. The others, who have no special aim, are only too apt to degenerate into idlers, although often starting out with the best intentions and with good abilities. I feel perfectly warranted in asserting, that he who comes to the university with a fair knowledge of the language, and then studies some one predetermined branch regularly and energetically, at the same time sharing in the thousand and one innocent diversions and holidays of German life, will subsequently revert to his university career as the best-spent, the cheeriest period of his student-life.

LITERATURE.

The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication. By CHARLES DARWIN, M. A., F. R. S., &c. Authorized Edition, with a Preface by Professor ASA GRAY. In two volumes, with illustrations. (Orange Judd & Company, 245 Broadway.) Readers of Darwin's "Origin of Species" will remember that that work only professed to be a very general statement of a theory which needed a great deal of elaboration and illustration; so much indeed that the author was in doubt whether his life and health would serve him long enough to carry out his plan, and therefore gave us the outline of his theory, which, if circumstances favored, he promised in time to fill out. The present work is the first instalment of the complete work. Consisting of two volumes of more than one thousand pages in all, it only covers the first chapter of the original work, which treated of variation under Domestication. In a second work he now proposes to treat of the variation of Plants and Animals in a state of nature, i. e. of natural selection. In a third work he will apply the principles established in the second to several large and independent classes of facts, such as the geological succession of organic beings, their distribution in past and present time, and their mutual affinities and homologies. He has, indeed, set himself an almost endless task, and one that would certainly discourage a less earnest and calmly enthusiastic man. All lovers of the truth will pray that he may live to bring it to completion; for though the fairness of his dealings and the fascinations of his theory have drawn after him a host of followers, many of whom are doubtless capable of carrying on this work, even from this point, in a very creditable manner, yet it is hardly to be hoped that another could bring to it Darwin's own peculiar fitness for the task.

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The scope of the present work is so much narrower than the last, that it will be found, and especially the first volume, much less interesting. But the wonder is, that without the least apparent effort to make it interesting, it is so to such an extent. The first volume, in particular, is mainly a collection of facts showing to what extent animals and plants vary under domestication. But let no one think that these facts are such as none but men of science can comprehend and enjoy, for it is not so. It must be a very

dull understanding that does not care to note their orderly array. The wonder is that a book of this sort can so draw us to its author. In scientific works it is generally very little that we "read between the lines." But here it is quite different, and from the perusal of the book we have arisen with a sense that Darwin is one of those "persons one would wish to have seen," so deeply do his pages impress us with a sense of his perfect candor and sincerity. He is never a partisan, never a special pleader. He states the objections to his theory more strongly than they have ever been stated by any body else. His sole desire is evidently not to bolster up his theory, but to find out what is true. The character and spirit of such a man is a magnificent rebuke to those who prate of the demoralizing tendencies of science.

The

The first chapter in the first volume treats of the variations of domestic dogs and cats, and brings to light great numbers of interesting facts showing the extent and nature of variability in these animals, which however, as would naturally be expected from their wellknown habits of life, is much less noticeable in the feline than in the canine race. variations of the horse and ass under domestication, as reported in the second chapter, are still more to the point. Pigs, cattle, sheep, and goats are only briefly treated of; rabbits receive rather more attention; but the emphasis of Mr. Darwin's investigation is on the fifth and sixth chapters, which are devoted entirely to the variability of pigeons. The attention which our author has bestowed upon this subject has been most unstinted in its quantity, and in its quality of the highest. The results are commensurate with the earnestness and conscientiousness of his search. From the common rock-pigeon it is plain that there have descended varieties so unlike each other and so unlike their first progenitor, that, in a state of nature, they would be classed at once as different species. In the seventh and eighth chapters the variations of several races of birds are briefly indicated, also the variations of hive-bees and silk-moths. Chapters nine, ten, and eleven are devoted to the variations of different plants. From the nature of the first volume it will be seen that its worth must depend almost entirely on Darwin's qualities as an observer. It contains very little theory. And if we are not

mistaken, it is generally agreed that, however defective Darwin's general theory may be, we have no more indefatigable and accurate observer of the naked facts of animal and vegetable life than he. And the facts which are presented show an enormous amount of variation. The implied argument of the volume, of course, is: If man, with his limited command of the material, can bring about such changes by favoring this and frowning upon that peculiarity, what may not natural selection have done, with every secret in its hand and unlimited time in which to operate.

The second volume begins with a chapter on inheritance, in which the wonderful and complex character of this apparently simple fact is set forth with great ability. Then comes a chapter on that most wonderful group of facts and relations, for which Darwin uses the terms Reversion, or Atavism. He will probably find in Dr. Holmes an ardent admirer of this portion of his book, and in "The Guardian Angel," a true although fictitious illustration. The chapters on crossing and interbreeding, on hybridism, advantages and disadvantages of changed conditions of life, are full of interesting matter. The twentieth and twenty-first chapters show us what man can do, by favoring variations, towards the formation of new breeds. The laws of use and disuse are seen to play a most important part in variation. The chapter on correlated variability brings together many important observations which show how certain parts of various animal and vegetable organizations always, or nearly always, vary simultaneously. Sometimes the nature of this connection can be seen; but in the majority of cases it is hidden. From this law it follows that with our domesticated animals and plants varieties rarely or never differ from each other by some single character alone.

But that portion of these volumes which will probably excite the most attention and give rise to the greatest amount of discussion, is contained in the twenty-seventh chapter of the second volume, where the author sets forth his "Provisional Theory of Pagenesis." This theory is very intimately connected with all the preceding chapters in the second volume, being a bold attempt to account for the phenomena of inheritance, variability, and reversion. The theory is not entirely new. Buffon, Bonnet, Owen, and more explicitly Herbert Spencer, have hinted at the same thing. Darwin himself does not advance it with much assurance, but, seeing a great deal in its favor, gives it for what it is

worth. The theory implies that the whole organization, in the sense of every separate cell, reproduces itself; that ovules and pollen. grains, the fertilized seed or egg, as well as buds, consist of a multitude of germs thrown off from each separate atom of the organization. Whether this theory is justifiable o not, it is certain that if it can be established it will throw a great deal of light on many subjects that are now dark enough. The work closes with an excellent summary of its general contents, and with an earnest appeal for a fair hearing and an equally earnest caveat with reference to the question, whether every variation has been specially preor dained. Its publication by Orange Judd & Co. will probably introduce it into many quarters where it would not go if published as a purely scientific work. But such it is. It has no practical intent whatever, and yet it is a book which every intelligent farmer would do well to read; for if it does not furnish him with practical suggestions, it can but make him a more reverent worker in view of the great laws in which his humblest offices take root and grow.

A practical

The Book of Evergreens. Treatise on the Coniferæ, or Cone-bearing plants. By JOSIAH HOOPES, member of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Illustrated. (Orange Judd & Company, 245 Broadway.) Mr. Hoopes has performed a difficult and useful task in a very satisfactory manner. Although there are many foreign works devoted to the coniferæ, there has not been, up to this time, any American book on the subject giving descriptions of all the different species and varieties that will endure the climate of the Middle States. This want has now been supplied, and Mr. Hoopes deserves the thanks of his countrymen for having put before them a great deal of valuable information in a compact and handy shape. The introduction contains a brief but sufficient account of the botanical structure and classification of the order coniferæ, and also a statement of the different authors who have written books exclusively devoted to the subject. The first chapter-misprinted the second-is devoted to the very important matter of soil and planting, and contains excellent practical advice. Mr. Hoopes agrees with Downing in rejecting Loudon's advice to plant evergreens in the autumn, as unsuited to our climate; but he also disagrees with Downing in his recommendation of early spring plant. ing. After quoting Downing's remarks, Mr.

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