The conclusion of the training-system in the gymnasia usually occurs before the nineteenth or twentieth year.  With the reception of the certificate of maturity the youth may be said to have donned the virile toga.  He enjoys during his university years a degree of liberty such as he never enjoyed before, never will enjoy again when his student-days are over.  Having taken out his matriculation-papers, and given the Handschlag (taken the oath) to obey the laws of the land and the statutes of the university, he has become a student,—­a Fox, as the freshman is styled,—­he chooses his own career, his own professors, hears the lectures he pleases, attends or omits as he pleases, leads the life of a god for a triennium or a quadrennium, fights his duels, drinks his beer, sings his club-and-corps songs.—­But of student-life more in due time.—­There is no check, no constraint whatever, during the whole time the studies last.  At the expiration of three or four, sometimes even five years, an examination takes place before the degree of Doctor can be conferred,—­not a severe one by any means, confined as it is to the special branch to which the candidate wishes to devote himself.  In the Medical and Law Departments it is more serious than in the Philosophical.  This examination is followed by a public discussion in presence of the dean and professors of the faculty, held in Latin, on some thesis that has been treated and printed in the same language by the candidate.  His former fellow-students, and any one present that wishes, stand as opponents.  This disputation, whatever may have been its merits in former days, has degenerated in the present into a mere piece of acted mummery, where the partakers not only stutter and stammer over bad Latin, but even help themselves, when their memory fails utterly, with the previously written notes of their extempore objections and answers.  The principal requisite for the attainment of the Doctor’s degree, when the necessary amount of time has been given, in the Philosophical Faculty at least, is the fees, which often mount quite high.

From the ranks of such as have attained this title, for so it should be called, every office of any importance in the State is filled.  Through every ramification of the complicated system of government, recommendations and testimonials play the greatest role,—­the first necessary step for advancement being the completion of the university studies—­And by public functionaries must not be understood merely those holding high civil or military grades.  Every minister of the Church, every physician, chemist, pharmaceutist, law-practitioner of any grade, every professor and teacher, all, in fact, save those devoting themselves to the merely mechanical arts or to commercial pursuits, and even these, though with other regulations, receive their appointment or permission to exercise their profession from the State.  It is one huge clock-work, every wheel working into the next with the utmost precision.