Beside the lectures, there are also occasionally Seminaren, mostly conducted in Latin, where classical or Biblical authors are explained and read by the students, or where discussions take place, in presence of a professor, on philosophical, historical, or philological subjects,—­resembling, however, in nothing our debating-societies.

It is only since the middle of the last century that instruction in the higher branches has been usually carried on in German.  Latin was formerly in general use; it is now seldom made a medium.  There is occasionally a course delivered in English, Italian, or French,—­in Berlin often in one of the Sclavonic languages.  Modern Literature and Philology are by no means extensively cultivated.  Lectures on the Provencal, the Langue d’Oil, the Old-German, the Cyrillic, are not uncommon, though but poorly attended.  The study of the modern languages themselves must be pursued with private teachers.  A knowledge of these, as well as a thorough preparatory training in Latin and Greek, is presupposed.  Modern History, on the contrary, has of late years become an important branch of study.  The “Period of Revolutions” is fully treated every semester, and always draws crowds of students.  The spirit that animates them is the unity of the Fatherland.  Classical studies, though not holding the same undisputed ascendency as in former times, are yet very actively pursued, embracing Greek and Roman history and antiquities, comments on classical authors, lectures, critical and minute in the extreme, where every line is made the subject of microscopic investigation, and different readings are weighed and compared, with often an unlimited amount of abuse of editors who have differed in opinion from the lecturer.  The German philologers are not remarkable for mildness when speaking of each other; and many a one, as Haupt in Berlin, will enrich his vocabulary with ever-varying, new-coined epithets to characterize the ridiculousness, tameness, and stupidity of emendations proposed, and that, too, when speaking of such men as Orelli and Kirchner, his own colleagues in the profession.  A laugh raised at the expense of a brother is enough to justify the severest slash.  Comparative Philology, which owes its existence and progress to the labors of German scholars, and whose first representative, Bopp, is still living and teaching in Berlin, is more and more pursued of late.  Sanscrit is now taught universally; and lectures are delivered on the affinities of the Indo-Germanic languages with each other and with the mother-tongue of all.  A perceptible movement is being felt to introduce this study into the preparatory departments.  Such a change would result in a complete revolution of the methods formerly employed in elementary classical tuition.  The higher laws of affinity, as applied to the Romanic languages, are also daily more a matter of investigation.  Diez and Delius, in Bonn, are at the head of this movement.  In