On turning to Germany, we observe no such laxity in the use of the term “professor.”  He, and he only, is professor who “professes” to have made himself eminent in his special branch, and whose claims have been allowed officially by a university or by the government.  He is not even a teacher in the English or American sense.  He is a scholar and investigator who has produced results worthy of distinction, and it is upon the strength of those results, and not because of his real or supposed ability to impart knowledge and stimulate industry among students, that he receives his call to a university chair.[1]

[Footnote 1:  The circumstance that some of the gymnasium-teachers in Germany have the title of “professor” does not affect the above view.  The title has been expressly conferred upon them by the government as a mark of special distinction, either for long services or for unusual scholarship—­in most cases for the latter.  Where schools of the highest order are so numerous as they are in Germany, it is not surprising that they should count among their teachers men of profound scholarship.  The official recognition paid to such men is only an additional proof of the care with which the title is used.  It is given to the teacher, not so much because he is a good teacher, as because he has done something over and above school-room work.]

The words of one who is himself a leading professor in one of the most renowned universities are so explicit upon this point that they deserve to be translated and carefully studied.  Heinrich von Sybel, in his academic address delivered at Bonn in 1868, says:  “The excellence of our universities is to be found in the fact that they are not mere institutions where instruction is given, but are workshops of science[2]—­that their vital principle is unceasing scientific productivity.  Hence it is that the state assembles the best men of all Germany as professors at its universities, so that the phenomenon, common enough in England and France, of a distinguished savant without a university chair is with us a very unusual exception.  Hence it is that in appointing to such a chair the first and last demand is for published evidences of such activity.  As for the so-called ability to teach (Lehrtalent im formellen Sinne), we are satisfied if it is not utterly and notoriously wanting.  The question upon which everything turns is, Has the candidate given evidence of his capacity for original investigation and production?  Whoever has this capacity is sufficiently qualified, according to our German notions, for fulfilling the essential function of university instruction.”

[Footnote 2:  Science is used here in the broad German sense to denote any study, whether in the direction of natural phenomena, history or philosophy, which is pursued systematically and with a view to eliciting truth.]