In the spring of 1792 the readers of one of Denmark’s most important periodicals noticed an anonymous proposal to abolish the University of Copenhagen ‘as being a foundation far too expensive for the state and, in addition, completely unnecessary and useless’.
1 Den danske Tilskuer (Copenhagen, 1792), nr. 29. Whereas such criticism was not uncommon, it generally appeared in a somewhat milder form. As early as in 1744 Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754), professor at the university and probably the foremost representative of Dano-Norwegian Enlightenment, had declared that lectures were meaningless and that most students showed up only to be noticed by the teachers and not to be taught.
Moreover, in such places they do not hear what they most demand to know, but rather what pleases the lecturer to recite. Not to mention that nowadays countless books have been written on all subjects, so that young people can read such books, which have been prepared diligently, with greater benefit than to hear what has been hastily compiled and read.
2 L. Holberg, Moralske Tanker (Copenhagen, 1744), II, p. 485. Whereas it is not clear whether his reluctance applies to the topics treated or the lectures as such, Holberg’s reasoning nevertheless testifies that doubts regarding the appropriateness of lectures had begun to arise, including among the university’s own teachers. In this regard, it is also worth mentioning that the great Swedish commission for upbringing (
Uppfostringskommissionen), which was appointed in 1745, also raised objections to the usefulness of the lecture in its present form.
3 B. Lindberg, Den akademiska läxan, pp. 123–31. The Scandinavian critique of the university, and in particular of the lecture, was nevertheless relatively modest compared with the exchange of words that took place in Germany, where a larger and more expanding book market had led many to question the role of the university as such. Although textbooks had been used at universities in some way or another since the Middle Ages, they had nevertheless been rare because they were often expensive or difficult to obtain, and they had never been perceived as viable alternatives to the academic lecture, but this was about to change as access to relevant knowledge and information through the medium of print had become far greater and much easier. That there were now alternative ways of acquiring knowledge was clearly expressed through the ever-decreasing number of students at German universities in the last decades of the eighteenth century.
4 For a more thorough presentation of the German debate on the relationship between the lecture and the textbook, see P. Josephson, ‘Böcker eller universitet? Om ett tema i tysk utbildningspolitisk debatt kring 1800’, Lýchnos (2009), 177–208.The question to be asked was why the university’s traditional way of teaching had come into disrepute. As long as the institution had existed, the method of knowledge transfer had been the same – and this had proved to work in line with the university’s objective, although this objective had not always been explicitly stated: the professor stood at his lectern and read from a manuscript, while the audience put what they heard down on paper – that is, if they were able to write fast enough, for it was not always a pure dictation where the lecturer adjusted the pace of his lecture to the students’ skills in noting. It is probably fair to say that the increasing access to other sources of knowledge and information had created a change in mentality: why attend a lecture when one can just as easily acquire the same knowledge by sitting in one’s armchair reading a book? Whereas this initially seems to be a rather innocent question about preferences, there was a further issue lurking just around the corner – namely why one should waste time attending a lecture when the professor has already made it clear that he did not intend to lecture on a topic that one has read about and found interesting.
This is not to say that the increasing access to knowledge and information necessarily developed into an interest in heterodox opinions. It was rather a general fascination with the new and contemporary in itself that helped to put the university in a bad light. The university was, after all, a conservative institution and it would remain so for a foreseeable future. To expect that a lecturer would offer something new and exciting, as well as the subsequent disappointment when this was not the case, was, according to the scholar Johann David Michaelis (1717–91), based on the prejudice that professors by virtue of their position were ‘discoverers of new truths’ (
Erfinder neuer Wahrheiten).
5 J. D. Michaelis, Raisonnement über die protestantischen Universitäten in Deutschland. Zweiter Theil (Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1770), p. 134. But the fact is that until it transformed itself into a modern research institution during the late nineteenth century, the university rested on the assumption that the truth was already known and that its most important task was to administer this truth as a possession and, in time, pass it on to new generations. This view was also shared by the philosopher Niels Treschow (1751–1833), professor in Copenhagen from 1803 to 1813, who told his students that there were no more discoveries to be made in philosophy: ‘Thus, when metaphysical opinions are presented as new truths, we must always expect that as soon as we have stripped them of the foreign costume in which they are made, they are either long known, or manifestly false.’
6 N. Treschow, Philosophiske Forsøg (Copenhagen, 1805), p. 6. Treschow was not opposed to textbooks, however, and played a crucial role in the Danish book market with several publications, but as will be shown below, there is still a number of examples of him dictating his lectures. The dictation was, after all, an appropriate way to convey knowledge, given the premise that the truth was already known, even though this in no way precluded other forms of presentation. It is also obvious that the dictation would hardly be appropriate if the lecture had been a more tentative presentation of knowledge that was not yet considered definitive. However, the lecture was not yet regarded as a way of arriving at the truth but a way to convey a truth that had already been found.
Many of those who at the end of the eighteenth century advocated a thorough reform of the German university agreed that the expanding book market challenged the traditional form of university teaching, but few still wanted to turn their backs on the lecture. As long as the book and the lecture undoubtedly competed for the same territory, i.e., the transfer of knowledge, it had to be possible to divide the territory between them in a way that gave each of them a rightful place. One possible argument was to admit that the book was an important transmitter of knowledge but at the same time emphasise that it did not make the lecture superfluous. As the writer and official Ernst Brandes (1758–1810) argued, it would seem a serious mistake to think that one could get acquainted with science on one’s own and only with the help of books.
Good books that to a certain extent will be able to replace the university’s teaching are not lacking, but what is remarkably lacking is the correct use of these books, and it is only the university that to a certain extent seems to be able to maintain a thorough study of the sciences.
7 E. Brandes, Ueber den gegenwärtigen Zustand der Universität Göttingen (Göttingen, 1802), p. 153. A medium of the kind that Brandes had found lacking was, however, already in existence, i.e. the meta-literature that flourished at the time and which dealt with the art of reading books. One such book, penned by the philosopher and publicist Johann Adam Bergk (1769–1834), contained i.a. chapters with titles such as ‘What is the purpose of reading philosophical books and how should they be read?’ and ‘In what way and in what order should one study Kant’s writings?’.
8 J. A. Bergk, Die Kunst, Bücher zu lesen. Nebst Bemerkungen über Schriften und Schriftsteller (München-Pullach, 1799), pp. 335, 355. This was obviously advices to readers who wanted to study on their own, independent of the university, but such publications also had their parallel in the academic world in that textbooks on logic had long included so-called ‘practical logic’. This sub-discipline had traditionally dealt with problems related to interpretation, the reliability of witnesses, historical vs. philosophical knowledge, etc. and were often rounded off with a description of how to defend one’s position in a disputation. But as the disputation lost its general significance as something more than a final exam in the taking of an academic degree, this topic was replaced by practical questions such as how one should organise one’s library, etc. In Niels Treschow’s textbook on logic, published in 1813, a chapter that dealt with the role of the lecture was also introduced, i.e. precisely the issue that, as mentioned above, had until then rarely been addressed by the university itself.
In scholarly teaching, the matter is explained thoroughly, in detail, and in a systematic context in a strictly logical or schooled manner (…). This kind of lecture is suitable only for educated listeners who can both grasp it and whose attention does not need to be aroused or supported by repeated questions. But it is also less necessary than the ordinary kind arranged for the uneducated; since these can mostly firmly learn the same thing from Books. Those persons who, for this reason or for lack of opportunity, have learned any science by themselves, are called self-taught –
autodidaktoi (…). Admittedly, these self-taughts are generally very thoughtful. But since people who read rather than hear seldom have the patience to go through whole systematic works in due order, or any part of such works with equal diligence, and rather indulge in a scattered reading in various, preferably pleasing, writings; then their knowledge becomes incomplete and disorderly.
9 N. Treschow, Almindelig Logik (Copenhagen, 1813), pp. 298–9.What the academic lecture could offer was precisely what the autodidact lacked during the acquisition of knowledge, namely the transmitter’s
presence, whereas for the self-taught, the author of the book would remain absent in the sense that he could not provide him with help in any other way than through the text he had once written. The lecturer, on the other hand, was present, not only as the professorial voice but as a physical person which embodied the techniques that according to classical rhetoric belonged to the doctrine of
actio. As a result, ‘the oral lecture has the general advantage of the written word that it attaches itself deeper into the mind’.
10 Ibid., p. 299. It is worth noting that the philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), who attended Kant’s lectures in the 1760s, drew the same conclusion. It was, according to Herder, ‘difficult to understand lecture notes when reading them after the lecture has ended. He argued that it was only by hearing the words from Kant himself that he managed to digest them.’ J. Eriksson: ‘Lecture-notes and Common-places. Reading and Writing about Experience in Late Eighteenth Century Prussia’, Lýchnos (2009), p. 155. This, in turn, may also explain the fascination with the university lecturers from their own youth that is a recurrent topic among the authors of early nineteenth-century memoir literature as well as the fact that the then current interest in rhetorical declamation also found a place for the academic lecture.
11 Although professor of pedagogy at the University of Copenhagen Levin Sander (1756–1819) admitted that ‘logical declamation does not really belong to the art of rhetorical emphasis in the strict sense of the word’, he still made the following rhetorical demand on the lecturer: ‘From the lecturer is noticeably required pleasance, but not the strongest and most lively speech. This would even be inappropriate, as it cannot be accompanied by the full use of the language of declamation. Whether the lecturer is now sitting or standing, he can really suggest something by glances, by gestures, by movements with one hand, by changed positions, and thus accompany his declamation. However, he is always restricted, and cannot act and gesticulate with Fineness: neither should he, as he is simply imagining a reader i.e. the poet’s audible organ.’ L. C. Sander, Svada: eller theoretisk og practisk Veiledning til Betoningskunsten (Copenhagen, 1814), p. 55; see also Odeum: eller, Declamerekunstens Theorie, praktisk forklaret (Copenhagen, 1819), p. 70. It is important to keep this in mind now that the attention shifted from thoughts about the lecture to the lecture as it is preserved in student notebooks.