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86 RIESBECK’s TRAVELS THROUGH GERMANY.
dren to the private education of French women ; (who are comntonly caft-off ftrumpets,
or foolifh chambermaids, who prefer being governeffes here, to making fires, and
warming beds in France ;) or how fuch fwarms of French and Italian abbés are ftill
allowed to educate the young men. It muit be allowed, indeed, of the fchools,
that as they are flill new inftitutions, in which there obtains no thorough well-digefted
fyftem, and as there are frequently changes made in them, they have not yet had any
very fenfible effect upon the public manners ; but it is probable that the next genera-
tion will find the advantage of them.
I attended the feveral courfes read by the public profeffors. It is certain that the
expence of thefe muft be very great to the Emprefs. Not only the courfes ufually
read elfewhere are free here, but they read upon feveral fubjects which you muft pay
a very high price for with us. Such are the living languages, the fciences of politics,
&c. ‘There prevails, however, ftill a kind of barbarity; which makes one lament the
great expence the fovereign is at. Mr. Pilati, the editor of Voyages en diffcrens Pays de
Europe, from 1774 to 1776, fays, he has heard it maintained in an Auftrian, univer-
fity, ** that all the property of the-fubjeét belongs to the fovereign.”” I cannot fay
quite fo much; but I believe that no reader on the law of nature here, would dare
to aflert that the fovereign has duties to fulfil towards his fubje&ts, as well as the fub-
jects towards him. I was aflured that the finding this propofition, in the fyllabus of a
Benedi&tine of Saltfburg, had given fuch offence to one of the licenfers of the prefs,
that the perfon whe had the book was defired to fend it out of the country. The
Roman law too, with all its numerous train of comments and ‘paraphrafes, fo far re-
mote from our prefent conftitution and manners, ftill fupports itfelf in this famous
univerfity, and muft make the candidates for the profeffional chair pedants and :falfe
reafoners. As tothe jus publicum, thofe who have happened to hear lectures read
upon it here, and at Strafburgh, would not believe it to be the law of the fame em-
pire. At Strafburgh, Germany is confidered as a republic, in which the Emperor
only occupies the place of a conful, or dictator; whereas here he is confidered as a
moft abfolute monarch. Our own theology is fufliciently barbarous ; but here I have
heard them read for an hour together, de immaculata conceptione Maria. Another time
1 heard a fubtile doétor making very ferious enquiry whether, fuppofing’ any man to
have had exiftence before Adam, he would have been tainted with original fin! As
to Chriftian ethics, they are ftill taken from Bu/enbaun, Voit, and their fellows. I
have heard fuch lafcivious defcriptions in the public fchools as, had they been found in
a profane book, would unavoidably have placed it in the index of prohibited books.
It is true indeed that Bufenbaun, in his Morality for the Stewes, has declared that it is
right to read plainly upon morality, even though it fhould excite finful affections in
the fcholars, and even though thofe affections fhould break out into finful a¢ctions.
For he fays, “ it will do the more good at confeffion.” As to their metaphyfics, they
are the very quinteffence of pedantry and nonfenfe. Though I was not furprifed to hear a
a learned profeffor demonftrate, that two fingle fubftances could not kifs and embrace
each other, and that it was not impoffible but that one and the fame thing {fhould ex-
ift in the fame inftant a thoufand times in different places; I could not well conceive
what my learned man meant to do with this Jaft propofition, which I remembered to
have feen in a metaphyfical book, till at length it {truck me, that it was intended to
make the people underftand how the body of Chrift might be in every confecrated hoft
from Canton to Berlin at the fame inftant ; for every thing here has a reference to re-
ligion. What amazed me moft, however, in my metaphyfician, was the feeming ex-
zent of his erudition. ‘There was not a metaphyfician from the Athiopian Trogloditeto ~
12 John
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