io6 Kant: A Biographyupon the number of students he attracted. It was a difficult way of making
a living, and many other lecturers had to rely on other income.
The lectures and disputations of the Magisters were held not in official
lecture halls of the university, but in private lecture halls that the Magisters
either owned or rented. Borowski reports:
I attended his first lecture in 1755. He lived then in professor Kypke's house in the
Neustadt, and he had there a fairly large lecture hall. It, as well as the stairway and the
entrance hall, were filled with an almost incredible number of students. This seemed
to make Kant quite embarrassed. Unused to this situation, he almost lost his compo¬
sure, spoke even more softly than usual, often correcting himself. This just gave us a
more lively and wonderful impression of the man whom we presumed to be the most
learned and who seemed to us just modest and not fearful. In the next lecture matters
were already quite different. His delivery was, just as in the following lectures, not only
thorough, but also liberal-minded and pleasant.^21
All professors and lecturers had to base their lectures on a textbook or
"compendium." Some of them followed them slavishly and pedantically.
Borowski tells us that Kant did not follow his compendia strictly.^22 Rather,
he only followed the order in which the authors had arranged the materials
and gave his own observations and theories under their headings. Often he
digressed and added observations, which, according to Borowski, were
"always interesting." Apparently, he developed early the habit of cutting
off these digressions when they began to lead too far from the subject at
hand, saying "and so on" or "and so forth." Kant exhibited his dry humor
in the lectures, apparently never giving a cue as to when it was proper to
laugh. He himself "almost never laughed," and "even when he caused his
listeners to laugh by telling some funny anecdote," he was stone-faced.^23
Unusual attire of students he found disconcerting.
Kant's delivery was not characterized by great attention to didactic
methods. He did not repeat his points, and he failed to clarify everything
so that even the slowest of his students could follow. To "force them to
understand" was, according to this early student, not Kant's approach.
Everyone had to pay attention, or he was left behind. Kant did not appre¬
ciate extensive note-taking, believing that many of the note-takers copied
what was unimportant, and neglected what was truly important. Questions
asking for clarification he accepted gladly - at least in his younger years.
According to Borowski, Kant's
lectures were freely delivered, spiced with wit and good humor, often with quotations
of books he had just read, and at times with anecdotes, which, however, were always
relevant. I never heard him utter (sexual) ambiguities with which many other teachers