Silent Years 215effective. Kant and his colleague Reusch were praised. Weymann and
Wlochatius were censured. The ministry did not want the heads of the stu¬
dents "obscured by useless speculation" but wanted to see them learn
"truly useful concepts," and the letter explicitly said: "we do not like to
see that Crusius's philosophy is taught in Königsberg, since the most learned
scholars are long convinced of its uselessness. From now on, this shall
cease."^99 The teaching of Crusius was thus effectively forbidden in 1775.
Weymann was eliminated as Kant's rival. It was only in 1789 that he was
allowed to teach again, in spite of a negative recommendation by the uni¬
versity senate, which "was co-signed by Kant," of course.^100 But he did
not teach for long. This time the students heckled him until he gave up.
Though 1789 was a time in which Weymann's religious views were wel¬
come in Berlin, Crusius was by then a real anachronism.^101
Karl Abraham Freiherr von Zedlitz (1731—1793), minister for matters
of church and education, was responsible for the warning. One of Freder¬
ick IPs progressive ministers, he founded a chair of pedagogy at Halle
(1779), generally planned for the better education of teachers, supported
the founding of new schools, and continued to push for the centralization
of school administration. Later, in 1787, he instituted an Oberschulkol¬
legium (a national board of education). He had taken a liking to Kant. Thus
he asked in February of 1778 whether he might nominate Kant as a pro¬
fessor of philosophy at Halle, with a beginning salary of 600 Thalers. Halle
was much larger and much more prestigious, and Kant would have effec¬
tively become the successor of Wolff, a great honor. He declined, only to
have the offer raised by 200 Thalers, with the title of Hofrat thrown in.
Still, Kant decided to stay in Königsberg, where he drew a salary of only
236 Thalers and had no opportunity to become Hofrat. Neither the oppor¬
tunity to teach many more students, nor the more central location of Halle,
nor even the good name of the university there, were sufficient to make
him move. The reason was his belief that he had been given only a "com¬
paratively small dose of the force of life."^102
In August of the same year, von Zedlitz asked Kant in a letter to use his
influence so that students would not concentrate their studies so much in
the higher faculties. Though studies in the higher faculties promised a ca¬
reer in theology, law, or medicine, philosophy and the liberal arts might be
more useful for them in the long run.^103 Von Zedlitz was well acquainted
with Kant's philosophy through Herz, who was spreading the word about
Kant's philosophy by lecturing and writing about it. In 1778, von Zedlitz
attended lectures by Herz on "Kant's rational anthropology."^104 Herz