was a historian, a genuine scholar in anyfield must possess this‘historical
sense’, to understand from whence hisfield (Fach) had come and where it
might be going.^47
And the young, the students, were no mere bystanders in the production of
Wissenschaft. Echoing earlier language of Wilhelm von Humboldt (another
humanist of the nineteenth century), Döllinger makes clear that the scholar–
student relationship was crucial to the task of the university.^48 Scholars should
be motivated to teach capable youth, while the young ought to be inspired by
their instructors to master the material and, in the fullness of time, extend and
improve upon it themselves. As Döllinger puts it:
Professors in relation to students have not only much to give, but much to receive.
They receive that invigorating, that regenerative force, which spurs them on and
enables them to go over the same ground year after year without weariness; nay
rather, by taking every improvement, every advance of knowledge, into account,
to impart an ever-increasing life and thoroughness to their subject. And although
a professor addresses himself to his audience with the authority of a teacher, yet it
is his wish and constant endeavour to render the student competent to dispense
with authority, to stand on his own feet, to examine, to sift, and only then to
accept what he has atfirst received on the faith of another.^49Towards the end of his address, Döllinger offers examples drawn from a
variety offields of how the quest for the‘organic unity’of knowledge, the
significance of the‘historical sense’, and the dynamic of the‘scholar–student’
interaction had widened—and was daily widening—the domain of knowledge
and had transformed the institutional vocation of the university.
Döllinger also reserves for last reflections on the relationship between
theology and learning in general—a perennial concern of Christian human-
ism. He admits straightforwardly that the dynamics of the modern university
often presented difficulties for students of theology. He seeks to recognize
these difficulties and offer solutions.
As a faithful Catholic, Döllinger makes clear that he stillfinds valid the
‘queenly dignity’of the theological faculty—the long-standing view that the-
ology stood above the other faculties because of its lofty subject matter and its
high calling to train clergy, mediators between the divine and the human.
Theology students, he writes, have chosen‘a science which claims and cannot
help but claim to be the goal, the foundation (Grundlage), the keystone
(Schlußstein) of all others.’To these students, the modern university offered
both peril and promise. One must not, Döllinger insists, turn away in fear
from difficult facts and unpleasant truths uncovered by modern scholarship,
(^47) Universitäten, 43;Universities, 38.
(^48) On Humboldt, see Howard,Protestant Theology, 174–7.
(^49) Universitäten, 52;Universities, 46 (translation modified).
234 Thomas Albert Howard