graduates of Göttingen (as were the Schlegel brothers), and it was in part the
Göttingen ideal that was expanded at Berlin and subsequently emulated by the
other universities of the German states (Turner, 1974; Leventhal, 1986). Nev-
ertheless, there was a special connection between the Idealists and the sweeping
university reform. Göttingen replaced the Latin and Greek classics of the
medieval curriculum with lectures in German, and downplayed the theological
faculty in favor of modern literature; Göttingen was known especially for its
pioneering research in philology. The Idealists, in contrast, resuscitated the core
medieval tradition of philosophy, and developed all the rational sciences (in-
cluding rational theology) within its orbit. Göttingen was too close to the
Enlightenment culture to produce this kind of revival; it was a center for
literary criticism and popular literary publications, oriented more toward a lay
audience than toward the academic world (Turner, 1974). Göttingen, as a sole
model, would likely have furthered the Enlightenment trend toward the disap-
pearance of academic culture and its absorption into the lay world.^27
The point is not that Idealism alone brought about the university reform,
but rather that the strains of the old university system—above all the plight of
young aspirants in theology and hence in its traditional feeder discipline,
philosophy—motivated Idealism. Jena and Königsberg, where the Idealist
movement began, were not particularly distinguished universities. By the same
token, they were traditionalist places (as of course was the Tübingen theologi-
cal Stift, so central in the Idealist recruitment), where an effort to expand career
opportunities for philosophy students was eagerly awaited. Kant, Herder,
Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Hölderlin were mostly men from modest social
backgrounds, who owed their chances to the expanding public school system.^28
They all had in common the career experience of starting as a tutor in a private
household—Kant for nine years, Fichte for ten, Hegel for seven—while waiting
for an academic post to open up. Kant waited until age 46 before getting a
professorship, and so did Hegel, while Hölderlin never did find an academic
post.^29 Such individuals were often attracted to the popular Enlightenment
topics such as science or aesthetics; but such posts in the academic world were
less available than the established positions in philosophy, and those in turn
paid less than the high faculties of theology, law, and medicine. Kant was
archetypal in finding that he could not afford a career in science, and thus
gravitating toward the soft spot of philosophy on the theology track.
The path of men such as Kant and Fichte, although arduous, was never-
theless a hopeful one, for it followed a track of educational expansion and
reform that had been in place since the 1730s. It was these very reforms which
had widened the recruitment base and brought about a surplus of aspirants
for positions. If this generated a hunger for further reform, it was connected
to an expectation that the situation could improve if previous governmental
Intellectuals Take Control: The University Revolution^ •^649