15th May, 1867
Bonn
Poppelsdorfer Allee No. I/18
bei Prof. Schaarschmidt
My Dear Archibald,[2]
You will see from the address at the top of my letter that I have not got so far as Tübingen. In fact when I reached Bonn I was so strongly dissuaded from going to a Suabian [sic] University that I resolved to stay where I was especially as I could get no introductions to professors at Tübingen.
I find Bonn a very pleasant place. The university is large and I find the students very affable. The usual number of students is about 900. This year the rumours of war have diminished the number considerably. The University buildings were formerly the Palace of the Archbishop of Cöln and accordingly some of the classrooms have ceilings adorned with Fresco paintings and other ornaments that seem rather out of place. The rooms are almost all vaulted and in fact in hot weather the University & the Churches are the only cool places in the town.
Two of the institutions might be copied with advantage in Aberdeen. One is that you may have as many books as you please from the Library and the other is the Reading room which is the best Reading room I ever saw. Thus of English papers and magazines it contains the Times, Sat. Review, Athenaeum, four of the Quarterlies and the Scientific Journals. The Times is there regularly the day after publication.
A large proportion of Students belong to Clubs of which there are three kinds: Verbindungen, Burschenschaften, and Corps.[3] The distinction between these is not very well marked out but in general the Corps are the most unruly & given to duelling, while the Verbindungen are most quiet and in some of them a student who duels is expelled. The meetings of these clubs are called Kneipen[4] and are usually held twice a week. In the capacity of guest I attended one of these meetings in a club chiefly composed of divinity students & regarded as absurdly quiet.
Five professors, old members, were present smoking and “kneip”ing [sic] beer like the rest. The quantity of beer consumed was enormous but it was not very strong.
There were a good many songs sung with numerous allusions to Burschen, Füchsen[5] & Philister[6] .
“Philister” is any extra-academical person[7] and is treated with much contempt. A student who is not a member of a club and does not wear colours is a “Kamel”.[8] A member of a club in his earlier semesters is a Fuchs and in the songs is usually designated a “Schlimmes Thier” or “nasty Beast”. After some probation however the Fuchs is elevated to the rank of a Bursche by a remarkable ceremony of which the chief feature is that a hole called the “Landesvater” is made in the crown of the uniform cap, which every member must wear in the town.[9] Besides the cap a ribbon is worn across the chest. The caps are of two kinds and the full dress ones are very gorgeous and embroidered with gold &c. But though you must wear your cap at the meeting of the club, there is no reason why you should not if you please sit in your shirt sleeves. In fact the rules are a mixture of great freedom with very stringent regulations. The officers of the Club consist of a praeses,[10] a toast master and a Fuchs major whose duty is to superintend the training of Foxes.
We had but one formal speech in the course of the evening, the toasts being chiefly conducted by means of songs. There was also a great deal of promiscuous health drinking according to a peculiar formula of which the most notable fact us that the person whose health is drunk ejaculates in a loud voice kneip’s[11] (drink it). I may warn you that you will probably not find the word “kneipen” in the dictionary.
I had some reason to fear at the beginning of the Semester that the session would be disturbed by the war. The people in Germany were extremely eager for war although the newspapers were very quiet. Everyone felt sure that the French would be beaten, would never be able to enter Germany[12] . The German Punch “Kladderadatsch”[13] which is purely political was full of onslaughts on Louis Napoleon who is designated an ER (HE)[14] and represented in the woodcuts as diabolically ugly. Kladderadatsch to quote its own language “appears daily, week days excepted” and in fact all daily Newspapers appear on Sabbath — here where the population is chiefly Roman Catholic Sunday is simply a holiday and this view is hardly confined to the R.C. population.
The peasantry are extremely superstitious, and rather idle. To give you an example of both qualities: there is a hill here called the Kreuzberg with a Jesuit Cloister and Church on the summit. The road up the hill is divided by a number of Stations or small shrines with Frescoes from the life of Christ. Any day and at any hour a number of women may be seen climbing the hill counting their beads the whole way and kneeling at each station. The prayers are pronounced in a tolerably audible voice. When the Church is reached a further ceremony begins. In the chancel or Choir as it is called here is a flight of 25 steps of Italian marble in imitation of the Scala Sancta at Rome. Once that I had ascended the hill for the sake of the view, I was astonished by hearing a tremendous noise proceeding from the church & on approaching the building found some dozen or more working men & women on their knees on the staircase bawling out prayers with all their might. At the termination of the cycle they made a deep prostration & moving up a step still on their knees recommenced their devotions. The Jesuits however are by no means in great favour although the Church attracts so many worshippers. The colony planted on the Kreuzberg has for its aim the exercise of a controlling influence on the R. Catholics at the University. Some of the R.C. professors are in no great favour at Rome, their books being placed upon the “index”; so a more orthodox influence is considered necessary.
There is only one Lutheran Church in Bonn which is in the University and was formerly the Court Chapel. The R.C. churches are pretty numerous and the principal one — the Minster — is very large and was founded in the Roman period. It looks very well outside but inside there is too much stucco. In fact except this church there is hardly a building that is not covered with stucco externally also. The University is all stuccoed as is the Poppelsdorfer Schloss which is a second university building, an old country house of the Elector half a mile out of town. The Poppelsdorfer Sc[h]loss is connected with the main building by the Poppelsdorfer Allee, a long straight street or rather two streets separated by a lawn. Each of these streets is quite shaded by a double row of chestnut trees and of these shaded roads one is for foot passengers and one for carriages.
Prof. Schaarschmidt’s house is near the Poppelsdorfer end. The grounds of the Poppelsdorfer Sc[h]loss are fenced off by a broad moat and contain a fair sized botanical garden. The Sc[h]loss itself contains the Lecture rooms & Museums for Natural Science & Agriculture. In addition to the two old palaces the University has connected with it at least 5 other buildings, two of which however are only now being erected, while the chief building is alone some 14 or 1500 feet long. The principal pleasure grounds moreover are the property of the University and from one of these, a terrace overlooking the Rhine “nurses with children” are very properly excluded.
I am sorry to say that I can tell you nothing about the Natural History of the District except that the Arion Eupiricolium[15] seems to be replaced by a somewhat larger coffee-brown snail and that nightingales are abundant and viewed rather as a nuisance from their habit of singing after people are in bed. Germany, you must know, adopts early hours, breakfast about 7, Dinner at 1, Supper at 8 are our times. Sauer Kraut is not so much used as Englishmen suppose — I at least have not yet seen any. The great characteristic of Germany is not sauer Kraut but Bairisch Bier[16], the natural accompaniment of smoking. Smoking is so prevalent that the workmen smoke at their work and the hussars on horseback. In the lamented good old times the students smoked during lectures, but this was justly regarded as tantalising to the Professors who could not lecture with pipes in their mouths.
On the railway, two compartments are marked off, one for unprotected ladies and one for non-smokers. The German tobacco however is very light and you can buy a cigar for a halfpenny. The accompanying beer costs I believe three half pence the tankard. Bonn however is not a cheap place, as it contains too many English. There are not indeed many English students, indeed I do not know of any one but myself.
Before I close this letter I must go back for a moment upon my journey which was very prosperous except in London where the weather was so foggy that I did not see much to advantage. I passed a night in Brussels which is a very interesting town. It would be pleasant to make a tour among the old Flemish towns. Another night I spent in Cöln which is a disagreeable town, cooped up within fortifications and evidently a very wicked place. The Cathedral however is sublime, is by far the most impressive (artificial) sight I ever so [sic]. Everything is so well proportioned that it does not strike one as large: on the contrary one only feels oneself very small. I saw part of a fine service, the archbishop being there in full costume & making a procession round the church &c.
Everything was in very good taste and the chanting struck me as very fine though I could not judge of its musical excellence. It is I can assure you no mean praise to the R.C. ritual to say that it did not seem unworthy of the Cöln cathedral. There was no straining after effect as seems to be the case with the English ritualists. What a contrast there is between Cöln & St Pauls! The Cathedral at Brussels is fine outside and tolerably good inside, but within indulges in stucco and is not I think equal to Westminster Abbey or Glasgow though the exterior is decidedly superior to either of these. But Cöln is equally fine everywhere though no doubt the Choir is the crowning point of the building. The Choir is the oldest part. The other parts are for the most part new.
Give my kind regards to Mrs McD & Willie and to Anderson when you see him. I will write to him when I collect materials for another letter as I do not care to write twice on the same subject
believe me
Your sincere friend
W. R. Smith
[1] CUL ADD 7449 C066 MS
[2] WRS describes here his initial impressions of Germany, an eagerly anticipated visit there having been delayed by a year because of the death of his brother George in 1866.
[3] Verbindungen, Burschenschaften and Corps were, and still are, student societies or fraternities, both social and political in emphasis.
[4] Kneipen: drinking dens or “boozers” mostly frequented by students; nowadays the old Studentkneipen are more of a tourist attraction.
[5] “Foxes” [Ger. Fuchs, Fux]: first year students.
[6] Student slang for a former student who had become a respectable citizen (having entered the philisterium); an “Alter Herr” or old boy of a Burschenschaft.
[7] Generally a former student rather than, as WRS suggests, any extra-academical person.
[8] Slang for a completely stupid individual.
[9] After a toast is drunk to the Father of the Land, two students fight a mock duel which involves piercing the other’s cap.
[10] In Scots usage, a chairman.
[11] I.e. kneip es!
[12] The Franco-Prussian war finally took place in 1870–71.
[13] Catastrophe, great mess or confusion.
[14] Engl.: he.
[15] A large black slug of the Arion genus, presumably A. ater. WRS incorrectly capitalises the specific term Eupiricolium but the word is not to be found in any known taxonomic system dealing with terrestrial molluscs and may well have been a private joke between WPS and the boys at the Keig manse.
[16] Bavarian beer.