Chapter 27 Black and white photo

Hegel died while he was rector of the University of Berlin, and Fichte had also served as rector of the university twenty years before Hegel's death.Of course, the name of this school also appears in the resumes of more other cultural celebrities.I came to Berlin in a hurry a few years ago, and wanted to visit the University of Berlin. I asked the two tour guides, but they were at a loss, so I gave up. But this made me very strange. Let's go, how could the tour guide not know? This time, I got the answer as soon as I asked. It turned out that it had already been renamed Humboldt University in memory of a man named Humboldt.

There are two people named Humboldt who are closely related to this university, they are brothers.Brother Wilhelm Humboldt, the founder of the University of Berlin, an outstanding educator.It was he who first advocated that in addition to education, universities should also pay attention to scientific research and go hand in hand; full academic freedom should be implemented in universities, and state administration should not interfere.These principles not only strongly promoted the scientific development of the German nation, but were later adopted by most countries in the world.His younger brother Alexander Humboldt, a great natural scientist, was the founder of many important modern disciplines such as geophysics, hydrogeology, climatology, geography, and botany. It is universally recognized that natural science led from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century Bridges, professor emeritus at the University of Berlin, died at a state funeral by the Prussian government.These two Humboldts are very remarkable, so who is Humboldt University named in memory of?In terms of overall academic status, the younger brother Alexander Humboldt is much higher, but I guess as a university, it will still be named after the older brother William Humboldt.In fact, you can know this matter as soon as you ask, but I don't ask, I think it doesn't matter if I am wrong, anyway, they are brothers, only two years apart, and their statues are erected in the campus.

Such a university has no school gate. The streets of the city run straight through the campus, and the buildings of various departments and departments are scattered along the street. Anyone can enter without guards.Most of the houses are very old, old and solemn, retaining the figures of great cultural figures from generation to generation, which makes the younger students think far away.This makes it clearer that the old buildings in the world should not be demolished randomly, especially the old buildings in famous universities. The main building seemed more historic. I went in and out, went up and down the stairs countless times, and walked almost every corner.There are layers of wooden doors in the corridor. These doors are very high. Some of them have newly installed automatic sensor switches, and some have to be pushed by hand, which is very heavy.Thinking back to Hegel and Einstein, they always had to put a thick leather bag under their arms first, and then push hard.These are the same decorations, the same handles, never changed.Europeans' touch to tradition is always very textured.

There are also some Chinese who push through these wooden doors, like Cai Yuanpei, who as an overseas student walked here respectfully and looked around, and then brought William Humboldt’s idea of ​​running a school back to China and successfully presided over Peking University.There is also Chen Yinke, I don’t know how many times I pushed the door here, and after returning, I pushed the door of modern Chinese historiography. There was a small professor reception in front of the door on the second floor. It seemed to be celebrating the passing of a scientific research project, but no one gave a speech. After everyone came, they signed the registration book, and then stood with a glass of wine and chatted softly. A piece of elegance.On the wall of the aisle behind them, there are some small black-and-white photos hanging randomly, and some of them seem very familiar in the dimness. When they get closer, there is a line of extremely small words under each photo, and they are surprised when they stretch their necks to read it carefully.It turned out that there were as many as 29 Nobel Prize winners in this school.This is a figure that many big countries can hardly imagine with the power of the whole country, but there is no sound here, only some colorless faces are left on the side of the aisle, and even the descriptions under the photos are printed vaguely and vaguely. unclear.The photos are not limited to awards, and many professors with their own achievements are also there, especially female professors.

This kind of indifference is the proof of the university level. Thinking of this, I laughed, thinking that if the presidents of Chinese universities could come here to take a look, they might remove those self-absorbed big words and photos of officials visiting on the campus.The powder applied on the outside cannot prove the identity, and if it is applied too thickly, it will become a negative proof.