Strolling student
Strolling student is the slang term for a student who does not use the freedoms of student life to pursue his studies , but gives in to the temptations of the possibilities of intensive leisure activities . Strolling students are characterized by an above-average length of study and low academic performance. They often do not take an exam ( dropouts ) or do so later than others.
The term long-term student, on the other hand, includes students who exceed the standard period of study .
Strolling students in history
In the Middle Ages, when the universities were established , the idle student did not appear in social discourse. The universities had to cover a wide range of education, and young people were also taught who had little interest and little talents. They left the university after a relatively short time with a modest or even no degree. In the Middle Ages the student was in such close contact with teachers and classmates through the shared apartments ( bursa , colleges) that it was not so easy to break out of the study discipline.
As can be seen from the literature, the strolling student was a popular topic at the beginning of the early modern period, for moral and educational reasons. Due to the social upheavals, a university degree with a demanding degree became a prerequisite for a civil leadership position in the state and church administrations of the newly emerging territorial states. They were the most important employers for sons from socially respected families, and in the course of time even for nobles. Anyone wishing to pursue a career outside of the military in the state or church had to have a university degree.
But even with wealthy families, the financial resources were not unlimited and the fathers had to ensure that the sons used the available funds carefully. Anyone who wasted time and money could be branded as a student failure and had to fight their way through the rest of their life with unprofitable jobs.
In addition, in the early modern period the families' control options were very limited due to the distance to the study sites and the lack of transport and communication. During this time, the student only rarely lived in university shared apartments, so that little control could be exercised by the universities. The student was truly free in his spare time. Many could not handle it and succumbed to the temptations of well-being.
The American writer and satirist Mark Twain also noticed the special freedom of students in Germany when he stayed in Heidelberg for a few months in the summer of 1878 and wrote about it in his work A Tramp Abroad (German stroll through Europe ). In the Anglo-Saxon countries it is still customary today for students to live in double rooms in special dormitories on the university campus, which enables better control of living and study habits. Mark Twain was surprised that the students only enrolled at the university and then were left to fend for themselves in the further development of their studies.
Since the 1990s, there has been a noticeable trend throughout Europe, and thus also in the German-speaking area, to orientate oneself towards Anglo-Saxon solutions when designing academic studies. This has also led to increased efforts to better control academic performance so that students complete their studies more quickly and are available to the job market earlier. One of the reasons is likely to be the increasing international competition between individual countries and economic areas on globalized markets.
The reputation of some US universities in engineering and business administration has led universities around the world to follow the American model. See also the Bologna Process and Tuition Fees .
In literature and illustration
Archipoeta
There are not many reports of strolling students from the Middle Ages. Most likely the references in the poetry of the Archipoeta could be interpreted as such. In his songs, written in Latin, he reports in first-person form that he studied medicine at the school in Salerno , but that he probably had to drop out for health reasons. In his tenth song, the so-called "vagante confession" today, he tells of his vicious life that he would have led as a student.
- Via lata gradior, more iuventutis,
- implico me vitiis, immemor virtutis,
- voluptatis avidus, magis quam salutis,
- mortuus in anima, curam gero cutis.
- I go the easy way of youth
- I get caught up in vice and think not of virtue
- Greedy for pleasure, more than for salvation,
- Dead in spirit, I take care of my skin.
- ( Archipoeta , "Vagant Confession", fifth stanza)
The Archipoeta reports that he not only succumbed to his vices as a young man, but that he continued to follow them in his professional life. He specifically mentions sexual debauchery and excessive alcohol consumption.
However, it is rather unlikely that this text is autobiographical.
Grobianus
Especially in the early modern period, the strolling student became a topic in literature, in the theater and in the picture. The life stories of failed or almost failed students have in some cases achieved great popularity. These works were also used to teach young academics, to warn them of the consequences of excessive negligence in their studies. Some of these works include the life of a failed student after college and portray humble and / or adventurous careers.
One of the early authors in this field was Friedrich Dedekind . His main work Grobianus (1549) does not explicitly tell of life at the universities, but the fact that the work is clearly of an educational nature and was written in Latin suggests that the target group is students. The author himself was a student in Wittenberg when writing the work. The main character Grobianus is characterized above all by a lack of civilized manners and is presented as a daunting example. It is not a question of neglecting academic studies, but of the fact that the main character neglects the behavior expected of an educated person and is presented to young readers as a kind of counter-draft.
The work gave its name to the new literary genre of brutalism . It was translated into German Knittelverse by Caspar Scheidt and thus became available to other sections of the population. The more popular German version appeared in 1551 under the title Grobianus. Of rude manners and rude gestures . In a new Latin version by Dedekind from 1552, Grobianus received a female counterpart, the work was called Grobianus et Grobiana . - The Grobianus fabric was very popular not only in Germany, but also in England. In 1605, the Grobianus was translated into English as The Schoole of Slovenrie . The enthusiasm lasted for a long time, and a new English translation was published in 1739.
Cornelius Relegatus
The topic of strolling students was dealt with early on in the theater. An important example was Cornelius Relegatus (Latin: "Cornelius who was expelled from the university"), also "the lost Cornelius". The play is a theatrical comedy by Albert Wichgreve (around 1575–1619) premiered in the year 1600 on the university anniversary in Rostock , which satirically describes the inglorious career of a failed student of the 16th century and for a long time the views of the public from Shaped the life of a strolling student. At the same time, the piece is a document of the academic mores and customs of the late 16th century.
The comedy satirically deals with the academic career of a young man named Cornelius, who as a young student at the university immediately succumbs to all the vices that exist there and fails miserably. However, a lucky coincidence turns things around, and the story gets a happy ending .
The play begins with Cornelius being sent to the university by his parents, although the family is already plagued by premonitions.
At the university, the young man then has to endure the customary admission rituals of the deposition before the admission test by a professor and the matriculation by the rector take place.
Hardly a student enrolled, Cornelius begins the lotter life. The very first drinking session ends with nightly excesses, followed by arrest and conviction by the academic courts . Next, Cornelius is sued by his creditors to the rector.
Then more accidents accumulate: Cornelius is expelled for ten years, that is, expelled from the university, he learns that his parents are dead and he is disinherited and that an illegitimate child has just been born to him that he has to care for. When he tries to hang himself from a rope hanging from the ceiling, the rope tears a hole in the ceiling from which money bags hidden there fall on him.
He decides to do better and build a new life with the money. His prince stands up for him and the rector takes him back to the university.
The piece achieved enormous public success with an extraordinary long-term effect, but it was the only successful piece by its author. The second edition of the piece appeared in Rostock in 1601, others followed, and in 1602 an edition appeared in Leipzig . As early as 1605, Johann Sommer wrote a German version that appeared in Magdeburg with the title:
- Cornelius relegatus, a new and funny Comoedia, which nicely describes the life of the wrongly named students
In 1618 there was a new edition of the German version of Sommer. Other writers wrote similar student comedies to capitalize on the success of Cornelius.
The great popularity of Cornelius Relegatus soon called for an implementation in the picture. The artist Jacob van der Heyden (1573–1645) published a series of copperplate engravings with the title Speculum Cornelianum in Strasbourg in 1608 and 1618 in several editions . Pugillus facetiarum iconographicarum (German: "Cornelscher Spiegel. A handful of funny ideas in pictures") and the German subtitle "Allerhand Kurtzweilige Stücklein, all students furnemblich to love ...". The individual sheets showed the most important passages of the play. In 1879 the sheets were reprinted.
The Berlin engraver and publisher Peter Rollos also dedicated himself to the subject in 1624 and published 58 engraved plates under the title Vita Corneliana emblematibus in aes artificiose incisa ... (German: "Cornelian's life description, with artistic images cut in copper ..."), the German subtitle was " that is the whole life of Cornelii, engraved with exquisite melds in copper ... "
Johann Georg Puschner
Under the pseudonym Dendrono , the Nuremberg engraver Johann Georg Puschner created a series of copperplate engravings that was remarkable in terms of student history and dealt with student life at that time. The University of Altdorf was then the university of the Free Imperial City of Nuremberg, and Puschner had created several works of art about Altdorf, for which he had often traveled to the small town over the years. The work is entitled Natural Depiction of Academic Life in Present Fourteen Beautiful Figures brought to light by D. The first seven copperplate engravings show in chronological order the typical academic career of a hard-working and devout student up to the climax, the doctorate . The second half of the sheets, however, shows the opposite, the picture of a scuffling, boozing and lazy student whose student career ends in guilt and despair.
These pictures give a unique portrait of the morals of student life in the 18th century. It is interesting that the negative sides of the university environment and the character weaknesses of the next generation of managers of the time are discussed as well as discipline, diligence and the success associated with them. Puschner vividly depicts the temptations that stand in the way of the poor character student. The reader learns a lot about the opportunities for leisure activities at that time and about the vices of young people. The titles of the individual engravings are already illustrative: The lazy student , The drinking student , The courtesy student , The luscious student and The scuffing student . The last two pictures show the consequences of the wrongdoing with merciless consistency. The titles are: The quietly withdrawing student and The desperate student .
|
The quietly withdrawing student
Whoever loves When debtors and the whore now penetrate a person |
|
| “ The desperate student
This is how it works, when muses-sons lie in the constant bitch, So everything wanders away: the body loses its strength |
The Jobsiade
The Bochum mining doctor Carl Arnold Kortum (1745-1824) wrote the popular satire Die Jobsiade between 1783 and 1784 , which describes the life of Hieronymus Jobs, who failed in his studies, in Knittelversen . The first edition of the work appeared in 1784 under the title:
- Life, opinions and deeds of Hieronymus Jobs the candidate, and how he once gained a lot of fame, he finally died as a night watchman in Sulzburg .
The work tells the story of the theology student Hieronymus Jobs, who pursues all the vices offered in his studies and finally fails miserably in the exam. He cannot accept the pastor's position in his home town advised by his parents and struggles through life with all kinds of other work.
In 1799 a revised version, expanded by two parts, was published under the overall title “The Jobsiade. A comical hero poem in three parts ” , printed by the Mallinckrodt brothers on behalf of the Dortmund bookshop. The name of Kortums remained unknown until 1854 in the seventh edition of the FA Brockhaus publishing house, instead of “DCAK”, the full name “Dr. Carl Arnold Kortum “was called.
Based on the text by Ludwig Andersen, Joseph Haas created the comic opera Die Hochzeit des Jobs , in which Hieronimus Jobs appears as a lawyer instead of a theologian (first performance in 1943). Wolfgang Jacobi wrote a play The Jobsiade for school performances in 1957 .
The Kortum Jobsiade soon also fascinated visual artists. It inspired Wilhelm Busch (1832–1908), for example, in 1872 to create pictures for the Jobsiade . Johann Peter Hasenclever (1810–1853) had previously painted 20 scenes of the play. “ Jobs in the exam ” was acquired by King Ludwig I of Bavaria.
The well donated by the Deutsche Bank in front of the regional court in Bochum recreates an exam scene of the candidate Job.
Mark Twain
When the American writer and satirist Mark Twain stayed in Heidelberg for a few months in the summer of 1878 , he noticed the unregulated university life that is common in Germany. He was amazed at the great freedom that the students were allowed to organize their studies, which was probably also used to a certain extent.
“One sees so many students abroad at all hours, that he presently begins to wonder if they ever have any working hours. Some of them have, some of them haven't. Each can choose for himself whether he will work or play; for German university life is a very free life; it seems to have no restraints. The student does not live in the college buildings, but hires his own lodgings, in any locality he prefers, and he takes his meals when and where he pleases. He goes to bed when it suits him, and does not get up at all unless he wants to. He is not entered at the university for any particular length of time; so he is likely to change about. He passes no examinations upon entering college. He merely pays a trifling fee of five or ten dollars, receives a card entitling him to the privileges of the university, and that is the end of it. He is now ready for business - or play, as he shall prefer. If he elects to work, he finds a large list of lectures to choose from. He selects the subjects which he will study, and enters his name for these studies; but he can skip attendance. "
“You see so many students on the street at any given hour that you sometimes wonder when they are actually working. Some do and some don't. Everyone can decide for themselves whether they want to work or indulge in their leisure activities; for German university life is a very free life; there seem to be few regulations. The student does not live in college buildings, but rents his own accommodation where he wants and he takes his meals when and where he wants. He goes to bed when it suits him and he only gets up when he wants to. He is also not admitted to the university for a certain period of time; therefore it is also likely that he will change. He does not need to take any exams to be admitted to the university. He only pays an enrollment fee of five or ten dollars, receives ID that gives him access to university facilities, and that's about it. He's in business now - or for pleasure, whatever he likes. If he chooses to work, he will find a long list of lectures to choose from. He chooses the subject he wants to study and signs up for the course; but he can sometimes skip attending the lectures. "
This description makes it clear that “academic freedom” seems to have been a typical manifestation of the German-speaking area that is barely understood by other cultures.
The Bastian
In the novel The Bastian by Barbara Noack the subject is treated in a modern form. The title character has already passed the exam, but shies away from taking up a professional position and tries to delay her entry into professional life as much as possible.
The material was filmed as a multi-part television series and shown with great success on ZDF in 1973 . Horst Janson in the title role embodied with his long blond hair and the carelessly simple jeans clothes of the time the type of the responsible young academician who showed neither the revolutionary zeal of the 1968 movement nor the professional seriousness of the upcoming working life.
The story ends with Bastian having to leave fashionable Munich to take up a job as a primary school teacher in the provincial surroundings of the Bavarian Forest .
literature
- Konrad Lengenfelder (ed.): Dendrono-Puschner's natural portrayal of academic life in beautiful figures brought to light. 2nd Edition. City administration Altdorf, Altdorf 1993 (1st edition: Spindler, Nuremberg 1962).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ dramatically: Let the wicked student. Or the highly punishable and worthless self ⸗ fame / A world brother drowned in all abundance and vices / Whose reckless and irresponsible beginning / From his own own life run / To everyone running in the same sins barriers, eternal ridicule and shame / excellent and given out / Dedicated by an honor and virtue. o. V., o. O. 1681 ( digitized version of the Herzog August Library ; reprint: Antiqua, Lindau 1979, ISBN 3-88210-006-0 ).
- ^ Heinrich Grimm: New contributions to the "fish literature" of the XV. to XVII. Century and through their printer and bookkeeper. In: Börsenblatt for the German book trade - Frankfurt edition. No. 89, November 5, 1968 (= Archive for the History of Books. Volume 62), pp. 2871–2887, here: p. 2886.