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LEARNED SOCIETIES AND UNIVERSITIES. 389
To these were added numerous academies in the
countries belonging to the reigning house of Hapsburg.
At Salzburg, learned Benedictines founded an establishment
for the higher teaching, which in 1623 was raised into a
university by the Pope. A like honour was granted to
the Jesuitical gymnasium at Innsbruck, in 1673. So too at
Breslau the Jesuitical college developed, little by little, into
a university and in 1702 was recognized as such. The
establishment at Briinn acquired in 1779 for the first time
the privileges of a university, the high school at Olmiitz
being removed thither and united with it. But only a few
years afterwards it lost this character again and was
changed into a lyceum, which later on was associated with
an establishment for teaching medicine and surgery and
had its seat in Olmiitz.*
The universities of Halle and Gottingen exerted an important
influence on the development of the scientific spirit.
The former was founded in 1694, after the Archbishopric
of Magdeburg, with the lands belonging to it had come
into the possession of Brandenburg. The Great Elector had
already occupied himself with the formation of a kind of
academy which should form a centre for all things worthy of
study; he contemplated providing it with a chemical laboratory,
a physical and technological establishment, a zoological
and botanical garden, workshops, museums, etc., and decreed
that it should be accessible to all desirous of learning,
without distinction of nationality or religious belief.f But
the time was not ripe, nor was money forthcoming for the
completion of a plan of this magnitude and so much in
advance of the rationalistic mode of thought of the 18th
century. The financial means of the university of Halle
were also somewhat limited: its yearly income up to 1786
reached no more than 7,000 thalers, with which it was
necessary to meet the salaries of all the teachers, and
* F. J. RICHTER : Geschichte der Olmiitzer Universitat, Olmiitz 1841.
f ERMAN and RECLAM : Mem. p. servir a l'histoire des refugies francois, T.
iii, p. 293 et seq., Berlin.