Civilization / Foundations of Civilization

Research University (Humboldt)

Berlin's university (1810) makes research part of teaching; Liebig's laboratory in Giessen trains chemists by practice.

Wilhelm von Humboldt's reform turned professors into researchers and students into apprentices of discovery, with seminars and laboratories. Justus von Liebig's teaching laboratory in Giessen (from the 1820s) trained generations of chemists in hands-on research. German universities became the model for the world, including the American PhD, and much of 19th-century chemistry and physics grew out of this system.