exodus of the German students in particular. Very important, in connection with the departure of the German students from Prague, is the account of that event given by Professor Tomek in his monumental history of the town of Prague (Dejepis mesta Prahy), a work that has unfortunately never been translated.
To judge the question impartially it is necessary to consider the circumstances under which Charles IV. founded the University of Prague. I have given a brief account of them in Chapter III. of this work. There is no doubt that Charles founded the university mainly for the benefit of his Bohemian subjects, that they might, as he expressly stated, find at home the instruction which they had formerly been obliged to seek abroad. It is not probable that the question of race and nationality immediately became prominent. In a community, all whose members habitually used the Latin language, there is indeed no reason why this should have been the case. There is also no doubt, and the state-paper of Venceslas
admits this, that the Bohemians were at the time of the foundation of the university somewhat backward and inferior in learning to the Germans. This inferiority has, however, been exaggerated by many writers. Thus, as mentioned previously, a large number of the earliest teachers at the university were Bohemians who had received their education at foreign universities. Other facts also, such as the contemporary writings of Thomas of Stitny, tend to prove that the ignorance of the Bohemians at this period has been exaggerated. In any case, enough is known of the character of Charles, a believer in the solidarity of the Slavic countries, “panslavism,” as it has often been foolishly called,[1] to state with full assurance that he had no intention of founding a Teutonic university. Charles no doubt believed that many students from the
- ↑ I am quite aware of the fact that many German writers have denied that Charles had such a tendency. These writers have not, I think, disproved the assertions of Palacky.
