Page - 50 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space

50 ♦  Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 The ongoing reform of the educational system was a pivotal step in the gradual stabilization and control of the various university regulations enacted in 1848, which often applied to a single province. Corresponding to Franz Exner’s Herbartian Bildungs (education) ideology, the reforms en- visioned a system of educational continuity, encompassing establishments from Volksschulen (primary schools) to universities; the latter would serve primarily to educate teachers and prepare textbooks. Education, in the sense of the development of individual talents, especially through humanistic dis- ciplines, was supposed to guarantee both loyalty to the throne and scholarly quality.4 Ministerial policy throughout this period walked a tightrope be- tween Thun-Hohenstein’s desire to establish Catholic-based scholarship and the lack of appropriate scholars, which forced him to acknowledge the need to appoint academics from the non-Habsburg parts of the German Confederation. On the spatial level, three major changes characterize this period. First, the Habsburg universities drew closer to the universities of the German Confederation on both the symbolic and personal levels. Second, the uni- fication of university space through the reintroduction of German as the language of instruction in 1853 was a largely mythologized and politicized process. The assessment of this change varied widely and also depended on one’s national orientation.5 Finally, Thun-Hohenstein clearly followed a path of modernization, which included opening the universities to scholars from different national backgrounds. This opened a path to the developments in the 1860s and 1870s, when universities began to drift apart, forming sub- systems defined by the language they used in teaching. Toward the Ordinarienuniversität Thun-Hohenstein took up office in July 1849, in the midst of the final period of the educational reorganization; only a few days after his inauguration, the law concerning the organization of the universities was enacted. The new law reorganized the academic body into an autonomous faculty controlled by the full professors (Ordinarienuniversität), which weakened the corpo- rate character of the university. It also permitted freedom of teaching and learning, at least to an extent, and standardized the curricula. The central issue remained the question of autonomy, which liberal scholars and universities saw as a prerequisite to modernization.6 The 1848 laws on Privatdozenten and professorial appointments had strengthened the