Page - 126 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space

126 ♦  Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 the biology and morphology of cryptogams or whether it had to be broader, with the final decision in favor of plant anatomy being made only after four years of discussion.165 More than a decade later, the Viennese medical faculty and the ministry clashed over a habilitation for public medical service with the inclusion of knowledge on inoculation (Öffentliches Sanitätswesen mit Einschluss der Impfkunde). While the faculty regarded it as too narrow a specialty, the ministry decided that this disciplinary designation was indeed correct and should be accepted.166 In such instances, the ministry limited itself to questions concern- ing the designation of the discipline. Even if an external expert disagreed with the faculty’s opinion on the quality of the author’s publications, the ministry did not follow up, leaving such decisions to the faculties.167 The question of how to deal with differentiation of knowledge was mostly an- swered through the addition of a specialization to a more general area. This included disciplinary enlargement (e.g., “philosophy with special consider- ation of sociology” or “balneology and hygiene of health resorts”), period denotations (especially in literature studies and historiography), and spe- cialization, such as “experimental psychology and methodology of natural sciences.” However, more exotic designations were also allowed, such as “infinitesimal calculus and its use for geometry” and hydrobotany. This acceptance of partial specialization in law and in practice was yet another outcome of the pervasive construction of the university as both a teaching and a research institution. According to the 1888 habilitation law, a Privatdozent could acquire the right to teach (venia docendi, henceforth venia) only “for the whole discipline, or a larger area of it, which can be re- garded as an integrative whole.”168 Moreover, Privatdozenten were allowed to offer lectures and seminars only in the areas covered by their habilitation. As a result, the choice of the disciplinary designation reflected their teaching duties and their potential income from Collegiengelder, rather than their scholarly interests. At the same time, the widening of habilitation areas was also problematic. If a scholar decided on, or was forced to apply for, a broader discipline, he not only had to demonstrate wider knowledge in the habilitation process but subsequently had to cover it in lectures. This regulation particularly disadvantaged smaller universities and the Privatdozenten teaching there. There, young scholars competed with pro- fessors for students to attend their lectures, leading to questions about the division of lectures in order not to lower professorial earnings. This led to the informal practice of awarding habilitations only for disciplines not cov- ered in regular lectures. Privatdozenten could thus either choose a narrow