Page - 130 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space

130 ♦  Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 their careers. The system of disciplines, which largely defined the condi- tions of academic advancement, was prescribed in the curricula and viva voce (Rigorosum) rules, which were not particularly flexible; the curricula were changed about every twenty years, apart from in medicine, where the curriculum from 1833 was in force until 1872. Although the universities themselves were more or less flexible in the designation of lectures, higher up the ladder the situation became more complicated. While Privatdozenten could teach quite freely within their respective areas, designations of pro- fessorships were linked to the possibility of including the subject in the Rigorosum, that is, completing the commission and making rules for the exam. Thus, while Privatdozenten were limited more by the possibility of finding students willing to pay them, their road to a professorship went through the ministry, which had to accept the existence of a discipline that other universities could then apply to have. Such enlargements were usu- ally a long-term process stimulated by the appointment of scholars with a high reputation and accompanied by written opinions on the necessity of a new designation or the division of a chair, which resulted from the “de- velopment of science” and/or the establishment of such a chair at foreign faculties.179 The most elaborate act of this kind was a collective petition by the philosophical faculties for a third systemized chair of mathematics in 1907, which not only referred to scientific progress, teaching load, and the growing importance of mathematics as an auxiliary science but also included comparative statistics and a list of professors of mathematics in several European countries.180 Structures and Diversities: Coping with the Branching of Knowledge Growing pressure from universities to increase the number of professors and promote more and more specialized Privatdozenten made the ministry look for ways to amend academic positions without incurring a consider- able financial burden. There were two principal modes of diversification: introducing titular full professorships (mostly for associate professors but including several cases of Privatdozenten with the title of full professor) and granting a so-called ad personam (by individual appointment) professorship. The latter meant that the scholar was acknowledged as a luminary in his