Seite - 65 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space

Chapter 2 ♦  65 gradual rejuvenation and inter-Habsburg migration, although state interests still predominated. While reformist tendencies in the humanities and philosophy were developing at the universities, the natural sciences and medicine were far from being inundated by non-Habsburg scholars at this time, with some prominent exceptions, such as Ernst Brücke. Inter-Habsburg migration and appointments from other scientific institutions, like technical academies (polytechnische Institute), were common. This confirms that in Thun- Hohenstein’s education policy, the humanities and legal subjects played an enormously important role; in these areas, the ministry was prepared to ap- point scholars from abroad despite protests from faculties and conservative critics. However, this trend also demonstrates that the natural sciences of the Vormärz, even though absent from the universities before 1848, were much more highly developed and that new scholarly ideas did not mean a rupture in their development, as happened in the humanities. There were, however, three additional reasons for the ministry’s support for the appointment of Habsburg scholars in the sciences. First, geography, mineralogy, zoology, and biology were local sciences at this time. They linked a theoretical background with a descriptive analysis of the local en- vironment. Thus, even in the latter part of the nineteenth century, both the faculties and the ministry regarded specialization or interest in the par- ticularities of the natural world in the local province as an asset. Second, appointments of scholars from abroad frequently meant higher salaries, and except in the period directly after the revolution, the Ministry of Finance demanded that Thun-Hohenstein cut expenses. Newly appointed professors would also have to accept research equipment that was either insufficient or outsourced to independent institutions. In particular, celebrated scholars, pleading for extensive research opportunities and needing to relocate equip- ment and assistants, were less likely to be appointed because of the cost to the universities. Less prominent, younger, and local scholars were simply cheaper in many cases. Third, the atmosphere, fueled by Catholic conservatives, was unfavor- able to both foreigners and the natural sciences themselves. The university found itself embroiled in the conflict between the Catholic Church and the sciences, the Materialismusstreit (conflict over materialism), revolving around the question of whether, and to what degree, the new developments in the sciences, especially the biological sciences, conflicted with Catholic doctrines.82 Shortly after the controversy over the nomination of Bonitz as