The Arizona sentinel., 1886-09-18

art is lost. The Heidelbergers are as fond of their castle as of their univer- sity, and a few years ago they founded society for its preservation, called ''Schlossvereln, or Castle Association. Another attraction is the long bridge across the Neckar river. Heidelbergers are never tired of repeating that the great Goethe said it was the most beau tiful bridge in the world.
 The old university buildings are in the geographical center of the town. They front little square called Lud- wigs platz. The oldest of the buildings were built in 1712-15, to take the place of the old structures which had been re- moved. The buildings are of stone, and are high, square and homely. They are absolutely without modern con- venience. The universities in Bonn and Berlin are palaces in comparison. From the time of its founding the university fourished for nearly three hundred years. It had the finest library of any university in Europe. The most expensive tonnes were bulky parchments bound in costly leather, velvet and silk, fastened with
  the still existent galleries of the Church of the Holy Ghost, where, no doubt, students, while mass was celebrating below, stole up the winding stairways on the outside of the church to study. When the Reformation had swept over Heidelberg University and left it a Protestant institution the country was overrun by Tilly's soldiers in the thirty years war, and for twenty years no stu dent matriculated and the university had no rector, which is the office of highest academical dignity.
 The world-renowned library was sent to Pope Gregory XIV. by the reigning Bavarian prince, Duke Max, after Hei- delberg was destroyed. A part of the ceremonies last week in Heidelberg was the presentation by Papal ablegate to the rector, the Crown Prince of Baden, of an exact catalogue of the precious manuscripts once in the university libra ry. but now in the Vatican library. The university library has now over 300,000 volumes, among them 5000 manu- scripts.
 The university has faculties ot theol- ogy, law, medicine, philosophy and science. It is only in the last ten years that it has grown in the direction of the natural sciences and medicine. The professors and lecturers number 120. Over 1000 students matriculate every year in the academic course.
 Like all German universities, Heidel- berg accords great freedom to her stu dents. The professors have their own courts of law, called special courts, to Vry offenders. In fact, the university, fn all save the gravest offenses, is law unto itself. This is an inheritance dat ing from tho very foundation of the university. The country was overrun by robbers, and, while Count Palatine Ruprecht 1. maintained two robber bands, with headquarters near what is now the town of Spies, yet he decreed that his students should not be molest- ed. Whatever any one did to offend his neighbor, the faculty of the university should consider and infiict the punis ish- ment. Efforts to change this law have proven unavailing. It is sad that the noblemen who have the power to change the laws will not do SO, partly because they have enjoyed the freedom from outside restraint when they were them selves students, and partly because their sons are at the universities, and the gov ernors want to have the boys have good time while they are young. The boys have not been heard to complain of this way of looking at the question.
 AS in other German universities, the Heidelberg students are divided into societies. There are two classes of societies, the corps and the burschen- schaften. To the corps belong the sons of high Government officials, and they are conservative in tone; to the bur schenschaften belong the liberals who are usually not so rich as the corps members, and who, like the Irishman that land at Castle garden, arc "agin the Government, on general prin- ciples. Each corps is distinguished by its colors. There are five colors at Heidelberg: the Saxo-Borussia, whose colors are blue, white and black; the Suevia, white, green, and black; the Rhenania, blue, white and red; the Westphalia, green, white, and black, and the Vandalia, green, white, and black. These colors are worn on a rib bon worn over the waistcoat and under the outer garment and passing from the right shoulder downward, diagonal ly across the breast to the left hip. The colors are also shown in bierknoten, or beer-knots, worn like charm on the watchchain. On their caps also is an insignia of the corps. The students official uniform on formal occasions is a corevisia cap as it is called, shaped like round, fiat pie-pan. and worn tip ped over the right eye and fastened in place by an elastic under the chin-else it might tumble off SchIGQer gloves, high top boots, white leather brooches, and a black velvet shOrt-coat. In drinking beer and dueling with SclbIGger the Heidelberg, like other German students, takes keen delight. It has been the practice of many great families to send their sons to Heidelberg for two years, and when they get toughened to trans fer them to Bonn or Berlin.
 The crowning spectacle oi the jubilee was the procession which marched two miles along the Hauptstrasse, the Broad way of the town. It placed before the spectator the history, of the last five hundred years of the old town. Nearly two thousand persons were in the line. The banner of the old German Empire was carried in the van and that of the Kaiser Wilhelm in the rear. Historical characters were represented by the artists who arranged the procession and by the handsome sons and beautiful daughters of the wealthiest resi- dents of the town. After the figure of old Count Ruprecht l., the founder, came a striking group of knights surroundinp the fiUure of Friedrich l.