University Students Not Really on Their Best Behavior
In her letter to Julie von Studnitz on 21 July 1779 from Göttingen (letter 8), Caroline laments:
“Believe me, my dear friend, you have good reason to give thanks to God that you were not born in a university town. It is the most dangerous place for a girl.”
And on 14 November 1785 to Luise Gotter from Clausthal:
“The house was full of guests . . . It was like having a bunch of students in the house.”
University students’ generally unruly and even lewd behavior, which included drinking, carousing, and wenching, was proverbial. Here sundry representative illustrations from Heinrich Schneider, Die Burschenschaft Germania zu Jena (Jena 1897) and R. Fick, ed., Auf Deutschlands hohen Schulen: Eine illustrierte kulturgeschichtliche Darstellung deutschen Hochschul- und Studentenwesens (Berlin, Leipzig 1900).
