Recently there has been a lot of talk about the so-called "romantic popanz" (Stefan Matuschek).

This bugbear consists, among other things, of encountering the “horror of romantic-German irrationalism” (Matuschek) in the form of anti-vaccinationists, lateral thinkers and other pariah figures.

“The” romanticism along with its tradition is held responsible for the odyssey of the present.

The only thing missing is that the typical romantic inwardness also has to account for the declining voter turnout.

This raises the question of whether the idea of ​​the romantic university also belongs to the “romantic popanz” of the present.

Are both a kind of "spectre" of university and education reform, which we encounter again and again when university and education politicians Humboldt,

Summon Schleiermacher and others?

Novalis' 250th birthday in May this year is a welcome opportunity to revisit these questions.

Novalis is known to the general public primarily through his “Hymns to the Night” and his novel fragments “Heinrich von Ofterdingen” and “The Apprentices at Sais”.

His sentences are not missing in any literary history of Romanticism: “The world must be romanticized.

In this way one finds its original meaning again.” In many other texts Novalis deals with all kinds of objects of knowledge.

As a reflection of his bread and butter as a mining engineer, his spectrum ranges from the exploitation of nature by humans to oriental culture to complex constructs of thought that arose as a result of Fichte's philosophy.

methods of learning

Let's go with Novalis first to the temple at Sais, a place in Egypt.

The fragment of the novel “The Apprentices at Sais” takes place there.

Why is?

In a place that seems removed from time, namely in a temple, apprentices and a teacher first gather.

At this location, discussions between the teacher and the apprentices are constantly held.

Later, travelers join the community for a short time.

The circles of discussion are sometimes widened or narrowed, dissolved again and come together again.

It is about questions of education, writing or nature and its knowledge.

The people don't have names and don't write.

They discuss and, interrupting their conversations about different views of nature, tell a fairy tale.

"The Apprentices at Sais" is a propaedeutic or metapedagogical text that deals with the methods of learning and their implementation.

In 1803, Schelling says in his "Lectures on the Method of Academic Studies" that the student is an "artist in learning".

The university teacher must focus his educational attention on something that Humboldt then calls "longing" in "On the Internal and External Organization of the Higher Scientific Institutions in Berlin" from 1810.

Awakening this “longing” for exceeding one's own individual limits of knowledge is the task of university teaching.

The conversation as a way to knowledge

Let's now wander through a fantastic Middle Ages with Novalis' “Heinrich von Ofterdingen”.

In his novel fragment, Novalis presents a not particularly exciting story.

A craftsman's son travels with his mother from Eisenach to Augsburg.

That's the whole story.

The narrative of the travel story is occasionally interrupted and entertains the reader with fairy tales and music, lets him participate in conversations that take place in castles, rooms and village pubs.

Heinrich encounters merchants who tell fairy tales, poets who have beautiful daughters, crusaders and exotic-looking girls with an involuntary migration background, retired miners who glorify the exploitation of nature as a relationship with nature, scattered rulers who now live as hermits:

A diverse panorama opens up for the reader.

The way to knowledge is always talking to friends or strangers.