Before supper Dr. Wahl took me to the Domberg, where we looked for a while at the exterior of the ruined cathedral, and then I was taken to the end of a long avenue to an overhanging spot that commands one of the finest views in the Baltic provinces and the best prospect of the town. Between the north base of the Domberg and the river (spanned by a granite bridge) are the best houses and shops, and the professor pointed out the most important buildings, including three Lutheran, one Roman, and two Orthodox churches.
The well-known university is, of course, a great feature of the town, and connected therewith they have a good hospital and anatomical theatre. There are also a botanical garden, with 12,000 plants; and a veterinary institute, founded in 18462, as well as certain learned societies and an observatory. The university was founded by Gustavus Adolphus in 1625, and has had a somewhat checkered career; for, to escape the invasion of the Russians in 1699, the professors, students, libraries, and museums all departed, first to Pernau, and then to Sweden, leaving empty the learned halls of Dorpat for about a century, until, under the auspices of Alexander I., the restoration took place, and this half-German university is now regarded, I believe, as one of the best in the Russian Empire.
It has about forty ordinary professors, a total teaching staff of some seventy members, and upward of eight hundred students. Among these students are Livonians and Esthonians, sons of Riga citizens and Kourland barons, the descendants of old patrician houses, and the sons of half-Germanized peasant families, the mingling of whom has tended much to the good of the Baltic provinces. The first teachers, under Alexander, were almost all immigrants from North Germany; but, side by side with these, twenty years later, were to be found natives of the country who had obtained the academical purple, and who have helped to make Dorpat the intellectual centre of Baltic life. We heard, however, of one sign that the students have not yet attained to quite the front rank of civilization, in that sword duels are common amongst them, these encounters being betrayed by scars and sticking-plaster on the young gentlemen’s faces.
Dorpat has about 30,000 inhabitants, amongst whom we did not stay beyond the day after our arrival. Professor Wahl showed us in the morning the interior of the cathedral, which he spoke of as an early specimen of Gothic, and in the structure of which I noticed large bricks measuring perhaps fifteen inches by six, and four in thickness. Part of the church had in troublous times been used as a fortress, the places for the catapults being still visible. A portion of the building is now set apart for the 250,000 volumes of the university library, in which the professor drew our attention to a mechanical contrivance for supporting opened books, and revolving like a water-wheel, but always so that the six boards remained horizontal and the books lay flat—a capital machine for a writer needing at hand several books for simultaneous reference.
After a pleasant lunch on Madame Wahl’s veranda, amid plants and creepers and excellent hospitality, we were accompanied to the station by the rector’s son, and started for a five hours’ journey to Revel. Our route lay fifty miles northwest to Tapps, where the Dorpat branch “taps” the main line from St. Petersburg to Baltic Port. Half the distance lay over Livonian soil, but we had practically left the Livonians behind, since the conventional line that parts them from the Esths may be drawn horizontally across the country through Walk, which lies about fifty miles south of Dorpat. The Esthonian villages have a less pleasing appearance than those of the Livonians, but a larger proportion of Esthonia than of
1 | In searching for information about Mr. Kapoustine, we came across this entry in The Times of London, February 12, 1889, page 5: "THE BALTIC PROVINCES, RIGA, FEB. 11. — M. Kapoustine, Curator of the Educational District of Dorpat, has taken further steps to introduce the Russian language in the schools in the Baltic Provinces. All masters in the primary municipal school who are not able to teach in the Russian language will be dismissed in August next, while ecen the masters in the higher school who may not be able to acquire the language after a course of Instruction consisting of ten lessons per week will also be relieved of their posts. Orders have also been given to close the German private school for some of the nobility at Griva, in Courland." |
2 | Reported as 1848 in contemporary sources. In 1919, Tartu Veterinary Institute was was attached to University of Tartu, and renamed Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. |