By the late eighteenth century, universities in England and Germany had lost their sense of purpose. The romantics then presented them with a new one, a new Idea of a university. In Germany, Johann Gottlieb Fichte and others stressed that universities must teach more effectively; in England, Coleridge and Wordsworth attached to the German Idea a desire to keep the universities part of England's national church.
By the late eighteenth century, universities in England and Germany had lost their sense of purpose. The romantics then presented them with a new one,...
