For inquisitive and travel-loving youngsters of the late 18 th century and early 19 th century, it was not unusual to combine adventurous roving around Europe with short bouts of study at several famous academies or universities. A well to do young man would, for instance, travel at leisure from Leyden to Göttingen to follow a semester on physics by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg or on the philosophy of law by Arthur Schopenhauer, and then move on to Oxford or Padua, Vienna, Heidelberg or Salamanca to ‘do a semester of theology, natural history, mathematics, philology’ or whatever. There were even students that moved from the one famous professor to the next, in this way embodying the cross border spirit of free learning. And no one ever bothered about the validity of their diplomas and certificates. Who would question the standards of Cambridge or Coimbra, who would question the authority and quality of Kant or Hegel?

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