Note 32 — MEMOIR OF HEINRICH GRAETZ.

J. Lehmann, whose zeal in behalf of the founding of the seminary was highly commendable, reports (Archives of the Board of Curators of the Fränkel Bequests. I, Vol. 1, relative to the Seminary) as follows: “Every evening between 7 and 8, in the building of the Boys’ School of the Jewish community, a lecture is delivered before Jewish divinity students, Dr. Zunz lecturing on Rabbinic Literature, Dr. Graetz on Jewish History, and Dr. Sachs on the Proverbs of Solomon. The lectures are well attended by about twenty-five or thirty prospective rabbis, who take notes industriously, and by a dozen Jewish scholars who come as visitors (Hospitanten).... Zunz was obviously making an inspiring impression upon his audience; his dry subject was rendered spicy by piquant observations on Eisenmenger and Karpzow, Wagenseil and Richard Simon, and not a few innuendoes touching the present. On the evening when I heard Sachs, he had just begun the introduction to the exegesis of the Proverbs. It seemed to me that on the whole he was a little too abstruse, although there was no dearth of beautiful thoughts expressed in a manner still more beautiful. Dr. Graetz is a young man, who is very much praised by competent judges. Report says that his lectures bristle with new data and results; I myself have not yet heard him. He is said to have lived in Breslau at one time, and he came here from Lundenburg, his last residence, at the suggestion of Dr. Sachs. The institution of these three lecture courses on six evenings was proposed by the school trustees of the Jewish community. They have appropriated the means for carrying them on (about 1200 Reichsthaler) from the legacy fund of the Talmud-Torah School. Their right to do this has been contested in certain quarters, but for the present they are supported by the authorization of the communal directors and the approval of the intelligent. I have made this preface to enable you to estimate to what extent the judgment of those consulted by me with regard to the Breslau project is based upon what has been done here, inadequate though it be.... At first, Sachs, who recently received a letter from Frankel in Dresden inquiring into the feasibility of establishing a Rabbinical Institute for Berlin and Dresden in common, also intended to put down his opinion in writing for me, etc.”