 A final noteworthy aspect of Schleiermacher’s socio-political philosophy is his philosophy of education, a subject with which he engaged throughout his career. Especially interesting in this regard is a work that he published in 1808 in connection with the plans for founding a new university in Berlin (now known as the Humboldt University): Occasional Thoughts on Universities in a German Spirit, together with an Appendix on One about to be Founded. This work preceded Wilhelm von Humboldt’s better known pieces on the same topic, which date from 1809–10, and evidently had a strong influence on them. Schleiermacher and Humboldt both write in a very liberal and progressive spirit with only modest differences between their positions. They thereby not only collectively generated the model of the university that Humboldt actually implemented in Berlin and which thereby became the main inspiration of the modern university tout court, but also developed many principles on the subject that would still repay serious consideration today (for example, Britain could still learn a lot from them). Among the principles that Schleiermacher developed and which Humboldt took over are: a conception that the university should promote not only knowledge but also individuality; a principle that this requires the greatest possible independence of the university from the state (something that will ultimately also serve the state’s own interests better); a principle that it also requires that there should be as much freedom as possible within the university for both faculty and students; a principle that students should be admitted to university regardless of their class background provided only that they are academically qualified; a principle that philosophy should replace theology as the top faculty; a principle of combining research with teaching; and a principle (based on a philosophy of language that Schleiermacher shares with Humboldt according to which language is fundamental to thought and moreover oral language is more fundamental than written) that the teaching in question should be primarily oral in character (for Schleiermacher the lecture, for Humboldt the seminar). Indeed, Schleiermacher is in certain ways even more radical and progressive than Humboldt in that he, for example, explicitly calls for the university to be run on a democratic model and demands that students from the lower classes not only be admitted to university but also receive financial support from the state in order to enable them to attend.