The way that the teacher/researcher ideal developed in Germany is discussed, along with discrepancies between the original context of the concept and the American one. The focal point is the foundation of the University of Berlin in 1810. Social, political, and intellectual development of the eighteenth century are reviewed, along with reforms at the University of Halle and Gottingen University, the German intellectual movements of German Romanticism and German Idealism, an approach to natural science called speculative philosophy, an approach to classical studies called Neuhumanismus, Wilhelm von Humboldt's role in revising the primary and secondary school system in the early 1800s; the concept of "Einheit der Wissenschaft" (i.e., the belief in the unity of learning, science, and scholarship); and the growth of the discipline of chemistry. Developments after the new foundation at Berlin that led to the mature German university encountered by American students in the second half of the nineteenth century are also considered. (SW)