[Footnote 4: Prussia, of late, greatly contributed toward the aggrandizement of the power of Russia by solemnly declaring in 1828, when Russia extended her influence over Turkey, that she would not on that account prevent Russia from asserting her "just claims," a declaration that elicited bitter complaints from the British government; and again in 1831, by countenancing the entry of the Russians into Poland, at that time in a state of insurrection.]
[Footnote 5: The reason of the backwardness displayed from the commencement by Prussia to act as the bulwark of Germany on the Lower Rhine is explained by Stein in his letters: "Hanoverian jealousy, by which the narrow-minded Castlereagh was guided, and, generally speaking, jealousy of the German ministerial clauses, as if the existence of a Mecklenburg were of greater importance to Germany than that of a powerful warlike population, alike famous in time of peace or war, presided over the settlement of the relation in which Belgium was to stand to Prussia.">[
[Footnote 6: At Königsberg, in Prussia, a secret society was discovered which was partly composed of people of rank, who, under pretence of meeting for the exercise of religious duties, gave way to the most wanton license.]
[Footnote 7: The police, while attempting to lead science, was unwittingly led by it. The students were driven in crowds into Hegel's colleges, his pupils were preferred to all appointments, etc., and every measure was taken to render that otherwise almost unnoted sophist as dangerous as possible.]
[Footnote 8: In this the Jews essentially aided: Borne more in an anti-German, Heine more in an anti-Christian, spirit, and were highly applauded by the simple and infatuated German youth.]
[Footnote 9: Görres even advised against it, although, in 1817, he had acted the principal part on the presentation of the Cologne address.]
CCLXXIII. The Progress of Science, Art, and Practical Knowledge in
Germany
In the midst of the misery entailed by war and amid the passions roused by party strife the sciences had attained to a height hitherto unknown. The schools had never been neglected, and immense improvements, equally affecting the lowest of the popular schools and the colleges, had been constantly introduced. Pestalozzi chiefly encouraged the proper education of the lower classes and improved the method of instruction. The humanism of the learned academies (the study of the dead languages) went hand in hand with the realism of the professional institutions. The universities, although often subjected to an overrigid system of surveillance and compelled to adopt a partial, servile bias, were, nevertheless, generally free from a political tendency and incredibly promoted the study of all the sciences. The mass of celebrated savants and of their works is too great to permit of more than a sketch of the principal features of modern German science.
The study of the classics, predominant since the time of the Reformation, has been cast into the shade by the German studies, by the deeper investigation of the language, the law, the history of our forefathers and of the romantic Middle Age, by the great Catholic reaction, and, at the same time, by the immense advance made in natural history, geography, and universal history. The human mind, hitherto enclosed within a narrow sphere, has burst its trammels to revel in immeasurable space. The philosophy and empty speculations of the foregoing century have also disappeared before the mass of practical knowledge, and arrogant man, convinced by science, once more bends his reasoning faculties in humble adoration of their Creator.
The aristocracy of talent and learned professional pride have been overbalanced by a democratic press. The whole nation writes, and the individual writer is either swallowed up in the mass or gains but ephemeral fame. Every writer, almost without exception, affects a popular style. But, in this rich literary field, all springs up freely without connection or guidance. No party is concentrated or represented by any reigning journal, but each individual writes for himself, and the immense number of journals published destroy each other's efficiency. Many questions of paramount importance are consequently lost in heaps of paper, and the interest they at first excited speedily becomes weakened by endless recurrence.