Page:Addresses to the German nation.djvu/229

 start. Even if there were no other motive, a sense of honour, or jealousy, or the desire to have what another possesses and, if possible, to have it in a better form, will spur on the rest to follow the example one after the other. Then, too, the above-mentioned considerations concerning the State’s own advantage, which perhaps seem doubtful to many just now, will become more obvious, once they are proved by personal observation.

If it could be expected that every German State would at once, and from this very hour, make serious preparations to carry out that scheme, the better generation that we need would be in existence in twenty-five years, and anyone who might expect to live so long could hope to see it with his own eyes.

174. But we must also take this contingency into account. Among all the German States that now exist, there might not be a single one which had among its highest advisers a man capable of understanding, and of being affected by, all that has been mentioned above, and in which the majority of the counsellors did not at any rate oppose him. In that case, of course, this business would devolve upon well-disposed private persons, and it would be desirable that they should make a start with the proposed new education. We have in mind here, first of all, great landowners, who could establish on their estates such educational institutions for the children of their dependents. It is to Germany’s credit, and a very honourable mark of distinction from the other nations of modern Europe, that among the class mentioned there have always been some here and there, who made it their serious business to care for the instruction and education of the children on their estates, and were gladly willing to do for them to the best of their knowledge. It is to be hoped that they will now be inclined