Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/360

336 the German mothertongue is not the language of vain display. Moreover, like a great organ it commands the whole range of musical expression, of force, of grandeur, of lofty enthusiasm, of passion, of delicate feeling. What is there in any other language that can excel the vigor of the German Bible, the powerful, sonorous sublimity of Schiller's dramas, the captivating word-music of Heine's lyrics?

It would be superfluous here to speak of the literature which has grown up in the German language and includes every field of intellectual activity, for its imposing scope has been recognized by the whole civilized world. But it is not only German literature which the mothertongue has to give us.

There is no language in the world which offers so many difficulties to the translator as the German, and none in which all the idioms and poetic meters of other languages can be so exactly rendered and which has so rich and complete a collection of translations. Homer, Dante, Hafiz, Shakespeare, Aristotle, Bacon, Thucydides, Tacitus, Macaulay, Victor Hugo, Walter Scott, Tolstoy—the poetry, philosophy, science, history, fiction of all times and of all nations have naturally found a home in the German language, through the translations which are worthy of the originals by their fidelity, their strength and beauty. Indeed, the German language opens up to us more than any other the wealth of the literature of the whole world.

We possess, in truth, a treasure which we cannot prize highly enough, especially we who have made a new home in a new world speaking another language. It is sometimes expected of our compatriots in America that they shall not only learn English, but that they shall entirely cast aside the old mothertongue. That is very unwise advice. Nobody will dispute that the German-American