O. But the Turners must have given some occasion for the charge? G. I have never heard any expressions at the Turning-ground which would bear, even remotely, such a construction. But, lest you should believe it, I will refer you to matter in Jahu's "German Nationality," and "German Gymnastics." O. Let us hear. G. Take the Turners' motto, "Bold, free, gay, and pious."* Is that a Jacobinical motto! O. No, indeed. G. Or this appeal:† "German people, let not discouragement lead you into contempt for the ancient houses of your princes; open the history of the world, and seek for better." Is that Jacobinical? O. Certainly not. G. Or Jahn's remarks, that "It is an injustice to old families, as old as the state, and often among its first founders, to permit the dogma of a moment to have as much influence as the hard labor of whole centuries. If every Jack can, by the prefix von, do as much as the traditions of early deeds, then can a mortal syllable (which will be no creative word in eternity), do as much as the longripening fruits of time. An ancient oak of a thousand years, and still green, is honorable; and so is an old man who has lived usefully. We remember how many things they have lived through and endured; to how many wanderers they have given shade and coolness. No one stands long before a mushroom," &c. Is this Jacobinical? O. Most completely the opposite. G. Or when he says that § "Political revolutions have seldom done good, and what little they have was but the companion of an army of miseries;" or that,|| "Even in the worst time of the French period, love to king and fatherland was instilled into the hearts of the Turners." Is all that Jacobinical? O. His opponents must certainly never have read Jahn's works. G. And they contradict each other, too; for they sometimes make the charge of Jacobinism, and sometimes find fault with Jahn and his friends, the advocates of Turning, for desiring a constitution. When did these anarchical king-murderers desire a constitution! O. But I have heard it said that Jahn and his friends did not, themselves, know what they meant by a constitution. G. But that is what both everybody and nobody knows. Every one that is, desires security in his sphere of life, undisturbed from without, ▸ Frisch, frei, frohlich und fromm. Gymnastics, p. 233. + Nationality, p. 233. Gymnastics, p. 234. and entire freedom within it; and by a constitution he means an instrument which will secure this to himself and to all; which will leave to the authorities the utmost freedom for good, but will restrain them from evil. But how such a one can be obtained, certainly very few and perhaps none can show. O. That may be. But I imagine it might be for the best if our youth were not troubled with any civic concerns whatever. G. Would you have it so now? The Turning system was organized in 1811. And not only did it contemplate the training of youth to general acquirements, but the misery in which the German fatherland was sunk was at hand, to be held up before their eyes as a consequence of civic dissensions and intestine quarrels. It was necessary to train them promptly to maturity as citizens, for the prompt salvation of their fatherland was necessary. The war of its rescue is ended; and what wonder is it that its first sounds are yet echoing? O. I am pleased to see that you think an excuse necessary here. G. Not too fast. The sounds uttered then shall re-echo through all time. O. What sounds? G. "One Germany!" O. That is your chief point, then? But is it not clear that the greatness of Germany consists in the very multitude of its nations and princes, and that its very life is aimed at by these preachers of unity? G. You unreasonable man! If you were advocating One Prussia, or One Austria, or One Bavaria, would you be in favor of compressing together all. Germany into that one? If yea, you are right. But who has any such design? The One Germany which is desired is, free and friendly confederate existence of all the German nationalities, in all their numerous individualities, in mutual recognition, respect, and love; and, when necessary, in united strength against external enemies. For centuries the Germans have been lamenting over the grievous internal divisions of their fatherland; and now, when the first serious intention of healing them is shown, a howl goes up, from all sides, as if the utmost danger were at hand. O. But the preaching of hatred to the French, long after the end of the war, is certainly most useless! G. Useless? That is as you take it. I know of nothing more unworthy than insults to a subdued enemy. Has it not been repeated, even to weariness, yet not often enough for some people, that French influence remains successfully operative in the inmost mind and heart of numberless Germans; that even yet, a French education in manners and language is the highest ambition with an innumerable number; especially with a large part of the German nobility, who ought to set a better example. The war is yet active against this French power within the limits of Germany. O. But contempt for foreigners, such stringent restriction to the national and popular, seems to me entirely unnatural to Germans, and entirely opposed to their cosmopolitan character. G. Your charges stand in each other's light. O. How so? G. If you had just now expressed apprehensions lest Saxony, Prussia, or Hesse, should, by strictly limiting themselves to what is national, or relates to their national descent, lose their general German character, this last charge of yours would seem an extension of the former. But you expressed an apprehension precisely opposite; lest the individuality of the German races should be lost in a general characterless Germanization; as a consequence of which you must naturally fear lest the German traits should be lost in an entirely characterless cosmopolitanism. And this would be a much better grounded fear than that of its opposite, from too strict a limitation of Germany within itself. O. I must admit that you are right. G. No one imagines that, in order to live a life of entire devotion to his country, a good citizen must have no house of his own; nor should it be supposed necessary that a German, in order to live for the good of all nations, must have no fatherland. Is it meant that the devil should play on the Germans, as those fools do on the violin who take so much pains to imitate all manner of instruments on it, but cannot bring out the real proper violin tone? A skillful leader would ask such a player, What is the use of that poor and incompetent imitation of the flute and the hautboy, when we have the flute and the hautboy themselves? Do you expect, with your ape-fiddling, to surpass the originals? You ought to be ashamed for so dishonoring your noble instrument, which ought to lead all the rest of the orchestra! O. Your application is clear; that an imitator of all the world is by no means a cosmopolitan. G. Precisely; just there is the misunderstanding. "The devil is the imitator of God;" said the Jesuits, who were good judges of such a case. A few great and gifted Germans, like Goethe and Tieck, for instance, have profoundly penetrated and lived in the spirit of foreign nations, with love and sympathy. They were trained for this by understanding and loving the glory of their own country. And with these great minds are confounded those who become Frenchified apes, because they are too God-forgottenly strengthless to become German men. It is imagined to be one and the same thing, whether a great merchant become rich at home, by honest trade, invests capital at the ends of the earth, or whether a bankrupt peddler, with no home anywhere, borrows wherever he goes and makes a great display with the money! O. But I should fear that this preaching to Germans against becoming Gallicized, might be unintelligently perverted into a truly unchristian hate of the French. G. If you put the matter upon conscientious grounds you shall be answered accordingly. What German is ready to love the French? If he is a Prussian, let him love the Austrians and Bavarians first; if a Bavarian, the Prussians. Will one who does not love his child, love a stranger? Do you suppose that the Good Samaritan loved strangers only, and had no love for his wife and child and his fellow-Samaritans? Shall these empty cosmopolitans boast of their Christian perfections and their love of universal humanity, while they show themselves heartlessly indifferent to fellow citizens and countrymen within the narrow sphere of their own actual lives? No. Only the German who loves all Germans with a comprehensive, heartfelt love, is ripe for the love of foreigners; and as long as he retains one spark of hatred against any German nationality, let him not claim credit for the greater until he has fulfilled the less. O. You may be right. But I must return to a previous inquiry, which you did not answer; that is, where is the good of orations, about civic affairs, at the Turning-ground? G. I said before, that the pressing period of 1811 demanded a stringent education. But have you lately heard any such orations? O. You know that I have never been upon the Turning-ground. G. I have been there, and have heard no such; still less have I delivered any. And I agree with you entirely; they are no place for such. As the Turning exercises contemplate the development of the human body, not civil training for a definite future occupation, for smiths, carpenters, or miners; so, in like manner, the mind should not be trained in a civic direction, but in a general development-to truth, faith, candor, moderation, chastity, hatred of lies and deceit, of drunkenness and licentiousness. Let such a mind be implanted in the Turners, and it will of itself develop, in the after relations of life, into the civil virtues, without any artificial direction toward them, or any untimely hot-house forcing, which seeks to anticipate the natural time of ripening. O. But this does not seem to me consistent with the premature instruction of the Turners, on all occasions, in love of country. G. But do you consider the fatherland a civic organization? In order to love it, must one first have received the privilege of German burghership? Do you not believe that a German country-a German heaven-bind even the youngest German hearts with a thousand bonds of love before they ever hear the words "German State," and that it is this very love which is the very heart of all the later civic virtues? O. "German heaven-German country;" how do these enchain the child and the youth? His place of abode, his immediate neighborhood, enchain him. "Germany" is only an idea, which he is not even able to comprehend! G. How your charges refute each other! At one time you say the German fatherland is far too narrow and confined for the cosmopolitan tendencies of the Germans. And this is believed by thousands, not only of German men, but of children; and the sphere of observation of infants is to be enlarged beyond the limits of Germany, by instruction in foreign tongues, and knowledge of foreign lands and history. And these very same men who think this kind of instruction quite natural, because it is usual, are displeased to have love of country impressed upon the hearts of youth, as if it were something beyond their capacity. O. But only tell me this: What shall our youth understand by the term "German fatherland ?" G. Understand? Our pious forefathers made their children pray, and taught them edifying texts and hymns. The childish heart found in devotion the life of its life; the deep impression never perished, but consecrated their whole existence, to their death. Illuminati asked, What can a child understand by the names of God and Christ? and prayer, Bible, and hymns were thrown away. This was worse than church sacrilege; it was sacrilege of the inward inborn holiness of the heart. Shall we, in like manner, rob our children of the name of fatherland, to preserve it until their understanding is ripened? The name will make no impression upon men-they will not understand it-unless they have loved it instinctively from their earliest youth; unless, in the clod of earth on which they are born, they love, symbolically, their whole country. And fathers and teachers who would impress upon the young a love of country, must love it sincerely themselves. O. And also, at least, incline to revolution. G. I think I have thoroughly refuted the charge of Jacobinism made against the Turners. But if you should hear an expression which has a revolutionary sound, reflect that it is an echo of 1813, the year when all Prussia, from king to peasant, rose up; and remember |