History of Friedrich II of Prussia V 4 [59]
is open to manifold objections. Nevertheless, as Schoolmasters go, I much prefer him to most others we have at present. The wild man had discerned, with his rugged natural intelligence (not wasted away in the idle element of speaking and of being spoken to, but kept wholesomely silent for most part), That human education is not, and cannot be, a thing of VOCABLES. That it is a thing of earnest facts; of capabilities developed, of habits established, of dispositions well dealt with, of tendencies confirmed and tendencies repressed:--a laborious separating of the character into two FIRMAMENTS; shutting down the subterranean, well down and deep; an earth and waters, and what lies under them; then your everlasting azure sky, and immeasurable depths of aether, hanging serene overhead. To make of the human soul a Cosmos, so far as possible, that was Friedrich Wilhelm's dumb notion: not to leave the human soul a mere Chaos;--how much less a Singing or eloquently Spouting Chaos, which is ten times worse than a Chaos left MUTE, confessedly chaotic and not cosmic! To develop the man into DOING something; and withal into doing it as the Universe and the Eternal Laws require,--which is but another name for really doing and not merely seeming to do it:--that was Friedrich Wilhelm's dumb notion: and it was, I can assure you, very far from being a foolish one, though there was no Latin in it, and much of Prussian pipe-clay!"
But the Congress of Cambrai is met, and much else is met and parted: and the Kaiser's Spectre-Hunt, especially his Duel with the She-Dragon of Spain, is in full course; and it is time we were saying something of the Double-Marriage in a directly narrative way.
END OF BOOK IV,
But the Congress of Cambrai is met, and much else is met and parted: and the Kaiser's Spectre-Hunt, especially his Duel with the She-Dragon of Spain, is in full course; and it is time we were saying something of the Double-Marriage in a directly narrative way.
END OF BOOK IV,