ary am an incorrigible
aristocrat, for which you have often reproached me?"

"And if they question you about your catechism, will you deny it? Will
you deny that our principles are the same, and that we only differ in
opinion as to whether the times are yet fully ripe for them? You are
silent; now you see--"

"Scientific convictions are somewhat different from public speaking,
and the police, thank God, no longer meddle with the freedom of thought
of a private tutor of philosophy. But since we have come to this
point--once more and, as it seems, for the last time: do you take me
for a coward, Franzel?"

"You! How can you even--"

"Or do you not believe that I would be drawn and quartered, rather than
deny my convictions? Well then, if you think me a man of whose
friendship you have no cause to be ashamed, let me tell you this: what
you are about to do, appears to me little more judicious, than if you
wanted to set before an infant that had not yet cut its teeth, a roast
chicken instead of its mother's milk or some of Liebig's preparations,
with which it had hitherto appeased its hunger. If any one attempted to
do that to my child, I should certainly forbid him the house, or at
least endeavor to make his premature diet harmless."

"You talk so, because you don't know the people," Franzelius burst
forth, "They are no longer children, their teeth are cut, and their
eyes open; where this is not the case, we will help them, offer hard
food that they may cut their teeth on it, instead of cooking the
traditional children's porridge, perpetually lulling them to sleep with
baby talk, when they are grown men, and the leading strings of
guardians--"

"Don't get angry unnecessarily!" Edwin interrupted. "Who of us wishes
to check the natural growth of the mind, instead of aiding it according
to its powers? But what you have in view, is a forced, premature
culture, your demagogical enthusiasm is a hot house, and that is why I
repeat: make no useless sacrifices, which must not only ruin yourself,
but many of your foster children. You cannot carve an Apollo from every
block of wood; not every one who ties on a leather apron and earns his
bread by the sweat of his brow, will be able to grasp the idea of the
fall of man which a follower of Kant or Spinoza can form. Why, when
there are so many crying wants of a coarser nature to be satisfied, do
you desire to create needs for our less gifted brothers? Why show them
what they lack,