ical writing. But in
poetry, Klopstock and Wieland, and, in serious prose, Lessing and
Herder, led the way to the great period of German literature. In this
period the name of Goethe holds the field, alike in prose and poetry.
Goethe was born in 1749, and hence it was the last quarter of the
century which saw him reach his zenith. Next to Goethe comes his
younger contemporary, Schiller. It is impossible here to go even
briefly into the achievements of the bearers of these great names.
They may be truly regarded in many important respects as the founders
of modern German culture. Around them sprang up a whole galaxy of
smaller men, and the close of the eighteenth century showed a
literary activity in Germany exceeding any that had gone before.

Turning to philosophy, it is enough to mention the immortal name of
Immanuel Kant as the founder of modern German philosophic thought and
the first of a line of eminent thinkers extending to wellnigh the
middle of the nineteenth century. The names of Fichte, Schelling,
Hegel, Schopenhauer and others will at once occur to the reader.

Contemporaneously with the great rise of modern German literature
there was a unique development in music, beginning with Sebastian Bach
and continuing through the great classical school, the leading names
in which are Glueck, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schubert,
etc. The middle period of the nineteenth century showed a further
development in prose literature, producing some of the greatest
historians and critics the world has seen. At this time, too, Germany
began to take the lead in science. The names of Virchow, Helmholtz,
Haeckel, out of a score of others, all of the first rank, are familiar
to every person of education in the present and past generation. The
same period has been signalized by the great post-classical
development in music, as illustrated by the works of Schumann, Brahms,
and, above all, by the towering fame of Richard Wagner.

From the last quarter of the eighteenth century onwards it may truly
be said of Germany that education is not only more generally diffused
than in any other country of Europe, but (as a recent writer has
expressed it) "is cultivated with an earnest and systematic devotion
not met with to an equal extent among other nations." The present
writer can well remember some years ago, when at the railway station
at Breisach (Baden) waiting one evening for the last train to take him
to Colmar, he seate