of two generations were in constant conflict. Through a great
part of Germany there existed a custom which has been retained up to
the present day, that the boys who were on the foundation must, under
the lead of a teacher, sing as choristers. If they did not walk in
funeral processions behind the cross, in their blue mantles, it was a
grievous neglect, which much disturbed the discipline of the school,
and as early as 1750 was complained of as an irregularity.

The followers of Wolf were to be found everywhere among the gentry, as
the scholars of the new "enlightenment," the watchmen of toleration,
and the friends of scientific progress. In the course of this year they
were in anxious discussion on some old controversial points, for the
Leipziger, Crusius, had just published his "Introduction to the
Rational Contemplation of Natural Occurrences;" and, with this work,
and a cosmos of the year 1749, in their hands, they were once more
taking into consideration whether they were to assume that space was a
plenum or a vacuum, and whether the final cause of movement was to be
sought in the active force of elastic bodies. Indignantly did these men
of progress regard the theological faculty at Rostock, who had, just at
this period, compelled a young Herr Kosegarten to make a recantation,
because he had dared to maintain that the human nature of the Redeemer
on earth had only been to a certain degree supported by his Divine
nature; that he had learnt like others, and had not in all things a
perfect foreknowledge. On the other hand, they accorded a benignant
smile to the physico-theological contemplations of those who proved the
possibility of the resurrection, in spite of the continual change of
matter--or, to use the language of the time, in spite of the change of
particles of the body--or took pains to show wisdom and foresight in
the white fur of the hare in Livonia.

They could also prize German poetry and eloquence. Herr Professor
Gottsched and his wife were then at Leipzig. Like others, they had
their weaknesses; but there was a noble nature in them, decorum of
character, dignity, and knowledge. They also belonged to this school,
and they wished, through the medium of German poetry, to introduce
greater refinement and better taste into the country. They met with
much enmity, but their periodical, the "Neuen Buechersaal," could
scarcely be dispensed with by those that followed the course of the
_belles lettres_. Beside