cording to Goethe, is said to have expressed the opinion: 'If he had
been God, and had foreseen the appearance of the _Robbers_, he would
not have created the world.'

"Whence came the incomprehensible intensity of this alarm? For those
young men were the bravest, purest, and most talented of the band both
in dress and habits: they were distinguished by a magnanimous
recklessness and a noble simplicity. A divine command bound them
together to seek harder and more pious superiority: what could be
feared from them? To what extent this fear was merely deceptive or
simulated or really true is something that will probably never be
exactly known; but a strong instinct spoke out of this fear and out of
its disgraceful and senseless persecution. This instinct hated the
Burschenschaft with an intense hatred for two reasons: first of all on
account of its organisation, as being the first attempt to construct a
true educational institution, and, secondly, on account of the spirit
of this institution, that earnest, manly, stern, and daring German
spirit; that spirit of the miner's son, Luther, which has come down to
us unbroken from the time of the Reformation.

"Think of the _fate_ of the Burschenschaft when I ask you, Did the
German university then understand that spirit, as even the German
princes in their hatred appear to have understood it? Did the alma
mater boldly and resolutely throw her protecting arms round her noble
sons and say: 'You must kill me first, before you touch my children?'
I hear your answer--by it you may judge whether the German university
is an educational institution or not.

"The student knew at that time at what depth a true educational
institution must take root, namely, in an inward renovation and
inspiration of the purest moral faculties. And this must always be
repeated to the student's credit. He may have learnt on the field of
battle what he could learn least of all in the sphere of 'academical
freedom': that great leaders are necessary, and that all culture begins
with obedience. And in the midst of victory, with his thoughts turned to
his liberated fatherland, he made the vow that he would remain German.
German! Now he learnt to understand his Tacitus; now he grasped the
signification of Kant's categorical imperative; now he was enraptured by
Weber's "Lyre and Sword" songs.[12] The gates of philosophy, of art,
yea, even of antiquity, opened unto him; and in one of the most
memorable of bloody