es.

Stein was a man of prodigious energy, practical good sense, and lofty
character, but irascible, haughty, and contemptuous, and was far from
being a favorite with the king and court. His great idea was the unity
and independence of Germany. He thought more of German nationality than
of Prussian aggrandizement. It was his aim to make his countrymen feel
that they were Germans rather than Prussians, and that it was only by a
union of the various German States that they could hope to shake off the
French yoke, galling and humiliating beyond description.

When Stein was driven into exile at the dictation of Napoleon, with the
loss of his private fortune, he was invited by the Emperor of Russia to
aid him with his counsels,--and it can be scarcely doubted that in the
employ of Russia he rendered immense services to Germany, and had no
little influence in shaping the movements of the allies in effecting the
ruin of the common despot. On this point, however, I cannot dwell.

Count, afterward Prince, Hardenberg, held to substantially the same
views, and was more acceptable to the king as minister than was the
austere and haughty Stein, although his morals were loose, and his
abilities far inferior to those of the former. But his diplomatic
talents were considerable, and his manners were agreeable, like those of
Metternich, while Stein treated kings and princes as ordinary men, and
dictated to them the course which was necessary to pursue. It was the
work of Hardenberg to create the peasant-proprietorship of modern
Prussia; but it was the previous work of Stein to establish free trade
in land,--which means the removal of hindrances to the sale and purchase
of land, which still remains one of the abuses of England,--the ultimate
effect of which was to remove caste in land as well as caste in persons.

The great educational movement, in the deepest depression of Prussian
affairs, was headed by William, Baron von Humboldt. When Prussia lay
disarmed, dismembered, and impoverished, the University of Berlin was
founded, the government contributing one hundred and fifty thousand
thalers a year; and Humboldt--the first minister of public
instruction--succeeded in inducing the most eminent and learned men in
Germany to become professors in this new university. I look upon this
educational movement in the most gloomy period of German history as one
of the noblest achievements which any nation ever made in the cause of
science and l