It had its code of laws, its
council of legislation, its court of judges, its civil and military
officers, its public treasury. It had its annual elections, by ballot,
at which each student had a vote,--its privileges, equally accessible to
all,--its labors and duties, in which all took a share. It proposed and
debated and enacted its own laws, from time to time modifying them, but
not often nor radically. It acted independently of the professors, and
of Fellenberg himself, except that our foster-father (_Pflegevater_, as
we used to call him) retained a veto, which, however, like Queen
Victoria, he never exercised. Never, I think, were laws framed with a
more single eye to the public good, or more strictly obeyed by those who
framed them.

Nor was this an unwilling obedience, an eye-service constrained by fear
or force. It was given cheerfully, honestly. We had ourselves assisted
in framing, and given our votes in enacting, our code of laws. We felt
them to be our own, and as such it became a point of honor with us to
conform to them in spirit as in letter.

I know not whether the idea of this juvenile self-regulating republic
(_Verein_, we called it) originated with Fellenberg or with some of the
students; but, whatever its origin, I believe it to have been the chief
lever that raised the moral and social character of our college to the
height it ultimately attained. It gave birth to public spirit, and to
social and civic virtues. It nurtured a conscious independence, that
submitted with pleasure to what it knew to be the will of the whole, and
felt itself bound to submit to nothing else. It created young
republicans, and awakened in them that devotion to the public welfare
and that zeal for the public good, which we seek too often, alas, in
vain, in older, but not wiser, communities.

When I said that we had no rewards at Hofwyl, I ought to have admitted
that the annual election to the offices of our _Verein_ acted indirectly
as a powerful stimulus to industry and good conduct. At these elections
was to be read, as on a moral thermometer, the graduated scale of public
opinion. The result of each election informed us with certainty who had
risen and who had fallen in the estimate of his fellows.

For it was felt that public opinion among us, enlightened and incorrupt,
operated with strict justice. In that young commonwealth, to deserve
well of the republic was to win its confidence and obtain testimonial of
its app