achieve its independence.  Then was born the idea of nationality,—­that, whatever obligations a Prussian owed to the state, Germany was greater than Prussia itself.  This idea was the central principle of Stein’s political system, leading ultimately to the unity of Germany as finally effected by Bismarck and Moltke.  It became almost synonymous with that patriotism which sustains governments and thrones, the absence of which was the great defect of the German States before the times of Napoleon, when both princes and people lost sight of the unity of the nation in the interests of petty sovereignties.

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