was the ambition of the various “Linguistic Societies.”  Their activity, though soon deprived of a wide usefulness by pedantry and a clannish spirit, prepared the way for great feats of linguistic reorganization.  Through Christian Wolff a philosophic terminology was systematically created; from Pietism were received new mediums of expression for intimate conditions of the soul; neither must we quite overlook the fact that to some extent a new system of German titles and official designations was associated with the new institutions of the modern state.  More important, however, than these details—­which might have been accomplished by men like Johann Gottfried Herder, Immanuel Kant and Goethe; like the statesman, Heinrich Freiherr von Stein; and the warrior, General von Scharnhorst—­was this fact that, in general, an esthetic interest had been again awakened in the language, which too long had served as a mere tool.  Also the slowly developing study of language was of some help; even the falsest etymology taught people to look upon words as organisms; even the most superficial grammar, to observe broad relationships and parallel formations.  So, then, the eighteenth century could, in the treatment of the mother tongue, enter upon a goodly heritage, of which for a long time Johann Christoph Gottsched might not unjustly be counted the guardian.  It was a thoroughly conservative linguistic stewardship, which received gigantic expression in Adelung’s Dictionary—­with all its deficiencies, the most important German dictionary that had been compiled up to that time.  Clearness, intelligibleness, exactitude were insisted upon.  It was demanded that there should be a distinct difference between the language of the writer and that in everyday use, and again a difference between poetic language and prose; on the other hand, great care had to be taken that the difference should never become too great, so that common intelligibility should not suffer.  Thus the new poetic language of Klopstock, precisely on account of its power and richness, was obliged to submit to the bitterest mockery and the most injudicious abuse from the partisans of Gottsched.  As the common ideal of the pedagogues of language, who were by no means merely narrow-minded pedants, one may specify that which had long ago been accomplished for France—­namely, a uniform choice of a stock of words best suited to the needs of a clear and luminous literature for the cultivated class, and the stylistic application of the same.  Two things, above all, were neglected:  they failed to realize (as did France also) the continual development of a healthy language, though the ancients had glimpses of this; and they failed (this in contrast to France) to comprehend the radical differences between the various forms of literary composition.  Therefore the pre-classical period still left enough to be done by the classical.