1. It is told of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, that, as he was seated one day in his private room, a written petition was brought to him with the request that it should be immediately read. The King had just returned from hunting, and the glare of the sun, or some other cause, had so dazzled his eyes that he found it difficult to make out a single word of the writing.
2. His private secretary happened to be absent; and the soldier who brought the petition could not read. There was a page, or favorite boy servant, waiting in the hall, and upon him the King called. The page was a son of one of the noblemen of the court, but proved to be a very poor reader.
3. In the first place, he did not articulate distinctly. He huddled his words together in the utterance, as if they were syllables of one long word, which he must get through with as speedily as possible. His pronunciation was bad, and he did not modulate his voice so as to bring out the meaning of what he read. Every sentence was uttered with a dismal monotony of voice, as if it did not differ in any respect from that which preceded it.
4. "Stop!" said the King, impatiently. "Is it an auctioneer's list of goods to be sold that you are hurrying over? Send your companion to me." Another page who stood at the door now entered, and to him the King gave the petition. The second page began by hemming and clearing his throat in such an affected manner that the King jokingly asked him whether he had not slept in the public garden, with the gate open, the night before.
5. The second page had a good share of self-conceit, however, and so was not greatly confused by the King's jest. He determined that he would avoid the mistake which his comrade had made. So he commenced reading the petition slowly and with great formality, emphasizing every word, and prolonging the articulation of every syllable. But his manner was so tedious that the King cried out, "Stop! are you reciting a lesson in the elementary sounds? Out of the room! But no: stay! Send me that little girl who is sitting there by the fountain."
6. The girl thus pointed out by the King was a daughter of one of the laborers employed by the royal gardener; and she had come to help her father weed the flower beds. It chanced that, like many of the poor people in Prussia, she had received a good education. She was somewhat alarmed when she found herself in the King's presence, but took courage when the King told her that he only wanted her to read for him, as his eyes were weak.
7. Now, Ernestine (for this was the name of the little girl) was fond of reading aloud, and often many of the neighbors would assemble at her father's house to hear her; those who could not read themselves would come to her, also, with their letters from distant friends or children, and she thus formed the habit of reading various sorts of handwriting promptly and well.
8. The King gave her the petition, and she rapidly glanced through the opening lines to get some idea of what it was about. As she read, her eyes began to glisten, and her breast to heave. "What is the matter?" asked the King; "don't you know how to read?" "Oh, yes! sire," she replied, addressing him with the title usually applied to him: "I will now read it, if you please."
9. The two pages were about to leave the room. "Remain," said the King. The little girl began to read the petition. It was from a poor widow, whose only son had been drafted to serve in the army, although his health was delicate and his pursuits had been such as to unfit him for military life. His father had been killed in battle, and the son had a strong desire to become a portrait painter.
10. The writer told her story in a simple, concise manner, that carried to the heart a belief of its truth; and Ernestine read it with so much feeling, and with an articulation so just, in tones so pure and distinct, that when she had finished, the King, into whose eyes the tears had started, exclaimed, "Oh! now I understand what it is all about; but I might never have known, certainly I never should have felt, its meaning had I trusted to these young gentlemen, whom I now dismiss from my service for one year, advising them to occupy their time in learning to read."
11. "As for you, my young lady," continued the King, "I know you will ask no better reward for your trouble than the pleasure of carrying to this poor widow my order for her son's immediate discharge. Let me see whether you can write as well as you can read. Take this pen, and write as I dictate." He then dictated an order, which Ernestine wrote, and he signed. Calling one of his guards, he bade him go with the girl and see that the order was obeyed.
12. How much happiness was Ernestine the means of bestowing through her good elocution, united to the happy circumstance that brought it to the knowledge of the King! First, there were her poor neighbors, to whom she could give instruction and entertainment. Then, there was the poor widow who sent the petition, and who not only regained her son, but received through Ernestine an order for him to paint the King's likeness; so that the poor boy soon rose to great distinction, and had more orders than he could attend to. Words could not express his gratitude, and that of his mother, to the little girl.
13. And Ernestine had, moreover, the satisfaction of aiding her father to rise in the world, so that he became the King's chief gardener. The King did not forget her, but had her well educated at his own expense. As for the two pages, she was indirectly the means of doing them good, also; for, ashamed of their bad reading, they commenced studying in earnest, till they overcame the faults that had offended the King. Both finally rose to distinction, one as a lawyer, and the other as a statesman; and they owed their advancement in life chiefly to their good elocution.
DEFINITIONS.—1. Pe-ti'tion, a formal request. 3. Ar-tic'u-late, to utter the elementary sounds. Mod'u-late, to vary or inflect. Mo-not'o-ny, lack of variety. 4. Af-fect'ed, unnatural and silly. 9. Draft'ed, selected by lot. 10. Con-cise', brief and full of meaning. 11. Dis-charge', release. Dic'tate, to utter so that another may write it down. 12. Dis-tinc'tion, honorable and notable position. Ex-press', to make known the feelings of.
NOTES.—Frederick II. of Prussia (b. 1712, d. 1788), or Frederick the Great, as he was called, was one of the greatest of German rulers. He was distinguished for his military exploits, for his wise and just government, and for his literary attainments. He wrote many able works in the French language. Many pleasant anecdotes are told of this king, of which the one given in the lesson is a fair sample.
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| Frederick narrowly avoids capture by Cossacks at Kunersdorf, 1759 |
There is a danger in being a "philosopher king":
http://www.pocketcollege.com/wiki/index.php?title=Descartes_and_Modern_Philosophy_-_The_Birth_of_Subjectivism_-_RR261A1
Deism worked for rational religion, that was the great slogan of Deism: Rational Religion. Let us eliminate superstition from religion and make it rational. Deism was then the father of the enlightenment, and the enlightenment began to work for something else: the abolition of religion, and in its place the rational state. The rational state. And hence it was that the goal was philosopher kings. And you had the beginning of the kind of monarch that Frederick the Great represents, monarchs who became patrons of philosophy and science, who regarded themselves as champions of right reason because only right reason had the right to govern. However, as against the reign of right reason in the rational state, in the person of the king, the conclusion was that right reason should reign in the person of the philosophers themselves. And this of course, led to the French Revolution and to the whole of modern socialism. The elite philosophers, the planners as the embodiment of right reason, and we shall see in Dewey how right reason is defined as the philosopher, who alone can think properly, and therefore alone should govern the world, govern philosophy, and govern man.
There should be no confusion with Frederick II (1194-1250):
http://www.pocketcollege.com/beta/index.php?title=Books_With_the_Most_Influence_-_RR161CC148
Kantorowicz, besides a number of other works, produced the monumental work Frederick II: The Hohenstaufen Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. It was first published in German and then translated into English in 1957. It was first published in 1931, before Hitler. And it is a remarkable account of the rise of the modern state. Fredrick II was an openly humanistic emperor. The façade of Christianity was very thin. Many regarded him as a secret Moslem. He actually had a harem. His center was Sicily, although Germany constituted the center of his empire. He presented himself as a humanistic statist Christ. His ostensible birthplace was a small town named Bethlehem and his mother Mary. He created the inquisition, because there could be no dissent from the state.
The Church borrowed it, but most of the time the inquisition was a civil matter. The state likes total control over the individual. And everything we have in the modern state Kantorowicz shows Frederick II (1194-1250) had worked out so that the modern state has been a long time in the making. Its pattern very clearly laid out.
http://www.pocketcollege.com/wiki/index.php?title=Condition_of_Christianity_-_RR168A1
Now the latest look at some of the history of the past century or so. In order to understand the predicament that Christianity is in today from December 8, 1869 to October 20, 1870 the first Vatican council was held and on July 18, 1870 the dogma of Papal Infallibility was proclaimed. As against the medieval Conciliar Movement and the later revival of epistolical claims as against the Vatican this council marked the triumph of the papistry against efforts within the Roman Catholic church to dilute the centralized power and authority of the papistry. Pope Pius the Ninth believed intensely that the only solution to the growing secularization of the modern state and the implicit humanism of modern society was to extend very vigorously over the political orders Christian faith and morals. He saw the problem. He saw the world sliding into radical humanism and a great tyranny emerging. Whether or not we agree with Pius the Ninth solution, and of course we do not, he saw the problem and for about a century he delayed the radical secularization of the modern age. Only with Vatican Two were the power and the bulwark he created as a temporary thing broken down. While this event, the Vatican Council, did not go unheeded. It was seen by the increasingly secular states of Europe as a direct challenge. At the same time of the Vatican Council the Franco-Grecian war was being fought and Prussia, of course, was the dramatic victor. On December 2, 1870 just a few months after the dogma of Papal Infallibility was proclaimed King Ludwig II of Bavaria wrote to the Prussian King urging him to assume the title of German Emperor.
At Ludwig’s invitation, the letter he sent was given its primary shaping by Bismarck and its final approval by Ludwig. The Prussian King was not altogether agreeable to this. He preferred to see Prussian retain its privacy. He consented to what appeared to be the general will of the German states. On January 18, 1871 William the First, Hohenzollern proclaimed the German emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. To understand this event and all the symbolism that went with it we must go back to the year 800, Christmas Day, and the coronation of Charlemagne as Holy Roman Emperor. The meaning of the coronation of William the First meant first let me quote the historian Francis William Butler, “It should never be forgotten that the German proclamation of the imperial status of the King of Prussia in 1871 was intended as a step towards the undoing of the mischief of Christmas day 800. The point that it served as a diplomatic reply to the pronouncement of papal infallibility as well as an assertion of the Prusso-German pride should not be overlooked.”
What happened on that day was that the western church in the coronation of Charlemagne said, “Your authority must be primarily Christian. All of society must in every sphere be Christian and therefore the church crowns you emperor to signify that it is your duty to serve Christ in you sphere and not yourself nor your empire.” But, with the coronation of the German Emperor the Holy Roman Empire was dead and any attempt to impose a religious order on society was denied. An Empire independent from the church, any church, and from Christianity had been proclaimed. Then, second, this did not mean that the German Empire was antichristian. The Empire had strongly Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed constituencies. Rather, religion and the church were given a very subordinate status. The priority of the state was paramount. Rome’s relationship to the Catholics within the German Empire was by way of (Concordas?), agreeing to surrender various powers over the German Catholic church in return for the right to function. The state had to assent to whatever the church sought to do in a few spheres so that the churches status could be one of statist grace not divine right. The enlightenment premise of the priority of civil government to Christianity had openly prevailed. Not that this was new. It had prevailed in the late eighteenth century and it had gained a bloody victory in the French revolution. It was now the open premise of the newly created German Empire.
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