the feelings
of humanity.

"The half-serf who has property, and enjoys the protection of the laws,
but under more or less burdensome conditions, is bound to the glebe,
and at the same time to the service of the proprietor, to whose
jurisdiction he is amenable; this peasant does not usually bear his
burdens without wincing. There is no fear that he will endeavour to
throw them off his neck by open violence as a rebel; but he will carry
on a continual secret war with his master. To diminish his profit, and
to increase his own, is a wish that he has always at heart, and an
object which covertly, and as often as is practicable, he endeavours to
pursue. He practises crafty and small thefts on the property of his
master, and does not consider them so disgraceful as if he did the same
by his equal. He is not the entirely humble slave, nor yet the dreaded
enemy of his master, but he is not an obedient dependent, from free
will and a good heart; he is that which probably has been intended to
be expressed in some sort by the word _tueckisch_.

"One may add, as an ingredient or as a consequence of the
'_tueckischen_' nature, a certain amount of stubbornness which
distinguishes the peasant when his mind is agitated, or when a
prejudice is once rooted in him. His soul in this case appears to
become stiff, like his body and his limbs. He is then deaf to all
representations, however obvious they may be, or however capable he
might be, in an impartial state of mind, of seeing their justice. The
lawyers employed in the lawsuits of peasants will sometimes have known
such individuals, in whom it is doubtful whether the obstinacy with
which they cling to an obviously absurd idea, arises from their
blindness or from determined malice. Sometimes whole communities become
thus addle-headed. They then resemble certain crazy people, who, as it
is expressed, have a fixed idea, that is, a conception which their mind
takes up incessantly or returns to on the slightest occasion, and
which, however false it may be, can neither be removed by the evidence
of the senses nor by the representations of reason, because it is not
really in the mind, but has its foundation in the tenor of their
organization."

Thus speaks Christian Garve. His final counsel was: "Better village
schools." Some among the landed proprietors acted with a similar
philanthropic feeling. We would gladly say that their number was great;
but the frequent complaints to the contrary,