s period the position of the countryman throughout Germany has so
improved, that no other progress of civilization can be compared to it.
The villein of the landowner has--with the exception of Mecklenburg,
where the condition of the middle ages still exists--become the free
citizen of his State; the law protects and punishes him and the
landowner alike; he sends representatives, not of his class only, but
of the nation, in union with the other classes of voters, to the
capital; he has legally ceased everywhere to be a separate order in the
State--in many provinces he has laid aside, with his present dress, his
old frowardness; he begins to dress himself _a la mode_, and--sometimes
in a clumsy, unpleasing form--to take his share in the inventions and
enjoyments of modern civilization. But, however great these changes may
be, they are not yet great enough generally, in Germany, to give the
countryman that position which, as a member of the State, a citizen,
and an agriculturist, he must attain, if the life of the people is to
give an impression in all respects of perfect soundness and power. His
interest in, and comprehension of, that highest earthly concern of
man--the State--is much too little developed; his craving for
instruction and cultivation, considered on the whole, is too small; and
in the larger portion of the Fatherland his soul is still encumbered by
some of the qualities which are nurtured by long oppression, hard
egotism, distrust of men differently moulded, litigiousness,
awkwardness, and a deficient understanding of his rights and position
as a citizen. The minds which have shaken off the old spell are still
in the form of transition which gives them a specially unfinished and
unpleasing aspect.

The agriculture of the German peasantry may still be considered as not
having, on the whole, reached that point which is necessary for an
energetic development of our national strength; nevertheless, we have
reason to rejoice in having made great progress in this direction.
Intellect is everywhere incessantly occupied in introducing to the
simple countryman new discoveries--machines, seeds, and a new method of
cultivation. In some favoured districts the agriculture of the small
farmer can scarcely be distinguished from the well-studied system of
the larger model farms. Nor has the German peasant, in the times of the
deepest depression, like the oppressed Slavonian, ever lost the
instinct of self-acquisition. For