ad old Heathen Latins, Romans, and the
lingo THEY spoke their fraction of sense and nonsense in? Frightful, how
the young years of the European Generations have been wasted, for ten
centuries back; and the Thinkers of the world have become mere walking
Sacks of Marine-stores, "GELEHRTEN, Learned," as they call themselves;
and gone LOST to the world, in that manner, as a set of confiscated
Pedants;--babbling about said Heathens, and THEIR extinct lingo and
fraction of sense and nonsense, for the thousand years last past!
Heathen Latins, Romans;--who perhaps were no great things of Heathen,
after all, if well seen into? I have heard judges say, they were
INferior, in real worth and grist, to German home-growths we have had,
if the confiscated Pedants could have discerned it! At any rate,
they are dead, buried deep, these two thousand years; well out of
our way;--and nonsense enough of our own left, to keep sweeping into
corners. Silence about their lingo and them, to this new Crown-Prince!
"Let the Prince learn French and German," so as to write and speak,
"with brevity and propriety," in these two languages, which may be
useful to him in life. That will suffice for languages,--provided he
have anything effectually rational to say in them. For the rest,

3. "Let him learn Arithmetic, Mathematics, Artillery,--Economy to the
very bottom." And, in short, useful knowledge generally; useless ditto
not at all. "History in particular;--Ancient History only slightly (NUR
UBERHIN);--but the History of the last hundred and fifty Years to the
exactest pitch. The JUS NATURALE and JUS GENTIUM," by way of hand-lamp
to History, "he must be completely master of; as also of Geography,
whatever is remarkable in each Country. And in Histories, most
especially the History of the house of Brandenburg; where he will find
domestic examples, which are always of more force than foreign. And
along with Prussian History, chiefly that of the Countries which have
been connected with it, as England, Brunswick, Hessen and the others.
And in reading of wise History-books there must be considerations made
(_sollen beym Lesen kluger Historiarum Betrachtungen gemacht werden_)
upon the causes of the events."--Surely, O King!

4. "With increasing years, you will more and more, to a most
especial degree, go upon Fortification,"--mark you!--"the Formation of
a Camp, and the other War-Sciences; that the Prince may, from youth
upwards, be trained to act as Offi