hborn and rich--rather, in case of doubt, the
humble should have the preference. To increase the number of useful
men; to make every activity as profitable and as perfect as possible;
to buy as little as possible abroad; to produce everything at home,
exporting the surplus--these were the leading principles of his social
and economic theories. He exerted himself incessantly to increase the
acreage of arable land, and to provide new places for settlers. Swamps
were drained, lakes drawn off, dikes thrown up. Canals were dug and
money advanced to found new factories. At the instigation and with the
financial support of the government cities and villages were rebuilt,
more solid and sanitary than they had been before. The farmers' credit
system, fire insurance societies, and the Royal Bank were founded.
Everywhere public schools were established. Educated people were
brought in from abroad; the government officials everywhere were
required to be educated, and regulated by examination and strict
inspection. It is the duty of the historian to enumerate and praise
all this, if also to mention some unsuccessful attempts of the King,
which were inevitable owing to his endeavor to control everything
himself.

The King cared for all his lands, and by no means least for his child
of sorrow, the newly won Silesia. When he conquered this great
district it had a few more than a million inhabitants. They realized
vividly the contrast between the easy-going Austrian management and
the precise, restless, stirring rule of Prussia. In Vienna the
catalogue of prohibited books had been larger than at Rome; now bales
of books came incessantly from Germany into the province, reading and
buying were astonishingly free, even printed attacks upon the
sovereign himself. In Austria it was the privilege of the aristocracy
to wear foreign cloth. When the father of Frederick the Great of
Prussia had forbidden the importation of cloth, he had first of all
dressed himself and his princes in domestic goods. In Vienna no office
had been considered aristocratic if it implied anything but a nominal
function; all the actual work was a matter for subordinates. A
chamberlain stood higher than a veteran general or minister. In
Prussia even the highest born was little esteemed if he was not useful
to the State, and the King himself was a most exact official, who
watched and scolded over every thousand thalers saved or spent. Any
one in Austria who left the Cath