ce, that we may have a chance
of getting better Schoolmasters;--send me List of the Places where the
worst are." List was sent; is still extant; and on the margin of it, in
Royal Autograph, this remark:--

"The Places are well selected. The bad Schoolmasters are mostly Tailors;
and you must see whether they cannot be got removed to little Towns, and
set to tailoring again, or otherwise disposed of, that our Schools might
the sooner rise into good condition, which is an interesting thing."
"Eager always our Master is to have the Schooling of his People improved
and everywhere diffused," writes, some years afterwards, the excellent
Zedlitz, officially "Minister of Public Justice," but much and
meritoriously concerned with School matters as well. The King's ideas
were of the best, and Zedlitz sometimes had fine hopes; but the want of
funds was always great.

"In 1779," says Preuss, "there came a sad blow to Zedlitz's hopes:
Minister von Brenkenhof [deep in West-Preussen canal-diggings and
expenditures] having suggested, That instead of getting Pensions, the
Old Soldiers should be put to keeping School." Do but fancy it; poor
old fellows, little versed in scholastics hitherto! "Friedrich, in his
pinch, grasped at the small help; wrote to the War-Department: 'Send
me a List of Invalids who are fit [or at least fittest] to be
Schoolmasters.' And got thereupon a list of 74, and afterwards 5
more [79 Invalids in all]; War-Department adding, That besides these
scholastic sort, there were 741 serving as BUDNER [Turnpike-keepers,
in a sort], as Forest-watchers and the like; and 3,443 UNVERSORGT"
(shifting for themselves, no provision made for them at all),--such
the check, by cold arithmetic and inexorable finance, upon the genial
current of the soul!--

The TURNIPS, I believe, got gradually in; and Brandenburg, in our
day, is a more and more beautifully farmed Country. Nor were the
Schoolmasters unsuccessful at all points; though I cannot report a
complete educational triumph on those extremely limited terms. [Preuss,
iii. 115, 113, &c.]

Queen Ulrique left, I think, on the 9th of August, 1772; there is sad
farewell in Friedrich's Letter next day to Princess Sophie Albertine,
the Queen's Daughter, subsequently Abbess of Quedlinburg: he is just
setting out on his Silesian Reviews; "shall, too likely, never see your
good Mamma again." ["Potsdam, 10th August, 1772:" _OEuvres de Frederic,_
xxvii. ii. 93.] Poor King; Berlin City