+96. Case of the Hindoos.+ Nivedita[113] thinks that the Hindoos have adopted foreign culture easily. "One of the most striking features of Hindoo society during the past fifty years has been the readiness of the people to adopt a foreign form of culture, and to compete with those who are native to that culture on equal terms." Monier-Williams tells us, however, that each Hindoo "finds himself cribbed and confined in all his movements, bound and fettered in all he does by minute traditional regulations. He sleeps and wakes, dresses and undresses, sits down and stands up, goes out and comes in, eats and drinks, speaks and is silent, acts and refrains from acting, according to ancient rule."[114] As yet, therefore, this people assumes competition with the English without giving up its ancient burdensome social ritual. It accepts the handicap. +97. Reforms of Joseph II.+ The most remarkable case of reform attempted by authority, and arbitrary in its method, is that of the reforms attempted by Joseph II, emperor of Germany. His kingdoms were suffering from the persistence of old institutions and mores. They needed modernizing. This he knew and, as an absolute monarch, he ordained changes, nearly all of which were either the abolition of abuses or the introduction of real improvements. He put an end to survivals of mediaeval clericalism, established freedom of worship, made marriage a civil contract, abolished class privilege, made taxation uniform, and replaced serfdom in Bohemia by the form of villanage which existed in Austria. In Hungary he ordered the use of the German language instead of Latin, as the civil language. Interferences with language act as counter suggestion. Common sense and expediency were in favor of the use of the German language, but the order to use it provoked a great outburst of national enthusiasm which sought demonstration in dress, ceremonies, and old usages. Many of the other changes made by the emperor antagonized vested interests of nobles and ecclesiastics, and he was forced to revoke them. He promulgated orders which affected the mores, and the mental or moral discipline of his subjects. If a man came to enroll himself as a deist a second time, he was to receive twenty-four blows with the rod, not because he was a deist, but because he called himself something about which he could not know what it is. No coffins were to be used, corpses were to be put in sacks and buried in quicklime. Probably this law was wise from a purely rational point of view, but it touched upon a matter in regard to which popular sentiment is very tender even when the usage is most irrational. "Many a usage and superstition was so closely interwoven with the life of the people that it could not be torn away by regulation, but only by education." Non-Catholics were given full civil rights. None were to be excluded from the cemeteries. The unilluminated Jews would have preferred that there should be no change in the laws.