It is a peculiarity of modern culture, that the impulse of intellectual power spreads itself in the middle of the nation between the masses and the privileged classes, moulding and invigorating both; the more any circle of earthly interests isolates itself from the educated class of citizens, the further it is removed from all that gives light, warmth, and a secure footing to its life. Whoever in Germany writes a history of literature, art, philosophy, and science, does in fact treat of the family history of the educated citizen class. If one seeks what especially unites the men of this class and separates them from others, it is not chiefly their practical activity in a fortunate middle position, but their culture in the Latin schools. Therein lies their pre-eminent advantage,--the great secret of their influence. No one should be more willing to acknowledge this than the merchant or manufacturer, who has worked his way up from beneath, and entered into their circle. He perceives with admiration the sharpness and precision in thought and speech which his sons have attained by occupying themselves with the Latin and Greek grammar, which are seldom acquired in any other occupation. The unartificial logic, which so strikingly appears in the artistic structure of the ancient languages, soon gives acuteness and promotes the understanding of all intellectual culture, and the mass of the foreign materials of language is an excellent strengthener of the memory. Still more invigorating is the purport conveyed from that distant world that was now disclosed to the learner. Still does a very great portion of our intellectual riches descend from antiquity. He who would rightly understand what works around and in him, and has perhaps long been the common property of all classes of the people, must rise up to the source; and an acquaintance with a great unfettered national life, and a comprehension of some of the laws of life, its beauties and its limitations, give a freedom to the judgment upon the condition of the present which nothing else can supply. He whose soul has been warmed by the Dialogues of Plato, must look down with contempt on the bigotry of the monks; and he who has read with advantage the "Antigone" in the ancient language, will lay aside the "Sonnenjungfrau" with justifiable indifference.