If the German fleet, then, sets up a monument to him, and if her officers and crews educate themselves and learn steadfastness of purpose by looking at his statue, they are merely discharging their honorable duty. God had so disposed that the Elector should pass his youth in the Netherlands and learn to foster and appreciate labor, industry, foreign relationships, and the advantages of trade. He carried over into his own country what he had acquired among that industrious and simple folk of seafarers who come from German stock. At that time it was, indeed, a most important decision, and one which at first his subjects and contemporaries could hardly understand. Under his powerful will and protection, and in the hands of tried Netherlanders, the Admiral Raule and his brother, the Brandenburg fleet flourished. Only after the death of the Elector did his creation fall to decay. They were not destined to harvest the fruits of their labor. His successors in power had first to establish through battles their rights, in order to have a voice in the world and to be allowed to rule, undisturbed and in peace, the people within their borders. As a result, our eyes were turned from the sea again in order that after centuries of fierce conflict the mark and Prussia might finally be welded together. Thus, through the guidance of God and through the labors of the successors of the Great Elector, the power of his house was founded on that firm foundation and with the corner-stone which he had laid. It was this princely power that made it possible for the house of Hohenzollern to take up the German imperial dignity. They founded that dynastic power which the German Emperor must have in order to be in a position to care for and protect powerfully the welfare of the empire everywhere and to force its opponents to respect its flag. His monument now stands before the academy. That younger generation to whom the future belongs, which is to cultivate the seeds that we have sown and to reap the harvest of our labors, may now direct its gaze toward this prince and be edified by his example. He was God-fearing and stern, inflexibly stern toward himself and toward others; he trusted firmly in God and allowed God to direct him, undismayed by any reverse or by any disappointment; as a Christian, he looked upon these merely as trials sent him from on high. In this way the Great Elector lived his life, and this is the example which we are to follow. The motto which made it possible for him never to lose his hope and courage, in spite of all vexations, in spite of all reverses and all grievous experiences and trials, was the red thread which ran through his life and which is expressed in his phrase: "_Domine, fac me scire viam, quam ambulem._"