The abandonment of the Magyar language was, in his eyes, the great source of all evil; and the Diet of 1825 afforded him the first opportunity of protesting against it. While the Hungarian nobles talked German in private, they used Latin in the management of public affairs; and Szechenyi, as a protest against this practice, spoke in the Magyar language in bringing forward a question in the House of Magnates. But, before the Diet had risen, he gave a much more solid proof of his zeal for his native tongue. On November 3rd, 1825, he offered, in the House of Magnates, to give a whole year's income, 60,000 gulden, to found a Society for promoting the Study of the Magyar Language. His example was followed, with more or less zeal, by other nobles; and in 1827 a Hungarian Academy was established by Royal Decree. The movement which Szechenyi had stirred up was in danger of being brought to ridicule by some of its supporters, for Count Dessewfy actually proposed that a law should be passed forbidding the marriage of any Hungarian maiden who did not know her native tongue; but this was resisted as too strong a measure. But though Szechenyi opposed these wilder schemes of his supporters, he was none the less ready to use all possible attractions for carrying out his chief object, the drawing Hungarian nobles back to their country. As one of these means, he established a horse-race at Pesth, and founded a union for training horses. He promoted, too, the material advantages of Hungary by introducing steamships on the Danube. The work to which he devoted most attention was the erection of a suspension bridge, to connect Pesth with Buda. Szechenyi's enthusiasm in this matter seemed to many ludicrously disproportionate to the result to be obtained; but the fact was that he intended this work to give the opportunity for the first blow at that great injustice, the exemption of the Hungarian nobles from taxation. If he could induce the Magnates to consent that the burden of so important a national undertaking should fall in part upon them, they might be willing hereafter to accept a more just distribution of the whole burdens of the State. While, however, Szechenyi was labouring to promote Hungarian national life, and was willing to sacrifice personal comfort, and any unjust privileges of his order, for the sake of that object, he remained essentially the Conservative Magyar Magnate. He not only shrank from any movement for Constitutional reform, but even hoped to accomplish his ends with the sympathy of the Austrian Government.