important, however, than these details--which might have been
accomplished by men like Johann Gottfried Herder, Immanuel Kant and
Goethe; like the statesman, Heinrich Freiherr von Stein; and the
warrior, General von Scharnhorst--was this fact that, in general, an
esthetic interest had been again awakened in the language, which too
long had served as a mere tool. Also the slowly developing study of
language was of some help; even the falsest etymology taught people to
look upon words as organisms; even the most superficial grammar, to
observe broad relationships and parallel formations. So, then, the
eighteenth century could, in the treatment of the mother tongue, enter
upon a goodly heritage, of which for a long time Johann Christoph
Gottsched might not unjustly be counted the guardian. It was a
thoroughly conservative linguistic stewardship, which received
gigantic expression in Adelung's Dictionary--with all its
deficiencies, the most important German dictionary that had been
compiled up to that time. Clearness, intelligibleness, exactitude were
insisted upon. It was demanded that there should be a distinct
difference between the language of the writer and that in everyday
use, and again a difference between poetic language and prose; on the
other hand, great care had to be taken that the difference should
never become too great, so that common intelligibility should not
suffer. Thus the new poetic language of Klopstock, precisely on
account of its power and richness, was obliged to submit to the
bitterest mockery and the most injudicious abuse from the partisans of
Gottsched. As the common ideal of the pedagogues of language, who were
by no means merely narrow-minded pedants, one may specify that which
had long ago been accomplished for France--namely, a uniform choice of
a stock of words best suited to the needs of a clear and luminous
literature for the cultivated class, and the stylistic application of
the same. Two things, above all, were neglected: they failed to