glow, for what German state could boast a grander, prouder history than
Prussia under the Hohenzollerns, rising by ability, faithfulness to duty,
courage, and self-sacrificing love of country from small beginnings to
the highest power?

The Liebe school had been attended only by children of good families,
while in the Schmidt school a Count Waldersee and Hoym, the son of a
capmaker and dealer in eatables, sat together on the same bench. The
most diverse tendencies were represented, and all sorts of satirical
songs and lampoons found their way to us. Such parodies as this in the
Song of Prussia we could understand very well:

"I am a Prussian, my colours you know,
From darkness to light they boldly go;
But that for Freedom my fathers died,
Is a fact which I have not yet descried."

Nor did more delicate allusions escape us; for who had not heard, for
instance, of the Friends of Light, who played a part among the Berlin
liberals? To whose ears had not come some longing cry for freedom, and
especially freedom of the press?

And though that ever-recurring word Pressfreiheit (freedom of the press)
was altered by the wags for us boys into Fressfreiheit (liberty to stuff
yourself); though, too, it was condemned in conservative circles as a
dangerous demand, threatening the peace of the family and opening the
door to unbridled license among writers for the papers, still we had
heard the other side of the question; that the right freely to express
an opinion belonged to every citizen, and that only through the power
of free speech could the way be cleared for a better condition of things.