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But among those who feel the blood of the Teutons running in their veins, there is a loftier feeling even than this. Each feels himself a whole, an individual, a being whose chief end is to live independently for himself. He is willing and glad to die for his country, but he must have his individual rights acknowledged. He thinks that government the best which governs least: the state exists for him, and not he for the state . . . . The distinction between fidelity and loyalty lies here: in the latter the agent must be free, but even a slave may be faithful. Loyalty is the feeling of one who is independent and self-relying; but a dog may show fidelity .... Where is there a more touching example of devotion to freedom and to truth than that of Korner, the warrior-bard? In 1813 he writes to his father: “Germany rises: the Prussian eagle by the beating of her mighty wings awakes in all true hearts the great hope of German freedom.” He then declares his intention to go forth, and adds: “That I simply offer my life is of little import: but that I offer it crowned as it is with all the flowery wreaths of love, of friendship, and of joy; that I cast away the sweet sensations which lived in the anticipation that I should never cause you inquietude or anguish,—this is indeed a sacrifice which can only be opposed to such a prize,—our country's freedom.” Let us especially cultivate it, for it belongs to youth, to the heroic age: let us not prove recreants. Like the world in its youth, let us be strong in loyalty: but while it was loyal to persons, let us be loyal to principles. One man is but a narrow limit, but a principle is broad as the earth and high as heaven, and with the enlargement of our ideas and views, the field of loyalty also is enlarged. This is the loyalty of to-day and of the future, and we should be leaders in extending it. There needs not a great soul to make a hero: there needs a God-created soul which will be true to its origina: therefore let us be foremost in proclaiming our loyalty to our intuitions. . . . . For is not a liberal education a sham and a deception, if it does not clear our intuitions, and expand our minds in every direction? But the heroes will be, not those who recite best here, or those who know the most, but those whose knowledge best clears their perceptions. Yet clear-sightedness alone will not suffice: firmness and perseverance, true grit, must be added, and then we have the man who is needed now, the man who is loyal to the highest principles, with whom matters of personal interest yield to the state, the state to conscience.
