RELATIONS OF THE RURAL COMMUNITY 735 



well as upon the Prussian officials and upon the German diplomacy, 

 which is almost exclusively in the hands of noblemen. The German 

 student adopts their custom of life in the students' fraternities in 

 universities, and also the civilian " officer of the reserve ; " a growing 

 part of all the more highly educated Germans belong to this rank. 

 Their political sympathies and antipathies explain many of the most 

 important presuppositions of German foreign politics. Their obstruc- 

 tionism impedes the progress of the laboring-class; the manufacturers 

 alone would never be sufficiently strong to oppose the working-men 

 under the democratic rights of electing representatives for the German 

 Reichstag. They are the props of protectionism which industry 

 alone would never have been able to accomplish. They support 

 orthodoxy in the state church. Whatever remains and vestiges of 

 authoritative conditions surprise the foreigner who only sees the 

 exterior side of Germany and has neither the time nor opportunity 

 to enter into the essence of German culture and cause the errone- 

 ous opinions which are circulated in foreign countries concerning 

 Germany, results directly or indirectly from the influence of these 

 classes, as many of the most important contrasts of our interior 

 politics are based upon that difference of the rural social constitu- 

 tion between the east and the west. 



The question arises : How can this difference be explained histor- 

 ically; for it has not always existed. Five centuries ago landlordship 

 ruled the social constitution of the rural districts. However various 

 were the conditions of the peasant's dependency which arose from 

 this, and however complicated the social constitution of the country 

 was, in one point harmony prevailed, in the thirteenth and fourteenth 

 centuries; the usually far extended possessions of the feudal lord 

 were nowhere also not in the east connected with gross culture ; 

 though the landlord cultivated a part of his estate, this culture was 

 but little larger than peasants' culture. By far the greater part of 

 his income depended upon the taxes which the peasants contributed. 

 It is one of the most important questions of the German social 

 history, how from this comparatively great uniformity the present 

 strong contrast has arisen. 



Exclusive landlordship was dissolved at the beginning of the nine- 

 teenth century, partly in consequence of the French Revolution or of 

 the ideas disseminated by it, partly in consequence of the Revolution 

 of 1848; the division of the rights of ownership of land between land- 

 lords and peasants has been abolished, the duties and taxes of the 

 peasants have been removed. The brilliant investigations of 

 Professor G. F. Knapp and his school have shown how decisive, 

 for that kind of agrarian constitution which originated then and still 

 exists, \vas the question: How was the estate divided, after the 

 dissolution of the manor community, between the former land- 



