I entreat you, German parents, permit not one of your sons to enter
this grave of moral freedom and independence; you draw upon yourselves
a heavier weight of blame than if you took their lives--for the moral
death is worse and more painful than that of the body! German mothers
preferred in former times to put their children to death, rather than
that they should be Roman slaves; while now-a-days it is esteemed the
highest honour which can be conferred upon a German youth, that he
should become the slave--the consecrated slave, forsooth--of the Roman
bishop! But the yoke is not acknowledged, for it is imposed under the
holy name of religion.
And you, my youthful friends, who choose for yourselves the profession
of teachers, let me conjure you to retire from this grave of moral
strength, and independence--from the seminary! You will be losers there
in mind and body, were you even giants in both! You will become slaves!
You will become hypocrites! Attractive though the office of a teacher
be, and enlarged his sphere of working, it is rendered a dangerous one
for manly dignity--for truth and freedom, by the disgraceful ignominious
fetters imposed on it by Rome. Choose, therefore, rather a hard
couch and a laborious life than the degrading indolence of a polluted
existence.