Society
Poles in the Prussian partition were subject to extensive Germanization policies (Kulturkampf, Hakata). Frederick the Great brought 300,000 colonists to territories he conquered to facilitate Germanization.
That policy, however, had an opposite effect to that which the German leadership had expected: instead of becoming assimilated, the Polish minority in the German Empire became more organized, and its national consciousness grew. Of the three Partitions, the education system in Prussia was on a much higher level than in Austria and Russia, irrespective of its virulent attack on the Polish language specifically (Września).
Read more about this topic: Prussian Partition
Famous quotes containing the word society:
“Every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the publick interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it.... He intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.”
—Adam Smith (1723–1790)
“A commonplace of political rhetoric has it that the quality of a civilization may be measured by how it cares for its elderly. Just as surely, the future of a society may be forecast by how it cares for its young.”
—Daniel Patrick Moynihan (20th century)
“In the latter part of the seventeenth century, according to the historian of Dunstable, “Towns were directed to erect ‘a cage’ near the meeting-house, and in this all offenders against the sanctity of the Sabbath were confined.” Society has relaxed a little from its strictness, one would say, but I presume that there is not less religion than formerly. If the ligature is found to be loosened in one part, it is only drawn the tighter in another.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)