You, Finkenstein and Kalkstein, "have both of you, in the highest measure, to make it your care to infuse into my Son [EINZUPRAGEN, stamp into him] a true love for the Soldier business, and to impress on him that, as there is nothing in the world which can bring a Prince renown and honor like the sword, so he would be a despised creature before all men, if he did not love it, and seek his sole glory (DIE EINZIGE GLORIA) therein." [Preuss, i.

11-14 (of date 13th August, 1718).] Which is an extreme statement of the case; showing how much we have it at heart.
These are the chief Friedrich-Wilhelm traits; the rest of the document corresponds in general to what the late Majesty had written for Friedrich Wilhelm himself on the like occasion.

[Stenzel, iii.

572.] Ruthless contempt of Useless Knowledge; and passionate insight into the distinction between Useful and Useless, especially into the worth of Soldiering as a royal accomplishment, are the chief peculiarities here.
In which latter point too Friedrich Wilhelm, himself the most pacific of men, unless you pulled the whiskers of him, or broke into his goods and chattels, knew very well what he was meaning,--much better than we of the "Peace Society" and "Philanthropic Movement" could imagine at first sight! It is a thing he, for his part, is very decided upon.
Already, a year before this time, [1st September, 1717: Preuss, i.
13.] there had been instituted, for express behoof of little Fritz, a miniature Soldier Company, above a hundred strong; which grew afterwards to be near three hundred, and indeed rose to be a permanent Institution by degrees; called _Kompagnie der Kronprinzlichen Kadetten_ (Company of Crown-Prince Cadets).

A hundred and ten boys about his own age, sons of noble families, had been selected from the three Military Schools then extant, as a kind of tiny regiment for him; where, if he was by no means commander all at once, he might learn his exercise in fellowship with others.